Tourist Tuesday, 4/9/19 – In Nature

WARNING: Some of the information contained in the article is graphic, and if you care about Mother Nature, will make you sick.

”It’s no secret that people aren’t always appreciative of their surroundings. Whether up in the air or traveling abroad, people have done some horrible things to their environment.

Poaching Elephants in a protected Sanctuary is only one.

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When it comes to nature, this rings especially true. [In 2018] people have made headlines by vandalizing, destroying, or tampering with some of the world’s most gorgeous natural environments.

From defacing a national monument to shattering a rock formation millions of years in the making, here’s how people have damaged nature in 2018. Here is an article about tourists behaving badly all over the world in nature: https://www.thisisinsider.com/bad-tourists-nature-2018-12

Leave No Trace, the Center for Outdoor Ethics has begun to address the LNT ethics in terms of the digital age. (See https://lnt.org/blog/new-social-media-guidance)

New Social Media Guidance

Boulder, CO: There is little question that social media plays a role in the promotion of various outdoor locations, and in some cases, has led to significant resource and social impacts. It’s logical to ask, “Would this place be as impacted as it is now had it not been for Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat or Pintrest?” Social media, like any tool or technology, can be a force for good or it can have the opposite effect. What if every social media post also included a message of stewardship? Think how different things would or could be if this were the case.

Leave No Trace isn’t black or white, right or wrong. It’s a framework for making good decisions about enjoying the outdoors responsibly, regardless of how one chooses to do so. If outdoor enthusiasts stop and think about the potential impacts and associated consequences of a particular action, it can go a long way towards ensuring protection of our shared outdoor spaces. To that end, we encourage outdoor enthusiasts to stop and think about their actions and the potential consequences of posting pictures, GPS data, detailed maps, etc. to social media. Furthermore, we urge people to think about both the protection and sustainability of the resource and the visitors who come after them.

When posting to social media, consider the following:

Tag thoughtfully – avoid tagging (or geotagging) specific locations. Instead, tag a general location such as a state or region, if any at all. While tagging can seem innocent, it can also lead to significant impacts to particular places.

Be mindful of what your images portray – give some thought to what your images may encourage others to do. Images that demonstrate good Leave No Trace practices and stewardship are always in style.

Give back to places you love – invest your own sweat equity into the outdoor spaces and places you care about. Learn about volunteer stewardship opportunities and get involved in the protection of our shared lands.

Encourage and inspire Leave No Trace in social media posts – given the millions of social media users in the world, think of the incredible potential that social media has to educate outdoor enthusiasts – first timers to seasoned adventurers – about enjoying our wild lands responsibly.

As we have contemplated this issue we’re left wondering what the future will bring in terms of technology, communication, and outdoor recreation. Will posting pictures to social media be a thing of the past in five years? None of us know. Social media, if used the right way, is a powerful tool that can motivate a nation of outdoor advocates to enthusiastically and collectively take care of the places we share and cherish.

Enjoy Your [OUR] World, Leave No Trace!

 

 

 

Lost Dog – Kirk Creek Campground, 4/7/19

This owner has been desperately searching all day. I’ve asked for his contact info, but in the mean time, leave a message here, or with Lucia Lodge Store. His phone number is: 310-694-6456. The dogs name is Ogers, pronounced oh- Jers. Thank you!

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Big Sur Saturday Tidbits, 4/6/19

Sylvia Trotter Anderson has sent me a number of historical articles she has run across in various early newspaper reports, so I am starting this new Saturday tidbits column for a few weeks. Here is the first one.

You think your town trips are challenging? I don’t want to hear it. Listen to this account:

Sep 4th 1958 MPH – Peninsula Parade by Prof. Toro

Shopping Day.  This month’s issue of the Big Sur Roundup is, as usual, full of fascinating items, including one by M. W. {Marge Welch, I think} about how the Big Sur folk used to get their shopping done in the days when Big Sur was really wild.

“During the homesteading days of the Harlans, Danis, Lopezes, Smith, Wheatons, Bedales and others of the Lucia area, supplies which were needed were brought in by boat.” Reports M. W.

“This ‘boat landing’ was preceded by a trip to San Francisco by Mr. Wilbur Harlan the elected buyer for the community.  With a list from each family of supplies to be purchased, Mr. Harlan would set out on horseback for King City, which was the nearest railroad town.  From there he took the train to San Francisco and then began the lengthy process of filling the many and varied orders.  After the purchasing was completed, Mr. Harlan would make the necessary arrangements in chartering a freight boat to take the supplies from San Francisco to Lucia.”

Aaron and the Mule.  “In a few days, the ‘Santa Cruz’ or the ‘Bonita’ would be nearing its destination, blowing its whistle along the line to let all know that the unloading was soon to begin. After reaching Harlan Rock, the freighter would lay out about one fourth of a mile from shore and the supplies would then be brought in by small boast to a platform which was suspended over the water by a cable, the cable running from the steep, rocky shoreline out to the Harlan Rock.  This mode of transportation from the small boat to a ‘high and dry’ spot on shore was constructed and installed by Mr. Harlan and Mr. Gabriel Dani.”

“After the platform was loaded from the small boat underneath, Mr. Harlan (who named the platform and supervised the loading) would give out with a mighty “Ho!” which was a signal to his son Aaron and mule who were waiting on the nearby beach.”

Bringing Home the Bacon. “The mule, attached to the platform by a heavy rope, was then directed by Aaron to proceed steadily and cautiously up the beach so as ‘not to upset’ the precious cargo which it was slowly pulling to shore.  This was a delicate operation and Aaron prided himself on the fact that he was able to handle the mule in such a manner that never by jerks or sudden stops did any of the supplies (or Mr. Harlan) go careening into the water.  As the cargo was unloaded from the platform, it would be placed in family stacks or piles and most always covered and left for the night. “

“The next day the families would come with their wagons or pack horses for the last sate in ‘bringing home the bacon’.”

Oh, yeah…all day every week or two is so tough. We are wusses compared to earlier times. Next week? Litterbugs. Sound familiar?

Bike Rides – Cambria & Environs

Both Saturday and Sunday, from Cambria to Piedras Blancas, and another though the back country from Cambria to Cayucos.

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For additional information and routes, see: Ride routes and general info

April Coastal Commission Meeting

The California Coast (@TheCACoast)
The April meeting of the California Coastal Commission is Wed. April 10 and Thurs. April 11 at the Monterey County Board of Supervisors Chambers in Salinas. This meeting is open to the public. Agenda and live stream at coastal.ca.gov/meetings/agend…pic.twitter.com/WwvSoeLtR7

 

Tourist Thursday – “Influencers,” 4/4/19

(Continued from Tuesday’s article)

“LC: Absolutely. I’ve been running one of the biggest travel blogs in the world for almost a decade, and about six years I moved to Wanaka, New Zealand. I got there, and I was one of the original people taking photos with my iPhone about this incredible, secret place. Then, over the years, I started to see the influx of photographers and other Instagrammers come, and see the impact of it. So it was very natural self-realization that I had of, “Oh shit, this is my home now and it’s overrun.” Overtourism is right on my doorstep.

So for the past few years I’ve run strategic marketing campaigns with tourism boards and brands around the world and I’ve worked really hard to think about it from a responsible angle as an influencer. So within New Zealand, I almost never talk about where I am, or if I do I talk about it in a very specific or careful way, I’m not going to the truly iconic Instagram hotspots in the country anymore because, for me, it’s not the story that I want to share. It’s not the message I want to share with my followers who are after authentic experiences. What you don’t see on Instagram when you see a photo of a person with their arms in the air on Roy’s Peak, our iconic mountain, is the line two hours long behind it.

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ME: Can it be that long?

LC: Yeah. This is a hike that a couple years ago not many people would go up, now I think it’s close to 100,000 a year. A lot of people started to camp up there and it’s not a campsite. There were no toilet facilities, and every Instagrammer was going up there with their tent to take these photos, promoting what is essentially irresponsible behavior. New Zealand has always had this attitude of just behave and be responsible. But how does that work when you’ve got dozens of people camping in a place that no one should camp in? It’s created these dilemmas.

My role as an influencer is to try and think about how I can share this place in a responsible way. Often that means sharing places that are off the beaten path and looking at ways to increase tourism that have a sustainable wildlife message.

ME: Talk about responsibility. You were saying in New Zealand there’s this sense of responsibility. How do you cultivate it in your followers? What comments have you clapped back at?

LC: Basically, I call out irresponsible behavior. I usually send private messages to other influencers when I see them hiking on trails that are closed for lambing season or things like that, just saying hey it’s not a good idea to promote this place when it’s closed. Probably a big one is with drones. I work a lot with search and rescue and helicopter pilots, and people are flying drones all over the place without following the regulations so it shuts down the airspace. It’s just an accident waiting to happen, really. And it interferes with our endangered bird species, so I try and point it out the right way. A lot of people just say, “I don’t care.” But I’m one of those really annoying people—I’ll go up to people on trails and say it.

KAB: That’s really interesting. When you talk to those other influencers, that seems almost more important. The tourism industry used to be based on top ten lists you hoped to be on. Now, top ten lists are based on user-generated content on Instagram. It’s kind of gone backwards. When you talk about the role of media in this issue, creating an ethos of decent behavior is so important.

LC: The past year I’ve been working closely with mountain safety council at the department of conservation trying to encourage more responsible behavior in New Zealand’s backcountry. That’s a big issue, a lot of people who want to go get these beautiful shots but hiking in New Zealand is different from Europe. We don’t have huts everywhere and toilets and people who look out for them. It’s take everything in, take everything out. A lot of these spots are dangerous and off the grid, and you need to take a personal locator beacon. There’s been a massive increase in search and rescue calls funded by us, the taxpayers. When I go out and tell stories about my three day hike in the backcountry, I say, “I’ve brought this, I’ve done this, I’ve prepared this, and it’s this level of difficulty” to try and get that message out there.

ME: It’s like sponsored content but responsible content, showing what you’re taking with you. Cinque Terre in Italy just banned hiking in flip flops because so many people were coming off cruise ships and thought they could do the hike in flip flops and then needed rescuing. I think things like that, showing people you need to pack this, that’s another way. I’m going to throw it out to questions, but before I do I want to ask: who is to blame? It’s easy a lot of the time—Instagram and ‘grammers are the whipping boy for this. Why is this happening?” (to be continued: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-technology-can-help-us-tackle-overtourism

Tourist Tuesday, 4/2/19: Turismophobia

From the same article quoted on Thursday: “The Spanish have a name for the reaction of locals against overtourism which is turismofobia.”  https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-technology-can-help-us-tackle-overtourism

“By August [2017] the headlines declared that ‘tourists are no longer welcome’, and ‘residents hate tourists’ in these angry tourist hotspots. Meanwhile local governments took measures to appease residents and restore order.

In Barcelona, moratorium on the creation of new hotel rooms and tourist flats in key areas of the city has already been in place for a number of years. In Milan a ban on selfie-sticks was introduced around certain landmarks, while Rome launched a crack-down on littering and paddling in public fountains.” (https://theculturetrip.com/europe/articles/tourismophobia-is-a-thing-and-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-it/

Barcelona and Venice have taken a “punishing” approach by forbidding selfie-sticks, and fining tourists, while Amsterdam has taken a redirectingor “guiding” approach. Here is what the panel member from Amsterdam had to say:

”In 2013, we already knew that because the world economy was growing so fast, and traveling became so cheap, that the amount of people visiting our city would be too much to service in a way that didn’t harm our locals, because in the end that’s our main goal: to keep the city livable, lovable, and prosperous. So we quit promoting tourism, but there was social media. There are so many still promoting our city. And on the one hand, it makes us feel proud, because who are we? We’re the lucky people that can live in this most beautiful city in the world. On the other hand, it makes it hard because you know it will attract more people.

So we try to focus away from marketing, and instead focus on guiding. We’re an open and free country, an open city, and we would love to invite people who save their money and time to visit everything that’s valuable in our city. Only again, we want to do it in a way so that it will not harm the local people.

There are two factors—one is antisocial behavior, especially in the red light district. Visitors come and couldn’t care less where they are, they just drink their heads off. That’s a real problem. To fight that problem we have to meet with police, law enforcement, to nudge travelers, saying that of course they’re welcome and we are a city of freedom, but freedom is based on one condition and that is respect for each other and the city. The other factor is too many people in a certain spot at a certain time. If you’re in the city for the first time, you go to the highlights. In Barcelona, you want to see the Sagrada Familia. In Paris, the Eiffel Tower. But we also know that a lot of people who come to the city are repeat visitors or are Dutch, so we can guide them much more easily to other unknown spots. We have to make sure we can spread tourism but not spread the problem. Other neighborhoods are welcoming to visitors, but up to a certain point.

ME: I thought this was interesting, you did simple things. Amsterdam Beach for example or extending the range of the CityPass so it was free to get outside of the city.

GU: You have to facilitate. It starts from the perspective of the traveler. If I go to Paris, it’s easy for me to go to Versailles. Versailles is not Paris, it’s a different city, but I don’t care. We know from data that people are willing to travel for an hour if they find something of interest. That is why we collaborated with 32 other cities around Amsterdam to ask about their unique spots, and make sure visitors could get there with public transport. We all know that people are becoming more and more lazy—they want to be serviced! If you have to transfer twice, you’re not going to go. So we have a city card and we make sure all of the museums in the other cities are on the card as well, so you make it 10 times easier to go off the beaten track.

ME: I thought this was a brilliant idea: live feeds of the lines outside museums that you could check on the website, so before you go somewhere you can say, “oh that’s busy, I’ll check later.” That to me is so obvious but only you were smart enough. It’s a win-win!”

(https://www.cntraveler.com/story/how-technology-can-help-us-tackle-overtourism

(To be continued…)