The right kind of crowd

Plus: Nose jobs go under the radar

Read in browser

Welcome back to Pursuits Weekly, our look at the world's biggest culture stories, as well as ideas and recommendations around travel, dining and art. Sign up here to get this newsletter every Saturday in your inbox. In praise of crowded day hikes The 17-mile Trolltunga hike in Norway is catnip for friendly Instagrammers. Photographer: Thomas Trutschel The highlight of my last week, and quite possibly of the whole year, was the eight hours I spent hiking the Tongariro Crossing in New Zealand — the greatest day hike in the world, according to many. I went midweek, but still shared the trail with hundreds of other hikers, including a boisterous group of schoolkids. That's far from surprising: The Crossing is one of the most popular hikes on the planet. Many international landmarks have been designed to attract and accommodate enormous numbers of tourists. That's not the case when it comes to natural scenery. Outdoors types often love to hike for miles into the wilderness precisely to get away from the crowds; those people shudder at the very idea of a 13-mile hike where you're constantly close to other walkers. The driver of the shuttle bus that took me to the trailhead even compared the Crossing to Queen Street, Auckland's main commercial thoroughfare. He was a local, of course, which is important. Breakneck Ridge, a precipitous climb that's easy to get to by train from Grand Central Terminal, will see more than 200,000 visitors a year when it reopens in 2027. Most of them will be very happy to be there: There's little evidence that greater numbers result in a measurably worse day out for hikers, and the hike has become one of New York's shared experiences, a touchpoint to talk about over beers in Brooklyn. On the other hand, locals have complained about the hikers for years, and are strenuously fighting attempts to make the trail easier to access. As Sarah Rappaport notes below, happy tourists too often leave behind them unhappy locals. There does come a point at which hiking trails just have too many people on them, for reasons of both erosion and overcrowding. Angels Landing in Zion National Park, Utah, is a vertiginous trail on which tourists regularly stop to catch their breath or take photographs. That makes it almost impossible for hikers to walk at their natural pace. In recent years, the National Parks Service has controlled the crowds by implementing a lottery-based permit system under which only about half of the people wanting to hike the trail get to do so. One strategy that's not generally implemented is charging a price for permits that's high enough to push demand down to the desired level. Some permits for day hikes do cost money, to be sure. The cost to hike Mount Fuji is ¥4,000 (about $25) per person. But the sum is never so big as to dissuade anyone from attempting the hike. Perhaps that's because, in most cases, the crowding might not be much of a problem at all. It's easy to find a hike where you can walk for hours without seeing another human, even within a 90-minute drive of New York City. On the other hand, if you want to join hundreds of other adventurers on a very well-known trail, that can be a joyful experience in itself. I felt a lot of camaraderie on the Tongariro Crossing, with very few places where it was hard to overtake someone who wanted to stop or go slowly. There are dozens of happy day hikers in this photo of the Emerald Lakes, part of the Tongariro Crossing. Photographer: Laurie Noble/Stone RF Although Sierra Club snobs will probably never believe it, a lot of people are drawn to these hikes not in spite of their popularity but because of it. Tongariro has the infrastructure (read: toilets) to support large groups of reasonably fit people. At the end of Trolltunga, a 17-mile round-trip hike in Norway, is a very famous ledge that everybody wants to be photographed on. The photo queue is polite and friendly, even when the wait stretches past an hour. And there's never a shortage of folks more than happy to take your picture for the obligatory Instagram post. It's great to treasure the experience of being alone in nature. But it can also be invigorating to enjoy something more communal and spectacular, as you might in a movie theater or at a rock concert. As someone who has now done the Tongariro Crossing, I want as many other people to enjoy it as possible. Artificially limiting numbers would just be artificially limiting joy. By the numbers Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, "aghast, stupefied, frozen in wide-eyed dismay and distress." Photographer: Phil Noble/Reuters 5 The number of great painters (Edvard Munch, Gustave Courbet, Otto Dix, Francisco de Goya, Juan Carreño de Miranda) cited in Eddy Frankel's close reading in the Guardian of Phil Noble's viral photograph of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. "It's the eyes that do it," he writes. "They suck you into the photo's abyss." $1,400 The nightly cost of glamping in Greenland, where the nascent tourism boom continues unabated. $463 million The value of Japanese green tea exports in 2025. That's up 98% from 2024. Meanwhile, the harvesting area has fallen by 29% over the past decade. 596 million The number of domestic trips taken in China over the nine-day Spring Festival holiday. That's a new record, an increase of 19% from 2025. See the movie, visit the town Hallstatt, Austria, aka that place that looks like Frozen. Photographer: Anton Petrus Hi, Sarah Rappaport here in London as Felix's New Zealand trip wraps up. What comes to your mind when thinking of tourism to New Zealand? Obviously the kind of natural beauty Felix described. But "set-jetting" is another big lure, with tourists rushing to see the locations of the Lord of the Rings films. As fun as it might be, the rise of set-jetting, especially among younger people, risks flooding tiny towns and villages across the globe with visitors. Locals are complaining as fans of films like Frozen flock to the towns said to inspire the setting, like the tiny Austrian village of Hallstatt, pictured above. As Gen Zers and millennials plan trips around their favorite shows, I found destinations, including Sicily and St.-Tropez, scrambling to manage the surge. The rise of the subtle nose job Subtle "tweakments" are trending. Illustration by Sean Dong Patients, many of them middle-aged, are asking for a new kind of nose job, Alina Dizik writes. It's one that flies under the radar — and, in some cases, can be done during a lunch break via injectables. This isn't someone showing up to college after the summer break with a whole new face. Instead, people are opting for more discreet work that focuses on the tip of the nose without fully changing the way someone looks face-on. Perhaps quiet luxury has even permeated the culture at the plastic surgeon's office. Is Aspen over? Some skiers are picking Aspen alternatives, like Sundance in Utah. Source: Sundance Mountain Resort Gordy Megroz writes about the question top of mind for American skiers: What's up with Aspen? He says that anther year of less-than-ideal snow in the Colorado winter vacation capital has people rethinking their ski trips. "Gone are the days when you wondered if snowstorms would prevent your flight from landing. Now, you worry if there's enough snow on the ground to ski at all," he writes. There is, of course, quite an intense après scene with lots of buzzy bars, restaurants and luxury shops. But some who go for the actual skiing are choosing to fly elsewhere. Your March cultural calendar John Lithgow as Roald Dahl in the London production of Giant, coming to Broadway soon. Photograph: Manuel Harlan There's plenty to stoke your attention both indoors and out as March begins. This month's cultural riches include John Lithgow in a towering performance as literary icon Roald Dahl. He's sensational in the role, playing him as a larger-than-life figure who capriciously jumps between empathy, comic relief and racism. The show was the best play I saw in London last year. Previews for its Broadway run begin on March 11. On the small screen, Nicole Kidman sinks her teeth into a crime thriller as forensic pathologist Kay Scarpetta. Check out the rest of the best of the month in culture. New for subscribers: free article gifting. Bloomberg.com subscribers can now gift up to five free articles a month to anyone you want. Just look for the "Gift this article" button on stories. (Not a subscriber? Unlock access and sign up here.) We're improving your newsletter experience, and we'd love your feedback. If something looks off, help us fine-tune your experience by reporting it here. Follow us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Bloomberg Pursuits newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, sign up here to get it in your inbox. Unsubscribe Bloomberg.com Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10022 |