When we first moved to New England 25 years ago, we would go up and look at the leaves every year, and it was already massively crowded. With the growth of Tik Tok, Instagram, and whatever else, and with people aching to get those extra clicks, it’s become unmanageable, at least for the town of Pomfret, VT. Good for them for doing something about it.
Speaking from ignorance: I’d have thought changing foliage in the Northeastern U.S. was widespread enough to largely obviate this kind of thing. I can understand if a given area is dense in certain types of trees with especially dazzling fall foliage, however.
Selfies and Instagram are literally destroying popular tourist attractions, thanks to overtourism. Local residents are well within their rights to try and preserve some semblance of peace in their neighborhood.
AIUI the particular property is very picturesque and easily accessed (during the rest of the year), and is well known to the selfie clown community, so they all go there. I am sure there are numerous other locations just as pretty with few if any people around - the residents of that area are trying to get people to go elsewhere - it’s not like the only scene with fall foilage.
I have friends who live just near that spot. They’re pretty happy with this.
The town of Lake Elsinore closed off access to Walker Canyon earlier this year because of overcrowding during the wildflower super bloom.
I am so glad I got to see an appreciate things like the super bloom and experience places in the National Parks in relative solitude before the rise of the content creators.
This is why more popular National Park hikes/activities are requiring reservations. Examples are Angel’s Landing, the Subway, thru-hike of the Narrows in Zion, and Half Dome in Yosemite, or driving Going to the Sun Road in Glacier. You can still get solitude, but you need to work and plan a bit more.
My one experience with leaf peeping was in New Hampshire, and it was clear to me that many trees, especially ones near the roads, had been selected and planted specifically to engender leaf peeping. If that was the case in Pomfret, I have slightly less sympathy, but yes, anything to keep out the click-seekers seems entirely reasonable. Too bad others have to suffer, but that is the world we live in. I do my part for good by never avoiding, as much as possible, anything that is done by people like influencers. Kittens and puppies, babies, pretty scenery, car crashes, all are anathema to my online viewing, and a good many other categories besides.
How would you know they were planted specifically to attract tourists?
A number of native New Hampshire trees are known for fall color, including sugar maple, red maple, northern red oak, American beech, paper birch, dogwood, black gum etc. Such trees often have desirable ornamental or commercial characteristics besides fall color.
This is possible, but it’s rarely true. More likely it was road salt causing trees to be a bit sickly, making them turn early and more vibrant colors. There’s no need to plant pretty trees along roadsides for leaf peeping in NH. Some nice old towns have elms planted along major thoroughfares but that’s not really for the foliage.
Oblig xkcd:
Why else would the most colorful trees be near the roads instead of off in the forest?
Oh. Okay, busted, sometimes I’m a cynic trying too hard to look behind the obvious.
When I was a kid (early 70s) this sort of overcrowding never happened. The family would drive somewhere, see some pretty trees, stop for lunch and ice cream and drive home. There were some other people doing the same but not a whole lot.
No fuss.
What has changed to make such places so overwhelmed? Is it only now that people decided Fall colors are pretty and my family just knew it before anyone else (I don’t really believe that…that’d be silly)?
I don’t get it (and it is not cars…we had cars then too).
I’m not sure I agree with this. Roads are public. When the locals get to keep “those people” out, one day you find you are “those people”. “But I didn’t do anything wrong! It’s those other people!”
And it doesn’t have to be tourists and “influencers”. It can be anything. It hasn’t been that long since restricted hotels were common. “Locals only” surfing beaches, too, still exist.
And anyone that says “I’m glad I did it before it got taken over by those people”, you are part of the reason it became popular. And you’re also saying “I got mine! Sucks to be you!” Such nice republican thoughts!
I live in a ski resort area. It can be a real problem. We used to do a big 4th of July shin dig, but emergency services put an end to it. Gridlock everywhere prevented them from doing there jobs.
Christmas time is another problem with skier traffic. As is spring break.
I work from home now thank god, so I don’t have to deal with the tourists.
But, it’s a balancing act when your economy is mostly tourist money, you don’t want to shooo them away.
When the locals can’t get in an out of their own house because the roads are blocked, it’s a problem. When the locals have to clean up the huge mess left behind by uncaring visitors, it’s a problem. When farmer’s fields get trampled by people looking for the perfect shot, it’s a problem. Restricting access to locals is a perfectly viable solution to a problem like this.
Um, no. This is simple overuse, not racism.
In a word - “likes” or whatever social media platforms have for users to express liking something. I am not on Instagram or Tik-Tok, so dont know. But, the dopamine rush of people liking your posted photo or video is enough for some to risk life and limb, much less trespassing and leaving a mess. These “influencers” are addicted to attention.
Reminds me of the kerfuffle that happened at an Ontario sunflower farm.
We had the same thing happen not too far from where I live:
Yeah, I’m uncomfortable with this too. I think the overall political culture in the USA with regard to local governance is much too deferential to whiny local complaints, and that this often causes substantial costs to the economy and freedom in general, but at the same time I’m not sure what else to do with a weird situation like this.
Like, if it was a year-round or even season-long surge of people to some distinct attraction, my view would be that they simply have to find a way to extract revenue to provide adequate infrastructure, and locals who don’t like living near such an attraction should be invited to suck it up or move. But this is a couple weeks of the same leaves that every other nearby town has. I don’t know that there’s a way to handle that that doesn’t cost more than it gains.
So, if you take in a scene of natural beauty, keeping to established trails and leaving it as you found it, you’re as much of a problem as those who trample all over it and leave their trash and poop behind?