I have the dreaded travel bug and have crossed off many destinations from Europe to the Middle East, Far East and America. I have enjoyed the history and cultures of all the countries I have visited and have adhered to the norms of those countries as have my family. But am I in the minority these days; a respectful traveller?

As more and more holiday destinations are beginning to clamp down on mass tourism I am saddened by how we as a nation are viewed by others based on the holiday behaviour of a whole class of individuals who have little or no respect for the country they are visiting. This is not being helped by the media; which is pushing the narrative that everyone hates the Brits so we are being penalised for it; with their scare-mongering stories warning would be tourists, particularly to the Spanish resorts and islands, of the dire consequences of bad behaviour whilst abroad. I’m sorry but bad and disrespectful behaviour should have consequences.

When I was a child back in the 1960’s travelling abroad was a luxury in which very few could indulge. And if you were one of those lucky few before you went you learned the language; because it was polite to do so, plus English wasn’t spoken in so many foreign countries back then; researched a little about your destination and made sure all your documentation was in order. And whilst travelling you knew how to behave, were always smartly dressed; the idea of travelling in your bikini would never have crossed your mind; and respected the laws and customs of the country you were visiting. Some close friends of my parents; who were more like family than friends; were lucky enough to be able to travel abroad at least once a year. I remember visiting them on their return to watch the home movies of their latest holiday and being fascinated by the wondrous sight of their sitting room; every surface filled with sombreros, lacy fans, straw donkeys, little bulls and traditional Porróns, the walls adorned with pictures of flamenco dancers, matadors and little fishing villages, all the keepsakes brought home from their exotic holidays to Tenerife and Mallorca. And the tales they told as we watched the film, of trips on rickety trains to those little fishing villages, of warm evenings eating al fresco and of watching the flamenco dancers perform filled me with a longing to see it all for myself. And by the end of the 1960’s; with the rise in popularity of the package holiday; I was envious of those of my schoolmates who were now jetting off to these exotic places as well. My interest was further piqued after reading “The Drifters” by James A. Michener in which a disparate group of 20 somethings all fetch up at Torremolinos, then little more than a glorified fishing village. Yet it wasn’t until 1971 when I was fourteen that I got my first taste of holidays abroad. Firstly with a three week camping holiday in the south of France that summer and then, the following January, Gwen and Howard convinced my parents to join them for a week in Spain. I don’t know about Amanda but I was over the moon excited. Finally I was going on a plane and flying off to somewhere exotic! Well, Benidorm, which back then was still quite quaint. It was also the first time, I seem to recall, that Gwen and Howard had stayed on the mainland. Through the week we explored the town, hit the beach, swam in the pool and spent the evenings in the bar; where I was allowed to buy my first not at home alcoholic drink, a Cuba Libra; and where I fell in love with the handsome waiter of course. All too soon the week was over and we were heading for home laden with our souvenirs; Amanda still has the bull she bought; and the waiter had moved on to his next conquest. The following year we took an apartment in a village just a short drive from Alicante. We were a little more adventurous this time, taking the rickety train to a gorgeous little fishing village, a bus trip to a nature reserve up in the hills and spending the cooler evenings in the local bar. Perhaps a sign of things to come was the amount of building going on in the village below our apartment complex, which I presume eventually swallowed up the village, in what was probably the start of the big Spanish Costas explosion.

I didn’t get back to Spain until the late 1980’s, by which time Gwen and Howard had been living there permanently for a number of years and my parents were about to join them having bought a small apartment in Los Boliches, a couple of train stops from Torremolinos which was now a busy package holiday destination and the seat of local government. We ourselves considered making a permanent move with the girls in early 1991 and between us had a period of around a year where we spent months at a time out there on a rather pleasant pueblo on the outskirts of Fuengirola. At that time the area was still relatively untouched and only had one very expensive hotel overlooking the marina. As a family we were always made welcome by the locals, who were always taken with our large brood of polite, well dressed little girls who knew how to behave in public. We always expected the girls to make the effort to learn in the language of the country they were visiting; please and thank you were the minimum we expected. By the time we left they were proficient in around five languages such was the mix of people who became our friends. This idea came to an end when I realised my nursing career was more important than a pipe dream. I didn’t visit Spain again for several years as we were busy exploring the rest of Europe and beyond and my parents returned to England in the late 1990s. In fact, by the time I returned to Spain a decade later with my sister it wasn’t really for a holiday but Amanda and I made the most of our few days there. The whole place had changed. All the quaint old fishing villages from Malaga to Gibraltar had been swallowed up in the tsunami of hotels, apartment complexes and golf resorts which swept along the coast whilst Benalmadena and Torremolinos were now the party capitals of the Costa Del Sol and to be avoided at all costs. A new motorway linking all these resorts had carved its way through the landscape, the pretty pueblo was now run down and in the middle of a huge urbanisation and there were tacky beach bars all along the Paseo Maritimo.

And here, as in other destinations in Mediterranean coastal and island resorts, the rise of the “party destination” coupled with budget airlines offering ridiculously cheap fares and packages; making it an affordable choice for hen and stag parties; the type of people visiting had changed too. Holiday companies like Club 18-30, set up in the late 1960s to enable young people to travel independently, now brought an influx of rowdy, scantily clad 20-30 somethings all too happy to spend their weeks holiday alternating between falling into the plethora of “English” bars and drinking their way through a vat of alcohol, commandeering a sun lounger and roasting themselves until their skin was a glowing shade of neon red and frequenting the growing number of nightclubs springing up everywhere and subsequently spending the night on the beach in a pool of vomit and other bodily fluids. Although these former bright young things are older and have become grandparents they still come, only now with their family in tow and smartphone at the ready to video every horror of their boozy holidays for social media. How can we expect anything to change anytime soon? At this point I have to hold my hands up and admit that yes, I too have done the party thing so I have witnessed how these party resorts encouraged bad behaviour. A week in Kavos at the end of the season when all the bars were pouring their last remaining alcohol into every available and willing tourist before pulling down the shutters and in Magaluf the following spring, both with my youngest daughters and both with shameful stories to tell. To be fair, the foam party was ace! In both cases however the resort actively encouraged us to party and drink as much as we could. Every establishment had the ubiquitous “Happy Hour”; all at different times to keep us moving from bar to bar; and ran stupid, and often downright dangerous, drinking games. One that comes to mind was where two blokes had their pants down and were joined together by clutching a length of toilet paper between their buttocks. The toilet paper was set alight in the middle and the winner was the last to drop the paper!

It was set to get worse; and it did when these young adults began posting their shameful holiday antics on social media. They went viral as the public lapped it up and soon the TV companies got in on the act. Shows about sun, sand and sex in Magaluf and Ibiza graced our screens as did series the likes of Benidorm, all of which popularised this kind of holiday. But did the resorts protest? Of course they didn’t, it was free advertising when all said and done and they liked the money they were raking in from these badly behaved tourists, the more they partied the more they drank, the more they drank the more money they spent, all of which went into the resort’s coffers.

But over tourism is not just about the bad behaviour of young adults in party destinations. It’s happening everywhere. Airbnb buying up every spare villa and apartment it can find and huge cruise liners and tour buses disgorging hordes of Instagrammers; of all ages; who sweep through cities, historical and religious sites, nature reserves and beauty spots like clicking locusts, all in search of the best filtered selfie shot they can achieve whilst caring not a jot for the culture or history of the place they are trampling over because it’s all about being in the right place for the photo-op.

Then came covid when all the resorts and cities were deserted and the locals liked it so when the world finally opened up again they weren’t quite so welcoming towards the obnoxious party people and happy snappy tourists who are insidiously seeping back into every hotel, Airbnb apartment and tourist nook and cranny. All over Europe; and indeed in some areas of Britain, locals are protesting and councils are taking steps to protect their towns and cities from this over tourism and I for one applaud them. I have only been to one place where the sheer mass of people in that place seemed right and put it into perspective and that was Tianenmen Square. St Mark’s Square should not be like Tianenmen Square but all too often it is which is why I prefer to visit Venice out of season when I can actually see the sights, enjoy a leisurely coffee and cake at Florian’s and take a decent photograph without some sunburnt idiot wearing a vest and baseball cap and clutching a soggy McDonald’s photobombing my shot, or an ill educated would be Insta influencer holding up the queue because she doesn’t understand why she can’t go into the Basilica in her see-through crop top and hardly there dental floss shorts! It’s no wonder the British tourist has a poor reputation when a great many have so very little self respect, which, to me, means respect for anything else is a moot point. They think that wandering the streets in their bikini/trunks is acceptable and turn to social media to air their disgust with the resort or restaurant who had the audacity to slap them with a fine or refused them a table for being inappropriately dressed. Personally I don’t want to see your semi naked body whilst I’m eating my lunch thank you so I tend to agree with these clampdowns. If having to pay for the privilege of having the space to experience the history and beauty of these places through a tourist tax stops the great unthinking Instagram and sex on the beach brigades I’m all for it. They’ll still have Blackpool and Skegness. Or maybe a resourceful holiday company could start a new trend, the party cruise; a cruise liner which merely stays out at sea for the week; where the party crowd can binge, bonk and burn to their hearts content, they’ll never notice the difference. Then the resort towns can reset and the rest of us will be able to travel in peace once more.

However, whilst I agree that something needs to be done to stop over tourism and bad and disrespectful behaviour I do feel that these resorts and cities should bear some of the blame for encouraging it in the first place, since it was they who gave out the permissions for the building of huge resorts and hotel complexes, the licences for mega clubs and encouraged the bus tours and cruise liners. They also targeted and encouraged a certain element of British tourist for decades to pad out their economies so why complain now?
The majority of Brits are like me; respectful, law abiding travellers who just want to see the world beyond the confines of our island shores.