Peak Travel

Travel can do amazing things: broaden horizons, build relationships, and rejuvenate the soul. But often, those experiences come at a cost.

This is Peak Travel, a new podcast from WHYY about how travel shapes communities in hot-spots around the world. We’ll share the wonder that comes with exploring new places, as well as the harm that our worst travel habits can cause. And we’ll try to figure out how we can do it better.

Each episode transports you to a new destination. You’ll meet the people who call that place home, hear their stories, and come to understand how tourism has changed their everyday lives. Supported by rich, on-location sound from around the world, Peak Travel unpacks the $1.9 trillion travel industry and its impact on people and the planet.

Salem, Massachusetts is best known for the Witch Trials of 1692. That history turned the small town into a Halloween destination, with more than 1 million people flocking there in the month of October alone. It’s so crowded that residents can’t get down the street, walk into a shop, or sit down at a restaurant. How does a small town like Salem deal with a flood of visitors in just one month of the year? And is it really worth it for the people who live there?

SHOW NOTES:

• The Salem Witch Trials: A Story of Patriarchy, Persecution and Misogyny
• Witch Hunt: A Traveler’s Guide to the Power and Persecution of the Witch
• How Salem, Massachusetts Became America’s Halloween Capital
• Visit these 12 Halloween towns that aren’t Salem
• Salem residents share perspectives on tourist crowds

For centuries, members of the B’doul Bedouin tribe lived in the caves around the ancient city of Petra, Jordan. Then, in the 1980s, the government forced the tribe to move in the name of preserving the geological site for tourists. But if the residents are forced to leave, and if their heritage has been permanently changed, then what exactly is being preserved?

SHOW NOTES:

• Meet The Man Living in The Lost City Carved in Stone
• Jordan: Petra's tourism authority cracks down on Bedouin cave dwellers
• The tribes paying the brutal price of conservation
• “There is no future for Umm Sayhoun”
• Jordan’s Young Bedouins Are Documenting Their Traditions on TikTok
• Check out Sami's company Jordan Inspiration Tours

Travel can do amazing things: broaden horizons, build relationships, and rejuvenate the soul. But often, those experiences come at a cost.

Welcome back to Peak Travel from WHYY, the show that unpacks how travel shapes communities in hot-spots around the world. We’ll share the wonder that comes with exploring new places, as well as the harm that our worst travel habits can cause. And we’ll try to figure out how we can do it better.

Each episode transports you to a new destination. You’ll meet the people who call that place home, hear their stories, and come to understand how tourism has changed their everyday lives. Supported by rich, on-location sound from around the world, Peak Travel examines the $1.9 trillion travel industry and its impact on people and the planet.

A partnership between the Mexican government and Airbnb forces generations of families out of the most desirable neighborhoods in Mexico City.

SHOW NOTES:

• Rosalba González Loyde author page
• “País sin techo” by Carla Escoffie
• Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo elected President
• Learn more about Mexico City’s partnership with Airbnb
• ‘Gringo go home’ - El País