Certain places have become so Instagram-famous, via geo-tagging, that their survival is threatened. A Canadian sunflower farm had to bar visitors after they damaged the crops. Yellowstone National Park is overrun with selfie-seeking visitors in search of bison for the perfect shot. (If you'd like to despair for humanity, search #bisonselfie.)

Other destinations have just become very unpleasant: at the Acropolis five years ago, it was difficult to appreciate the wonder of early democracy because I kept getting hit in the head by selfie sticks. The Broad, a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, is less a gallery than a backdrop for photo shoots, which is maybe how Warhol would have wanted it, anyhow.

The selfie isn't new. What has changed is the lengths to which people will go for an Instagram "like". Consider the case of Grand Teton National Park in Montana. Lucky enough to travel there before the influencers arrived, I found myself voluntarily using the word "awesome" for the first time ever because the landscape was exactly that. These days, though, the region is apparently overrun with influencers. The site they love more than any other is Delta Lake, which is an arduous hike from the main road.

It used to be that only one or two trekkers would take the walk to the lake each day. But thanks to geo-tagging of its spectacular vista, now as many as 145 people a day are doing it. So much so that the Jackson Hole Travel & Tourism Board specifically asked visitors to avoid geo-tagging.

But if an influencer visits Delta Lake and doesn't Instagram it, has it happened at all? Isn't exploring nature an unequivocally good thing? Aren't the influencers reminding us, via their clever compositions, of how important it is to protect the natural world? Certainly many preach the importance of sustainable travel (Mitch Cox included).

At some point, though, we might have to decide whether the benefits of opening up our precious public outdoor spaces is worth all the attention, which is a dilemma no one could have seen coming as recently as 10 years ago.

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