Trip to Scotland 1983: Four and half months in the Highlands and Islands

[Jock Scot]

I think you are right about tourist overload. I'm sure since Queen Victoria made the Highlands a destination people have come to Glen Coe due to its grisly past. While the hill walkers and technical climbers go and do their thing, the bus loads of tourists must be a constant intrusion into daily life. The locals must get tired of questions about whether their ancestors were among the murdered, where was their home, poor you, isn't the gloomy atmosphere so intense, can't you feel the spirits here, and so on. There is a segment of my fellow countrymen that seems to excel at that kind of over-intimate curiosity.

And all locals that live in tourist places can get a bit jaded after a while. A good many of my relatives grew up and live in a summer tourist destination on Lake Ontario. The place is over run in the summer, and they all look forward to the off season. One had a t-shirt that read "I'm not a tourist. I live here."

Thank you for your understanding and well written reply.

Tourism , wherever it takes place is a two edged sword. Those involved directly with the industry, reap the benefits in one form or other as of course they should.

However, those not reaping any direct benefit at all from tourism will inevitably become rather "Jaded", over time. Nevertheless, all of us in Scotland and no doubt, worldwide too, during the recent dreadful Covid plague had it plainly demonstrated to all, the awkward effect of little or no tourist income has on business as a whole and not least the little or no tax revenue to be able filtered down to the population at large. We all lost out.

So perhaps a tad more care and understanding from all sides on this thorny situation?