Going Without Knowing
Sunday Espresso VI.
Buona domenica!
This edition might upset some of you, but Anywhere Italy is built on honesty and frankness. It takes guts to recommend destinations that almost no one else recommends. I saw a trailer of a documentary recently. It’s The Siege of Paradise, a documentary about how overtourism ruins the Cinque Terre and its local way of life. The documentary will air at Tribeca. For now, here is the trailer.
Aside from the fact that all the tourists they interviewed are astonishingly clueless and shallow, especially the influencers, almost itchingly stupid, the movie’s entire premise kept me thinking.
Of course, it is not new. We even wrote about it here: why the dolce far niente, the art of doing nothing, is fake, and you can’t just experience it by taking a trip to Italy. But that doesn’t mean people stop coming. The photograph doesn’t require you to understand what is in the frame. People are coming to Firenze without knowing more about the Renaissance than can be explained in a 30-second TikTok video, and they will come, no matter what.
The main question is, though, why?
Why come to a village that looks almost identical to other similar villages in Liguria? Why make a big fuss about the Italian way of life there, the slowness, the tranquility?
I spent my childhood in a village in Hungary and regularly go back there to visit my family. In that village, almost nothing happens. Life is slow. I bet it is the case with most villages, anywhere.
Riomaggiore has fewer than 1500 inhabitants. Many of them don’t even live there. Of course, it is a slow pace. Of course, it has what tourists call dolce far niente. Locals call it Wednesday. So traveling to see that makes no sense. Just visit your nearest quiet village locally.
I am sure that whoever goes to a pesto-making cooking class has almost no idea about Ligurian culture. So I am also sure that most tourists have no idea why the Cinque Terre villages look the way they do and what that means for their culture. But they “understand” what they see with their eyes (if they can look beyond their iPhone camera, which they rarely do), and the surroundings are amazing, yes.
But is it the why? Are we traveling to slower-paced places because our lives are insane-level overloaded and fast? Or did we see a Netflix series or read Eat, Pray, Love (more likely: saw the movie) and want to experience it live?
By the way, the writer who wrote Eat, Pray, Love went on the self-discovery journey (which led to the book) after her first divorce, then married the guy from Bali (I think played by Javier Bardem in the movie), divorced again (of course), then turned out to be lesbian (wow), then back again with a guy (lol), then left that too (obviously). Self-discovery done right, I guess. All I can say: congrats, worth it!
I do not have the answer to the why. But what I cannot understand is this: why do we travel to an overcrowded place and suffer the effects of overtourism? Not as a local, I can totally get that. If these people started to show up in my backyard, I would either sell my home or turn it into a forever Airbnb, hand the keys to an agency, and move away. But as a tourist, even as a tourist, this is unbearable.
So, if there is any clean or majestic purpose I have for Anywhere Italy, it is this: somehow relieve the effects of overtourism on the local way of life by showing better alternatives for travelers. It is a win for everyone: sustainable travel, balanced local economies, less angry locals, and travelers who experience something unique, really unique this time.
Alla prossima,
Peter
Still in Torino, 7 June 2026
What’s new on our site: The alternative Cinque Terre
I got so anxious about this topic that I changed my editorial plan for this week, dropped Tuscany, and started documenting Liguria.
First, Lerici. The town overlooked by everyone booking a place in the Cinque Terre towns. 10X more convenient, 10X more liveable, and equally beautiful.
Second, the Magra delta, the national park between the Carrara mines and the start of the Cinque Terre area. Literally almost no one visits these towns, and I wholeheartedly don’t understand why.
Our free database and travel planner app launched last week. Our goal is to cover all of the towns in there with this publication, but until we do, browse our hand-selected list of the best truly off-the-beaten-path Italian towns. Based on the database, there is also a travel planner app you can use to plan your next trip. All free.