2 minute read
Take Photos, Leave Footprints
It happens to the best of us: you spend months researching holiday destinations and tourist attractions. You sit online fawning over photos of picture-perfect vistas and iconic sights devoid of crowds. You spend thousands of dollars on flights and hotels hoping for the perfect vacation.
And then you arrive.
That iconic sight you had your heart set on is teeming with droves of tourists all clambering for the perfect photo opportunity. Ticket lines stretch for miles. Hawkers and unlicensed tour guides are crawling all over you trying to offload everything from cheap trinkets to “the best tour in town”.
With this in mind, and based on an assumption that you don’t want to spend a two-week vacation fighting off other tourists for the best photo spots, what are your options? In this article I look at some of the worst-offending destinations and alternatives that, whilst mirroring the charm or grandeur of their more famous counterparts, benefit from the absence of the tourist hordes.
The Pyramids of Giza, Egypt
The pyramids have long been known to be challenging when it comes to the sheer numbers of tourists that visit, keeping control of those tourists, and the borderline harassment exerted by hawkers and guides. Online images inferring that the site is hundreds of miles from civilization also bely the fact that you can take pictures of them from inside a nearby KFC!
None of this is to say you should never visit the Pyramids – they truly are one of the most aweinspiring sites a traveler can behold. But what if you’re looking to witness something akin to the Pyramids of Giza but without the nearby KFC?
The Overrated Tourist Attraction Alternative: The Nubian Pyramids of Meroe, Sudan
I’ll admit, the alternative is a little off-the-beatenpath; Sudan isn’t on most traveler bucket-lists. However, believe it or not, Sudan is home to over 250 pyramids, which is significantly more than Egypt. Meroe, which was once the capital of the Kushite kingdom, represents the largest field of pyramids anywhere on earth and dates all the way back to 250 BC. Most tourists haven’t yet cottoned on to what a phenomenal destination Meroe is – so much so that you can wild camp around the pyramids for the night. But that’s likely to change as an increasing number of tour companies offer the chance to visit.
All Photos by Scott Dicken
Santorini, Greece
The Greek island of Santorini is a shutterbugs dream! In fact, Santorini’s blue-domed churches, pastel houses, and jaw-dropping sunsets mean that even those with only a faint interest in taking holiday snaps, and armed with the most basic of equipment, can capture postcard perfect pictures with minimal effort. Given the real danger that you’ll spend your entire visit seeing Santorini through a viewfinder it’s no surprise that the island, and in
