Comment by pm215
1 day ago
It also felt to me to be weirdly concentrated in particular small areas. I spent a few weeks in various places in northern Japan which varied from "very quiet" to "tourists but not too many"; but in Tokyo, Akihabara was absolutely heaving with tourists (in a way it wasn't five years ago). And even in Tokyo just getting a little way away from the hotspots you could find beautiful but quiet places still. So I agree with the author's suggestion to go to parts of the country that aren't the tiny fraction of super-famous locations or social-media sensations.
I feel like tourist places are “weirdly concentrated” as you put it. When I was Florence the center was obviously super busy, but walking only 15 minutes in one direction there seemed to be almost no tourists around (of course, the area I was in didn’t have any sights). It made me think that maybe there’s a bias to the feeling of overtourism because people think about the one part of the city where all the tourists are.
New Orleans Louisiana is like this, walk down Bourbon street and it's packed with tourists but turn and walk perpendicular to Bourbon street for 2 blocks and you're all alone.
/this is a joke, don't do this.