Anti-travel protests - have you encountered?

Not sure what you mean by anti-travel protest sites. Are you planning a trip around the specific public areas where people congregate to manifest against tourism? Where are you planning to travel to?

In Spain at least the anti-overtourism manifestations are not happening everyday you know, there have only been three major ones in the whole country in as many months. These people are not hanging around the Sagrada Família all day, throwing tomatoes at tourists in line. 99.99% chance you won't encounter an anti-overtourism manifestation. I would be worried more about pickpockets or a terrible heatwave.

The protests that have been, in Barcelona, Malaga, Cadiz, Canaries, Madeira, have mainly been "for media" events. The message of all of them is that they do not want to get rid of tourism, but to get the various government entities to act. My sense is that if you happened upon a protest, they would encourage you to join in, rather than chase you down and beat you.

I've encountered some people who have protested jphbucks's travel to their places of abode, but that's understandable, and they seem happy to see all the other people I travel with.

If you come across any, go around/avoid them. Not an issue. Another option is to visit places where there are no protests. Again, not an issue.

Same as with any protest--you can avoid, ignore, or join in. We got caught up in some Catalonian riots a few years back in Barcelona. It was a bummer not to see the inside of La Sagrada Familia, but it was really interesting to mostly watch and stay in the background. Though when a guy was brought around the corner to where we were with a bloody face due to a rubber bullet, we did help with first aid, then got out of there one bandana lighter.

There are always going to be some sort of protests, some of them even unplanned. The G7 protests here in Hamburg were quite public and looked insane, but they were highly localised--we had been out for dinner downtown that day and things were fine. Many of the interesting sites (Speicherstadt, etc.) were unaffected. So I wouldn't stress it.

I am sure you can consider that in your travel planning. I probably would in some fashion as it has been in the news. However, know that this subject is off putting to many people and you are engaging in talk and thoughts that may offend. See recent threads.
There will be and already has been digression from your question which is simply, “have you encountered”.
To answer your question, no, I have not encountered any anti travel protests. But I have encountered aggressive sports fans in loud mobs chanting that created a certain feeling of, it was time to leave that area.
But, I digress.

The closest I’ve come was a group of tourist turning on some people in Paris, who want to put their love lock on a bridge and were being told no. They were stopped by police officer who told them they cannot do that, and they did it anyway, and he then proceeded to tell them he was going to arrest them, and they threw the key into the river in front of the police officer and said they couldn’t take it off because they lost the key. And he said come with me and she screamed they were being kidnapped and the American tourists all turned around and said no you’re being arrested for being a complete idiot and we will be glad to testify upon behalf of this officer. She shut up and went with the officer , I don’t know what happened, but I don’t feel sorry for them. I don’t know if that was really an anti tourism, considering that it was other tourists telling the ugly Americans to behave like adults, but it was interesting

I love that story about the locks. That fashion is so ridiculous. Structures are damaged by the weight of the locks, and only fools do that. I am so pleased that people are being arrested for being tourons .

Agree with what @Carlos said. If this is truly a concen--and its OK if it is your concern--then I seriously suggest traveling somewhere where they are standing in line to take your money. There a so many great places to go...

I haven't seen anything protesting tourism. Since Covid, I've been to Sweden, Helsinki, Tallinn, Denmark, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, a pretty good loop around Spain, another around Italy. Next is a wine country loop through France in September.

I don't want to make a thread of its own, that could easily take legs and become unpleasant, but just to say, don't worry about the unrest and protest in the UK you're maybe seeing on the news internationally in the last week or so. It's been confined mainly to areas that you can steer well clear of as a visitor. There's been less trouble in London than other places so far.

The various Police Forces around the UK are pretty good at keeping their social media up to date these days. You can follow Metropolitan Police (London) on Facebook or X and they "should" be posting about protests ahead of time, or at least tweeting when it kicks off. I think there's a good chance Whitehall / Parliament Square will have a number of people around, hopefully not causing any trouble, in coming days. A few days of good, heavy rain would do more to calm the situation than any politician could. The weather has been too nice and it often makes things a bit hairy in the UK.

I don't want to derail this thread or make a new one but I thought I'd mention it.

We spent 7 days in Barcelona the end of April/first part of May. There were no protests while we were there and we never detected any anti-tourism sentiment. It was a magical week, but we did try to respect the water issues while we were there.

Further to Gerry, and again I want and need to keep this very, very tight- I saw a video yesterday from Canadian you tuber Don Terrass about the riot in Liverpool- apparently cruise ship passengers had been caught up in the incident. His assessment that the rioters had somehow deliberately chosen a tourist area (even targeted them and the families down to see the Disney ship in question) was way wide of the mark by someone with little or no understanding of what was happening- but who felt compelled to give an unhelpful soundbite. The underlying causes of the current unrest across the country seem to be very complex but have nothing whatsoever to do with tourism. Although they are being associated with a deeply tragic incident in nearby Southport where three young children were fatally stabbed, the causal link is very un obvious.
The usual rules apply- be aware of your surroundings. If something doesn't feel or look right make a sharp exit from the scene. On no account get involved in such a situation if one breaks out.

I'm currently in Manchester. There has been some rioting in towns around the city and close to Birmingham. In one town, the rioters broke into a Holiday Inn Express and caused damage. The hotel is housing asylum seekers.

No one was hurt in the hotel.

Two articles in the past week from the Economist on this topic. I enjoy reading the Economist, however you can't see much without a subscription. See what you can @ economist.com and search for tourism.

My three takeaways from the articles are: (1) Taxes or fees can help reduce tourism and provide revenue to offset challenges, such as upgrading transit systems. (2) Nothing helps places where everyone wants to go. Sorry Paris, Barcelona, Venice... (3) Stong US dollar has American's traveling to Europe in record numbers.