WORK|OUT European Students’ Review

TOP 5 WORST VACATION SPOTS

Enjoy your holdidays, but if you don’t manage that, send us your submissions for the worst locations of “Vacation Paradise” in Europe

| Florin Popescu (COSTA DEL SOL). Every summer, millions of young people undertake usually low budget expeditions to satisfy curiosity and create lifelong memories. Many of these memories are shared with friends upon the re-start of the semester, and — human nature being what it is — the most memorable ones are the nightmare stories: the stolen wallet, the stolen girlfriend, the dirty beach, sunstroke, the overpriced hostel. As WORK|OUT is not the repository for personal troubles and frustrations, this article is neither a list of bad vacations nor a request for bad vacation stories. It is rather an invitation for our readers to make sense of their experiences by stepping as far outside of their individual perceptions as possible and advise their colleagues on avoiding those unfortunate places which have made the tourist trade a nightmare for most of those involved, even in the best-possible case where misfortune brings the person of your life into it.

The low-budget nature of student trips, by van, bike or Eurail limit them to Europe and the Mediterranean basin. It also condemns them to experience the underbelly of whatever piece of paradise they end up sleeping in: hostels, the beach, the train station, a parking lot. However, students — if they are curious enough — also meet more locals and see more of the real story than the other classes of tourists that they compete with: families (who generally avoid locals for safety reasons) and senior citizens (who tend to be verbally confused but generally abusive to them). So it is that the pension or hostel owner, the bartender or the local youth can be a treasure of local jokes and information. It suffices to be inquisitive and take notes.

Shouldn’t one enjoy one’s vacation rather than do reportage? Sure, but a bad experience turns everyone into a philosopher and one may hope that a sense of social responsibility brings about communication and that daydreaming time on a bus sparks insight. Wherever you are, you can pick up a local paper for that bus ride. Don’t understand the language? There’s English-written ones in lots of places — a bad sign, usually. I spent a few days in Costa del Sol, in an ’uncle-of-the-girlfriend’s summer house’ situation. The local English-language paper — found on the metro upon arrival — provided entertainment and insight. At the risk of influencing your submissions, I should opine that the region in question is an environmental and human disaster. A vacationopolis of millions of undeclared Northern European residents and undeclared slave-wage workers, this region has condemned itself to decades of pollution and economic decline for the temporary — but fabulous — benefit of a minority of its residents: corrupt politicians (and how! Read up on Marbella, the millionaire’s playground, and its jail-addicted mayors), unscrupulous real-estate speculators, money launderers from around the world and uncaring part-time residents, mostly retired (uncaring except for sunshine and property values, that is). One may ignore the ugliness of it all (cheaply built row-houses and high-rises) but one should not ignore water-quality warnings... For more than 100km of coast-line, there is not a single spot where a fake animal is not visible, whether inflatable or solid. At night I had nightmares of these beasts coming to life and taking Nature’s revenge. Stories about Nature-seekers escaping the coast line to hike in the ’protected’ hills, only to come back bloodied by scuffles with cave-dwellers interested in watches (apparently illegal out-of-workers). If I was a poor student, I might have noticed that during a national Spanish student’s strike protesting high rents, hundreds of thousands of useless housing units lie empty or idle all around Spain, a good number just waiting to be torn down, being built with shady permits. Was this Aznar’s miracle? Should part of this economic “growth” — more like an expensive foot fungus than a wave of well-being — be lauded or mirrored in a pool of shame?

Ask yourself — and your hosts: will the boom (wherever you are) last? Who will clean up or will it even be possible? Is it a good thing that the local students can’t find part-time jobs while desperate slum- or tent-dwelling Africans and Eastern Europeans take their place and supply local entrepreneurs with survival-wage labor? Is cheating a good long-term business practice? What kind of a national park IS this? What’s the difference between charity and professional begging which uses child-slavery? It really IS a jungle out here!

Bring us your story. Send us your cheap digital camera pictures that depict social and environmental abuse. Do ask questions and don’t be afraid. Certain places definitely do deserve shame if they abuse themselves: the crooked politicians and pirate-businessmen are an integral part of a society, even if they’re the exceptions. Local pride should keep such abuses under check. National laws should protect against over-development. Not only are you helping future vacationers but also giving a hand to those in the local community who try and fight back — society’s ills are ever fluctuating, but further damage to these fragile ecosystems could be irreversible. At the same time, it is only logical that you should make an effort to keep your own human failures in check: such as throwing beer cans on the beach, screaming at the top of your lungs in the village square at 4 AM, and mooning the policeman. At least don’t do it all in the same night!

Some of you may still feel uncomfortable with the rude aspect of investigative journalism, even if you’re on your best non-mooning behavior. For one, wait a couple of months — we hope not, but you may be seeking some kind of revenge. We discourage a similar list of top 5 best vacation spots because that is more likely to ruin them than help. For the light-hearted, however, we propose and alternative Top 5 Bad Menu English submissions. You know what we mean: “Sizzling Ached Sole”. Buon appetito e buon divertimento!