Fodor’s Travel No List for 2019
Most travel top 10lists — or top 20or top 52lists — showcase fabulous spots to travel, hidden gems and up-and-coming spots. Fodor’s travel experts, of course, do that, offering up a “Go List” of 52 memorable destinations around the world. But we’re fascinated by Fodor’s “No List,” which includes Acapulco, Ibiza and, ahem, the United States.
It’s the third annual offering of places to avoid for a variety of reasons, including violence, political and environmental issues. Over-tourism, overdevelopment and inadequate sewage treatment have placed the gorgeous beaches of Boracay, for example, into a state of such environmental distress, the Philippines government closed the island to tourists in April. In addition to specific places, Acapulco and Ibiza among them, Fodor’s includes two categories of destinations in the No list: “Places that don’t want you to visit” and “Places that give us pause.”
The former includes Easter Island, where over-tourism has prompted limits on how long visitors can stay, and Mallorca, where tourism protests erupted last summer. The latter category includes the U.S., where the rise in hate crimes and rampant gun violence, Fodor’s says, “give us pause.”
“We use travel as a means to broaden our minds and expand our humanity,” Fodors.com editorial director Jeremy Tarr says, “and use our No List findings as a means to foster dialogue as to how things can be improved in places where the current situation is grim.” Here’s the No List. Find out more about the list — and why a place as idyllic and party-happy as sunny Ibiza was included — at www.fodors.com. Fodor’s “don’t go there” travel list for 2019 includes Boracay, the Philippine island closed to tourists due to environmental concerns.