These towns are overloaded with tourists, you should avoid them in summer

Some sites find themselves overwhelmed by the influx of tourists every summer. The consequences are numerous. Discover European cities & Avoid during high season.

Summer holidays and its tourists, by the thousands. Every year, they travel to the four corners of the planet to cities where the number of inhabitants explodes. An overcrowding that sometimes generates a “fed up” among the locals, who regularly lead actions to try to limit mass tourism, some even deciding to leave the city permanently.

Of all the popular summer destinations, some are more prone to a surge of tourists than others. A list of towns to avoid has even been drawn up. The holiday rental search engine Holidu has reviewed the different European destinations in order to measure the cities that are the most stormed during the summer period. Based on data from Euromonitor International, this study has analyzed the number of arrivals in 2023 compared to the city's population. And some figures are staggering.

Especially for the first place in the ranking. The municipality concerned has, in the summer, 27 tourists for 1 inhabitant! A crazy proportion, which goes to Dubrovnik. coastal city of Croatia, particularly popular in the summer. The destination arrives for the second consecutive year at the top of the ranking. The city's popularity, which has always attracted tourists, skyrocketed after the broadcast of the series Game of Thrones. Part of the filming was done in Dubrovnik.

Second in the ranking: Rhodes, Greece. The island is mainly famous for its old town and idyllic beaches. It welcomes 26 tourists for every 1 inhabitant. Another Greek city in the ranking: Heraklion, in Crete, which occupies fourth place.

To complete the podium, Italy and Venice. The Italian agglomeration attracts crowds every year and has about 21 tourists for every 1 inhabitant. The city has been transformed by tourism and has even been forced to legislate to try to control this annual influx. In the rest of the ranking, the city of Florence makes it into the top 5. Then come Reykjavik in Iceland, Amsterdam in the Netherlands, Lisbon and Porto in Portugal and finally Dublin in Ireland. It should be noted that the first French city in the ranking is, unsurprisingly, Paris in twelfth place, followed by Nice. The capital and the Côte d'Azur city have around 7 tourists per 1 inhabitant in the summer.