Greece starts limiting Acropolis daily visitors to tackle overtourism

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Greece starts limiting Acropolis daily visitors to tackle overtourism | CNN
cnn.com

One of Greece’s most famous landmarks is trialing limiting its daily visitors, starting today.

The Athens Acropolis archaeological site attracts visitors from around the world keen to marvel at the ancient cultural spot. Going forward, visitors will be capped at 20,000 a day, with a booking website keeping track of footfall and enforcing an hourly slot system.

In an interview with Greek radio station Real FM in August, Greek culture minister Lina Mendoni said that the Acropolis currently has up to 23,000 daily visitors, calling this a “huge number.”

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Although I'd love to see the buildings of the Acropolis I would never go anywhere that has 20,000 visitors a day. Nope.

Was just there on a hotter than Hades day around 6 PM. Still a ton of people. Everyone was trying to find shade. Staff had clear paths through people just sitting in the shade along the main path. Glad I went, but wouldn't go back. There's honestly not much there that you can get close to.

Grand Central Station in NYC has 750,000 visitors a day.

JFK Airport gets 150,000 visitors a day.

Mall of America gets 110,000 visitors a day.

I think you wouldn't be able to leave your house and go just about anywhere if you are so hell bent on not going anywhere heavily trafficked. If the biggest mall in America gets 110,000 visitors a day, your local mall might still be in the tens of thousands a day.

I guess my statement was too broad, I don't want to go to any tourist attraction that has that many. I have been in many airports and malls, but not for the joy of experiencing nature or history, my two favorite things.

Don't ever try to go anywhere famous, then... and some jerks put the cool hidden spots on Tripadvisor and Google maps so even that is becoming horrible now!