“Summer Fartar in Algarve”: resident in the region criticizes excess tourism and says it is “impossible to live a normal day” [vídeo]

Admittedly, the summer peak has passed, but by the end of September, the Algarve continues to receive mass tourists. Still July had not ended and at Tiktok were already circulating videos of residents in the southern region of the country to criticize over tourism. @Barbara.Ilopes page, for example, added some videos of situations that were seen this summer in the Algarve.

One of the publications refers to the large lines of automobiles that every day in summer form on the algarve roads. Those who go to the beach can wait in traffic, but those who live there and need to make the usual travel between the home and the work has more difficulties. “This is just ridiculous,” commented the head of Tiktok @barbara.ilopes.

“Impossible to live a normal day”

In the comments section, another resident in the region made a point of stressing to be “sick of summer in the Algarve.” He adds that it is “impossible to live a normal day.”

What is known is that tourism is one of the main engines of the Algarve economy and in July and August the hotel occupancy rate was almost always above 90%. However, tour operators in the Algarve have complained about the lack of customers.

Speaking to SIC Notícias, Rui Cardiga, a maritime-tourist operator for 12 years in one of the busiest avenues of lakes, revealed that there were days in the summer when he could not sell a single ticket. “The English seems to disappear,” he says. “Maybe, they chose other equally good destinations, like Turkey or Bulgaria,” he says. “And evil is that people later get used to other places and then stop coming to Portugal,” he concludes.

In Rui Cardiga’s opinion, the high prices of local accommodation also contributed to the weak adhesion to this type of tourist services.

Escape to excessive tourism in the Algarve

If you are still thinking about taking a few days out of the Algarve, be aware that you can make a different script for the region, avoiding the daily traffic you can see in the video posted on Tiktok. One of the solutions goes through zones that are not so busy.

You can always visit the city of Vila Real de Santo António, which continues to ‘escape’ to the mass tourism phenomenon and is near the river and the sea. Alcoutim can also be an option, as it is a beachless village and many tourists do not know it yet.

The village that stands on the edge of the Guadiana River has a view of Spain and a long history associated with smuggling. According to the tourist portal, the smuggling was the support of many families for a good part of the twentieth century, especially at the time of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and in the following years. From Portugal came coffee, sugar, eggs, rice, soap, bread flour, figs, wool and tobacco and the neighboring country arrived fabrics, soaps, perfumes, brandy and almond core.

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