Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Tuesday the 1st of October,

which means that it's time for the first of Travel Desk Tuesdays, in which I talk to somebody on the

independent, excellent travel desk about their recent travels and what they have learnt. First up, Natalie Wilson.

Natalie, hello, you have just been to Myorka.

That place where this summer they've been really not particularly in favour of tourists.

Did you feel welcome?

Hello. I think I did. I did feel welcome. However, it definitely, there is definitely,

oh, sorry. However, there is definitely signs to tourists about discontent from locals about them being there. I found a lot of graffiti

under stop signs that now read stop tourism in the most popular places in Mayorka. So yeah.

Where were you staying? What sort of place was it? What were you doing just being a normal tourist?

Yeah. So we stayed in Palencia in the north of the island. I actually, after writing all summer about the

overtourism protests, sort of strayed away from Palmer. I was more interested in going to the north,

but found it was very busy for September, so I do understand

some of their concerns. But I was just there with a friend, mainly at the beach, nice food.

That was our plan. So yeah. And be absolutely clear, this was just a holiday that you would

very wisely book for when the flipping

kids had gone back to school and prices could subside along with the temperature so it wasn't a

press trip or anything like that no not a press trip this was booked maybe five days before um

when and i was adamant i wasn't going to to New Yorker after everything I was covering this summer.

But a couple of colleagues had gone and said how beautiful it was.

So when it was the cheapest option, it made a lot of sense for us to check it out.

Let's start.

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