Would you share your top holiday tips with us?

A few years ago, a colleague advanced a theory on how to operate in the travel-sphere: be a Giver. There are Givers, she said, and there are Hoarders. The former, inclined to see intelligence-sharing as an act of munificence rather than one of self-sabotage, are generally helpful when a colleague, reader or follower wants a recommendation or opinion. The latter don’t share much of anything. No coordinates, no contacts. When they travel they post only the most oblique hints – un-geo-tagged visual teases, lofty comments extolling a place without ever naming it. The especially smug ones might tack on a #iykyk, to hammer home to those who #dk just how much of a zero-sum game it all is. 

But could the Hoarders have a point? In the age of TikTok, when 129 million people descended on Italy alone last year (spot the direct causation), is it not reasonable to want to safeguard one’s patch? Once a place gets un-secreted, total saturation, which can look a lot like ruination, often ensues. Witness the slew of negative press Japan, and specifically Kyoto, has come in for lately – the result of a buzz-killing confluence of “a great [US dollar] exchange rate, ChatGPT, and kimono-wearing bros”, as New York Magazine put it. Or Oaxaca: not long ago it was the Mexico authenticist’s town of choice, the place for small guesthouses and abuelas cooking guarded family recipes. Then tourism spiked by 77 per cent, and now “Gringos go home” greets arrivals in spray-paint on walls across town.

“The gatekeeping thing resonates with me because [discretion] is a constant in what we do,” says Yolanda Edwards, founder of travel content platform YOLO Journal and the former creative director of Condé Nast Traveler, the luxury magazine built on the premise of exclusive travel. “A long time ago – we’re talking at least 25 years – [the photographer] Dewey Nicks told me and my husband to stay at Hotel Raya on Panarea. ‘But you can’t write about it!’ he said. ‘If you write about it you’ll ruin it.’”

Today, the Raya has almost 19,000 followers on Instagram and is no one’s secret; “the pre-social media world in which we had that conversation wasn’t the one we operate in now”, Edwards notes. “But if some of us hadn’t been covering those little family-run places, they might have struggled to stay in business. It’s always been my thing that if you come across a place or a person who is doing something special, you should support it.”

Smaller restaurants, unable to meet floods of demand, are relisting themselves on Google as permanently closed 

Edwards, a veteran discoverer, often canvasses stylish friends and colleagues for their tips and addresses, which are formatted into YOLO Black Books as direct quotations (good gatekeeping karma – just as taking discovery credit for someone else’s tip is deeply uncool). “But of course some of the people we ask are probably not going to include the little place they know with only six tables.” 

“I still almost never tell people that you can actually stay at Lo Scoglio,” says Emily FitzRoy, the founder-CEO at Italy travel-design specialists Bellini. “That’s partly because I’ve been going there for so long myself; it’s a special place to me and my family.” She is referring to the Sorrentine coast restaurant that is now world-famous thanks to its celebrity clientele, the legions of aspiring influencers who trail them and, latterly, the Tucci Effect (it’s real; Google it).

The ruination is real too: Edwards mentions a new phenomenon whereby smaller restaurants, unable to meet floods of demand post-social media “discovery”, are relisting themselves on Google as permanently closed (which is both sad and the ultimate #iykyk). Boutiques and small shops, too, are being besieged in numbers they’re unable to accommodate, threatening the cachet that drew tastemakers in the first place.

“I’m torn on this question of gatekeeping,” FitzRoy continues. She identifies as more Giver than Hoarder, though makes a trenchant case for withholding: “I earn my living from having a few secrets.” If friends of friends don’t have the budget for a private itinerary, she’ll often give them one or two of her Bellini City Guides – “because it’s so easy to eat very badly in, for example, Venice” – in return for a small donation to the refugee charity she works with in London. “What I’ll never give away is our contacts. Really good guides are as rare as hen’s teeth, and can get booked up 12 months in advance.” Says Tom Barber, of British travel designers Original: “I came into this business because of my love of amazing places. If that means sharing [secret] ones that disseminate people and unclog the dreaded over-tourism bottlenecks, then that’s win-win in my book.” 

I want people to have a good time, but I also think about it as a way of supporting traders

It’s a common thread: those safeguarding their secrets often claim a desire to protect fragile places from oversaturation; those dispensing them are often redirecting travel into more responsible territory. Asturias and Galicia – northern Spain’s greener, less-visited reaches – are taking some of the heat off Menorca and Ibiza. The Indonesian spotlight has shifted from Bali to Sumba: larger, far wilder, and just that much harder (an additional 90-minute flight) to get to.   

Last year Barber launched Original’s The Secret Series, itineraries that capitalise on that discovery feeling. In lieu of Marrakech and Ouarzazate, for instance, Barber and his team propose a Moroccan road trip south of Agadir, exploring the extraordinary Atlantic coast around Mirleft and Guelmim. In South Africa’s Western Cape, before sending his clients into the wine regions of Franschhoek, he steers them north to Paternoster (the Capetonians’ stealth-chic beach town) for whale-watching, and through the Cederberg mountains. 

Social media still seems to drive the gatekeeping polemic though. “These days I don’t tag a lot of things; I’ll save some of it for the platform,” says Edwards. It’s a barrier to entry that more travel influencers and editors are adopting (though not always a well-received one, if the indignant DMs some of us get are any indication). 

But Charlene Prempeh, founder of A Vibe Called Tech and an HTSI contributing editor, leans into the ask. “I think of travel recommendations as a bit like the trading system at Burning Man. They’re a form of currency you hand over with the primary goal of making the recipients’ experience better, and no expectation of getting anything in return.” Prempeh lives part-time in Margate, and notes the huge number of requests she now receives for recommendations; she’s compiled a shortlist with which she replies, including to strangers. “I want people to have a good time, but I also think about it as a way of supporting traders in town.” 

Likewise, Barber describes himself as “a terrible over-sharer. I came to travel from journalism and really haven’t got a commercial bone in my body.” When he started Original 22 years ago, “we were trying to have a solvent business, but I would often insist we add a place to the portfolio because it was, frankly, awesome and clients would absolutely love it, regardless of whether it would make us any money.” 

But discretion lives on. Last week in Rome I was talking to one of my best friends – a well-connected film producer, and the consummate Giver – about the absolute perfection of a certain seafood restaurant we both love. Like all the best places, to look at it you’d never know it was anything special. It’s tiny, in a snoozy, off-piste neighbourhood. The decor shades to homely. The few tourists it attracts tend, weirdly, to be men of the cloth. The food is unfailingly and supremely delicious. 

Abruptly, she sat up and fixed me with a look. “You are never, ever writing about that place.” It sounded more command than query; her narrowed eyes spoke of the stakes involved. She’d gone full Hoarder. Tranquilla, I said. Everyone needs to keep something behind the gate.