This was a question asked by Simon_100 in the Oilheads subsection, in a thread about a bod’s (excellent) extended jaunt in Spain. It came about, in part at least, talking about the marmite town of Potes.
From my point of view, nothing exists in a vacuum for long. Well before the internet, people of all sorts were recommending places across the globe to go to. That these recommendations were usually in a book (travel guides have been around for many, many years) and / or in travel programmes on the television, maybe restricted the audience and / or many people had less disposable income - or the transport means - to go to see the places. That has changed, arguably for the better and certainly for the easier.
That aside, people like to be told of places. This forum and travel section has many examples each month. Anything from requests for an entire holiday, through to specific gorges or a plea for a road of perhaps 30 miles of ‘twisties’ from A to B. Similarly, people like to plug hotel XYZ, which they have discovered. And really, why keep quiet about it? For every, “This is my secret place”, that there will often be 10 or more within a few miles is almost certain, whilst 10 to 1 says, you’ll not be the only person on the globe to know about it anyway. It’s easy to moan, “The place was full of other people….” but then all but ignore that the moaner themselves also formed a part of the ‘other people’, too. Yes, magazines will publish “This is a cracking road”, because, put simply, there is a demand for it *. Yes, people will ask for “Tell me a quiet hotel, close to where I want to go”. Sometimes it’s out of laziness or a lack of imagination (this forum is often overly quick to criticise ‘youth’ for being spoon fed) but quite often simply because people just don’t know. In a way, it is nice to help them discover “This is my secret” and hopefully help them to have a good time.
* You can see the responses on the forum: “But that misses out the road from X to Y, it’s sublime”. So, people do like sharing things or, at its most base, just enjoy criticising for the sake of it.
They more or less are! Many roads are being resurfaced with 'eco' stuff that's the doggies doodah's here, including mine - see below ...
I wonder how many of us keep our very favourite places to ourselves in...
Potes, is perhaps an example of somewhere that became popular - at least for motorcyclists - simply because it started appearing in every ‘Biker friendly, must do’ article and route suggestion. That the town also gets listed in umpteen ‘Nice places to visit’ travel guides, means that it’s on just about every local itinerary….. a bit like Burton-on-the-Water.
I wonder how many of us keep our very favourite places to ourselves in...
From my point of view, nothing exists in a vacuum for long. Well before the internet, people of all sorts were recommending places across the globe to go to. That these recommendations were usually in a book (travel guides have been around for many, many years) and / or in travel programmes on the television, maybe restricted the audience and / or many people had less disposable income - or the transport means - to go to see the places. That has changed, arguably for the better and certainly for the easier.
That aside, people like to be told of places. This forum and travel section has many examples each month. Anything from requests for an entire holiday, through to specific gorges or a plea for a road of perhaps 30 miles of ‘twisties’ from A to B. Similarly, people like to plug hotel XYZ, which they have discovered. And really, why keep quiet about it? For every, “This is my secret place”, that there will often be 10 or more within a few miles is almost certain, whilst 10 to 1 says, you’ll not be the only person on the globe to know about it anyway. It’s easy to moan, “The place was full of other people….” but then all but ignore that the moaner themselves also formed a part of the ‘other people’, too. Yes, magazines will publish “This is a cracking road”, because, put simply, there is a demand for it *. Yes, people will ask for “Tell me a quiet hotel, close to where I want to go”. Sometimes it’s out of laziness or a lack of imagination (this forum is often overly quick to criticise ‘youth’ for being spoon fed) but quite often simply because people just don’t know. In a way, it is nice to help them discover “This is my secret” and hopefully help them to have a good time.
* You can see the responses on the forum: “But that misses out the road from X to Y, it’s sublime”. So, people do like sharing things or, at its most base, just enjoy criticising for the sake of it.
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insofar as I do keep gems to myself sometimes. I don't, however, go in for the criticising.
