Maybe Not Every Corner of the World Needs to Be Immediately Accessible

A couple of weeks back, as I was doing research for an article about Antarctica cruises, I realized that the seventh continent is a very busy place. There are well over a dozen cruise lines traveling to Antarctica, some making up to 40 sailings per season. Not only that, but there are also private first-class flights to Antarctica available for those who want to take a day trip to the end of the Earth. Somehow, it all feels wrong.

I love traveling and, as a travel writer, my job is to encourage people to get out there and see more of the world, but these days it all feels too much to me. We can go anywhere, whenever we want: Greenland, Svalbard, Easter Island (Rapa Nui), the Galapagos Islands, and more in just a couple of flights. There’s no challenge any longer, all we have to do is type in the numbers on our credit card and we’re off. I wonder if without the pain of getting to a hard-to-reach place, we don’t really enjoy it like we should. I wonder if the ease with which we access every corner of the world is making us a little entitled and jaded.

One thing for sure, the ease of travel is partly to blame for how similar places around the world are starting to look. The more people who travel to one area, the more that business owners feel the pressure to adhere to a certain aesthetic that has mass appeal versus the distinct attributes that make a place unique. The most popular Airbnbs, hotels, and cafés all have the same phoney, Instagram-friendly vibe whether you’re in London, Mexico City, Prague, or Hanoi. There’s a potted fiddle-leaf fig and a macrame wall-hanging piece in wish-listed apartment rentals in remote jungles and mountain towns alike. Don’t get me started on the number of signs that say “Live, laugh, love” or “But first, coffee” that I’ve encountered — even in locations where people barely speak English.

But interior decor, no matter how pathetic, and our senses, no matter how dulled, are likely the least-problematic consequences of ever-growing accessibility. Making every corner of the world reachable has huge environmental impacts, sometimes even destroying the very thing we’re looking for by traveling.

Take the Tren Maya for example. The massive new rail project in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula makes it easy for tourists to go from popular areas like Cancún to rural areas along a five-state route. However, to build the 966-mile long train tracks that will connect cities, archeological sites, protected natural sites, tourist attractions, and smaller towns, large swathes of the lush Yucatán jungle, home to Indigenous communities and wildlife, had to be cleared. Inevitably, locals were displaced, and cenotes — underground water-filled caverns so loved by visitors to the regions — were polluted and paved over. All of that in the name of accessibility and the expectation that if you build it the tourists will come, and bring their money with them.

When the COVID-19 pandemic closed all borders and restricted travel to a minimum, I remember thinking that maybe that was some sort of warning to all travelers: “It’s been a little too easy and abundant lately, let’s just reset.” But now, four year later, long after the era of “revenge travel” when we were seemingly so vacation-starved that we went on a booking frenzy, it seems that we are exactly where we were back in 2019 and no lesson has been learned.

I understand the appeal to go and see the beauty of remote and previously mysterious places — places yet unspoiled by the bulldozer that is the always-expanding tourism industry. To see majestic wild animals in their natural habitats. But I also wish that some places could remain sacred, known but left alone. Inaccessible. Mostly for the good of our planet and its wildlife, and for the benefit of the traditional inhabitants of the those places whose pockets might be fuller but whose peace is forever shattered. But also for our imagination. If every corner of the world’s been visited, photographed, and written about in details ad nauseam, there’s very little for us to dream and feel curious about.

Tourists taking a polar bear watching tour in Manitoba, Canada. Photo: aceshot1/Shutterstock

Some places understand the benefit of restricting access to visitors. Antarctica does that to a certain extent; only cruise ships with 500 guests or fewer can make land on the white continent. So do the Faroe Islands which, having experienced a huge boom in visitors in the past few years, “closes for maintenance” once per year, only allowing voluntourists in the country. Other places are hitting us where it hurts most: our wallets. For example, the Galapagos Islands are hoping that doubling the entrance fee to the park will deter some tourists (the ones who can’t afford it) from visiting while still bringing in much-needed revenue that’s used to fund conservation. But is it enough?

With my over two decades of traveling, I realize it’s very difficult to explore the world while fully protecting and respecting it at the same time. I’m not sure it’s a balance we can even strike. Those who love to travel, including me, don’t really want to rein themselves in. They want to enjoy what the world offers to the fullest, and that’s understandable. But until there are answers to problems like over tourism, cultural preservation, and more, perhaps the places that will best keep their sense of individuality are the ones that find a sustainable way to welcome travelers — even if that means becoming more inaccessible.

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