Has Overtourism Killed Big Sur?
The once idyllic coastal area of California has been besieged by tourists, and residents worry that lasting environmental damage is being done. But how can you tell visitors not to come when tourism supports so many? One local, Josh Marcus, looks for solutions.
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As noon fog settled over the iconic Bixby Bridge on California鈥檚 Highway 1 in Big Sur on听July 4, about 100 people were celebrating Independence Day by taking subtle variations of the same photo.
They were maneuvering down the area鈥檚 gravelly cliffs or up a dirt side road to get a perfect, uncluttered shot of themselves gazing contemplatively at the elegant concrete arch by the sea. GoPros were everywhere: on sticks, tripods, and car hoods. 鈥淭his is that bridge from all the pictures,鈥 a man in Gucci sunglasses said out loud to no one in particular while snapping a shot. 听abounded. All the road-tripper archetypes were there鈥攊nternational tourists, biker dudes, peroxide-blond听#influencers鈥攁nd they all wanted a picture of the California dream, just not each other. Under thousands of these tourist feet, the vegetation had receded in ugly gashes.
I grew up just north of Big Sur. Locals and sorta locals (like me) hate what has become of Bixby. It鈥檚 a traffic jam, a blemish, a spiritually bleh mass of bad human behavior. But we weren鈥檛听immune to its charms either. In high school, everyone from hippie kids to macho听car guys to听weekend hikers all scrambled down the coast, seeking adventure and听posting pictures, bridge included. Can you blame them? The Big Sur coast is one of the last undeveloped shorelines in this ugly modern world, with land and sea so听wild and gigantic they look freshly torn from Pangaea. Only it鈥檚 not ancient history. If you鈥檙e able to make a reservation, there鈥檚 some of the best hiking, camping, weed smoking, spa soaking, and yoga retreating you can find, hidden among the redwoods.
A global-media feedback loop exists to sell this dream. Monterey County鈥檚 hospitality association spends about $3听million a year on publicity,听urging听travelers听to 鈥溾 in ads and visit Big Sur, where 鈥.鈥 Then there鈥檚 the free PR: the Bixby Bridge posts;听, set ;听the media blob (including 国产吃瓜黑料) promoting Big Sur with words like听,听, and听paradise, a place听where you can .听听then Instagram the unplugging. The cycle repeats.
Tucked in a packed parking turnout just before the bridge听is a bronze commemorating when Highway 1 was ,听in 1937. On it听there鈥檚 a benign quote about nature鈥檚 majesty from famed local poet Robinson Jeffers. Weirdly, his 1937 poem听鈥淭he Coast-Road,鈥 about Big Sur and the highway, isn鈥檛 quoted. It predicts:听鈥渁t / the far end of those loops of road / Is what will come and destroy it, a rich and vulgar and bewildered / civilization dying at the core.鈥
Now听those loops of road bring an estimated 5.8 million annual visitors to Big Sur, which has a population of . Locals are overwhelmed. The people, the selfie sticks, the traffic, the litter鈥攊t鈥檚 all too much. Somewhere, something went terribly wrong. Big Sur has joined the like , Italy, and , where tourists have overrun what they came to celebrate.
Everyone from elected officials to听nongovernment groups, like the Community Association of Big Sur, have听pushed for and transit-policy reforms, but these incremental efforts are up against exponential, existential changes. International tourism听has , and officials say visitation to the area might not peak for decades.
People come to Big Sur to escape the world. Now Big Sur must adapt to a world where it can鈥檛 escape people.
Big Sur staked its future on tourism with the completion of Highway 1, and many locals say that bet paid off until around the late 2000s, when social media ascended and unleashed Instagram travel, adventure selfies, and bucket lists on us all.
鈥淏efore all this, when somebody would come to Big Sur, they were subordinate to the landscape,鈥 says Butch Kronlund, executive director of the Community Association of Big Sur. 鈥淣ow听it鈥檚 as if the people coming to us are stars of a movie they鈥檙e in, and Big Sur is just a backdrop to their antics.鈥
These antics are testing Big Sur鈥檚 institutions, ecosystems, and patience. There are 4.6 million one-way vehicle trips on that stretch of听the single-lane highway each year. Public bathrooms are scant, so toilet paper and shit . Illegal caused one of the . The peaceful Big Sur that residents听remember is disappearing.
鈥淪ometimes I鈥檒l go surfing in the morning, get out of the water, and the beach is packed, but there are no locals,鈥 says Dru Jensen, a local carpenter. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have anything against tourists. It just feels kinda weird.听I don鈥檛 like it. I used to see a few friends.鈥
Yet on Pfeiffer Beach, which many of the area鈥檚 residents now avoid, the end of one Big Sur is a new beginning for others.听Rajat Kochhar, an international student from India who goes to college in L.A., said the coastlines near his home are even more packed. 鈥淐lean sand, empty beaches鈥攖hat鈥檚 unique to me,鈥 he told me. Ruozi Song, a Chinese student traveling with Kochhar, agreed, noting that听the beaches she鈥檇 been to in China were 鈥渢otally overcrowded.鈥
Public bathrooms are scant, so toilet paper and shit accumulate on the roadside. Illegal camping caused one of the costliest wildfires in U.S. history in 2016.
According to the Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau, travelers spent locally in 2018. Big Sur doesn鈥檛 manufacture anything, grow much, or house any major corporations or colleges. Some locals lament tourism, but most depend on it.听Last spring听an anonymous Instagram called .听It was @BigSurEducatesYou, then . Over the most recent Fourth of July weekend, a group called Take Back Big Sur hung a banner over Bixby that read听鈥溾濃攗ntil authorities took it down.
Locals talk about their bewilderment and anger at overtourism in Big Sur as a new phenomenon, but it鈥檚 not. Big Sur鈥檚 is one long struggle over ecotourism鈥檚 core contradiction: how to keep the land undisturbed while selling it to the world. The better you do at the former, the harder it is to stomach, let alone stop, the latter.
In the 1930s, ranchers worried that the highway would ruin their home and livelihood, and they threatened surveyors at gunpoint. In the sixties听and seventies, residents complained they felt overrun by hippie听squatters. In the eighties,听Big Sur鈥檚 independent-spirited people resisted the prospect of more top-down federal land management. The writer Henry Miller, perhaps Big Sur鈥檚 most famous transplant, in 1957, 鈥淲hoever settles here hopes that he will be the last invader.鈥
In the past, this part of the coast听attracted artists and seekers, like , , and . Hunter S. Thompson, another former resident, wrote in 1961 that Big Sur is a听鈥.鈥 Now听the hippies are mostly dead or gone, and the world鈥檚 most powerful myth makers, Silicon Valley execs, have taken their place.
In 2013, Facebook billionaire Sean Parker spent 听decking out a redwood grove for a Lord of the Rings鈥themed wedding (then $2.5 million more on an ). A recent Wall Street Journal advertised available mansions for 鈥淪ilicon Valley鈥檚 moguls, who decamp here for quiet weekend getaways, enhanced by the region鈥檚 limited cell service.鈥澨鼺inding affordable housing has always been tough here, but with all of the tech money driving up the cost of living, it鈥檚 now very difficult for Big Sur鈥檚 . The woods aren鈥檛 gentrification-proof.
鈥淏ig Sur is something you can鈥檛 buy, but you kinda can.鈥
The Silicon Valley impact has been most striking for some at Esalen Institute, the pioneering hippie retreat on Big Sur鈥檚 wild southern edge that helped introduce听mainstream America to psychedelics and the Human Potential Movement in the sixties. In 2017, mudslides shut down the highway and caused huge losses, and Esalen not long after it .听(He has since left). Venture capitalists听led workshops like 鈥.鈥
鈥淚ts mission is still the same,鈥 says Esalen CEO Terry Gilbey of the institute. 鈥淭echnology has had an impact on us as individuals, and that does trickle down, so we do examine the issues that technology is having for people as we explore being human and human connection.鈥
Chris Simon is a musician who has been going to Esalen since he started at its beloved preschool program. He now lives in San Francisco and thinks that Silicon Valley people seek 鈥渨oke vacations鈥 there to shake up their plentiful suburban lives with something transcendental.听鈥淏ig Sur is something you can鈥檛 buy, but you kinda can,鈥 he says.
Some say this cheapens听the Big Sur you actually can鈥檛 buy, the moments out in nature听where,听no matter the size of your bank account or what car you drive, you feel connected to something elemental. Jeannie Alexander, a Big Sur fire-department medical captain, says her kids grew up in the hills without electricity听or cell reception. 鈥淭hey did things like paint and draw and climb trees and catch rabbits,鈥 she says. 鈥淭hey got back to the basics.鈥
My first summer back home after college, I pulled off the road one night in Big Sur and lay shivering on a narrow beach. The Milky Way was the brightest I鈥檇 ever seen it. Its reflection glowed electric purple on top of the waves. My celestial insignificance was intoxicating. I wanted to flush out all my petty anxieties听forever听and leap into the sky. This is the Big Sur people are mourning.
It took an act of Mother Nature for Big Sur to briefly return to this state. In 2017, after autumn rains , mudslides听demolished the highway in both directions, turning Big Sur into an island. The new islanders found an unexpected upside to their disaster.
It meant no tourists or Tesla traffic jams. It was an economic 听and a spiritual redemption. 鈥淭hey said we were in a crisis when our bridge closed,鈥 says Alexander. 鈥淭hat was the most peace Big Sur had had in years.鈥
Locals played soccer on the highway. Neighbors hiked around the slide zone in the moonlight. A woman bombed down the coast on her bike听completely naked. Now听the road is back, and every fall, Jensen, the carpenter, says he prays for a landslide.
But landslides aren鈥檛 a sustainable tourism plan, and Big Sur is preparing to throw everything it has at the problem. The place comes alive in a fight. During the 2016 wildfire, sheriffs blockaded the burn zone and stopped hilltop farmers from going back to their plots, due to the risk. Residents听hiked up a secret mountain trail and fought the blaze together anyway.
Few people think stopping tourists from coming is a good idea. Rather, it鈥檚 about managing听the area to mitigate the impact, doing something similar to what听countries like Norway have enacted听to address overtourism. Alongside a recent conscientious from the county visitors bureau, which includes tips on buying local and examples of #travelfails, the Community Association of Big Sur is working to develop a with sustainable travel at the forefront. Potential reforms are being discussed for Big Sur to include shuttle buses and park reservations, for example.听But the sort of fast-acting, massive, coordinated, well-funded reform needed to reinvent tourism in the area is largely still in the planning stages.
鈥淐hange and taxes and death, they鈥檙e coming whether you want it or not.鈥
鈥淭his is a place of dreams and optimism,鈥 says Sofia Snavely, program director at the alternative Big Sur Park School, as we听sit听on stumps in a seaside grove. Nearby,听children mix听a tub of pink paint, cackling with delight. 鈥淭here is just so much possibility on the horizon.鈥
Still, many are resigned to exploding tourism and cultural whiplash. Past reforms鈥攖he 1986 land-use plan, the 2004 highway plan鈥攁lso called for sustainable development, and yet听here we are.
鈥淐hange and taxes and death, they鈥檙e coming whether you want it or not,鈥 says Dan Kraft, a supervising state-park ranger. 鈥淲e can鈥檛 stop it. How do we make sure that, as it comes, it鈥檚 managed chaos that does the land as little harm as possible?鈥
Somewhere along Highway 1, there鈥檚 a gravel smudge, impossible to see while driving. It leads to a ragged switchback trail, then one of Big Sur鈥檚 last secret surf spots. You need to briefly rappel over a large rock to reach it.
It鈥檚 not on any top-ten lists, because locals comb the internet and ask people to take down any photos and geotags. Surfers made me swear not to reveal its location. They wouldn鈥檛 even tell me its name.
When I arrived, it was empty听but for a vulture on some driftwood. The ocean fuzzed out the noise of the highway high above. The surf was mellow that day, and the ocean stretched out flat, knit with small wrinkles, like the back of a weathered hand. The only signs of visitors were an old pair of boots tucked under a rock听and a rusted metal girder that had tumbled down from some forgotten highway project. Otherwise, this is what the land looked like millennia ago when it was settled by the Esalen tribe, Big Sur鈥檚 first dispossessed people.
I want you to come visit, to smell the musky chaparral brush, to see where California runs out of continent. I want these experiences to make you want to fight for our planet, because it needs the help. But I also sincerely hope you never find this beach.