Bali Tops the Chart on Fodor’s 2025 Travel ‘No List’

Highlighting overtourism and environmental concerns, Fodor’s Travel unveils destinations that travellers should reconsider visiting in 2025.

Fodor’s Travel, the US-based travel guide website, has published its annual list of destinations best avoided in 2025.

The list, published on its website on Wednesday, the 13th of November, considers factors such as excessive popularity, environmental degradation, pressure on local communities, and insufficient infrastructure. Rather than calling for a boycott, Fodor’s aims to raise awareness about the impact of unsustainable tourism on both the environment and local populations.

“Fodor’s does not advocate boycotting travel [to these destinations]. Doing so would harm the local economy and fail to bring about meaningful change. However, we believe that the first step to alleviating the problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem,” the website states.

The destinations are divided into two categories:

• Perennial ‘No List’ – destinations frequently featured for similar issues;
• Destinations Beginning to Suffer – locations showing signs of increasing strain.

Leading the 2025 list is Bali, Indonesia, which faces overtourism and what Fodor’s describes as a “plastic apocalypse.”

“Rapid, unchecked development spurred by over-tourism is encroaching on Bali’s natural habitats, eroding its environmental and cultural heritage, and creating a ‘plastic apocalypse’,” the website states as well.

A study by the Bali Partnership, a coalition of academics and NGOs focused on waste management, estimates that Bali generates 1.6 million tonnes of waste annually, nearly 303,000 tonnes of which are plastic. Only 48% of the waste is managed responsibly, while a mere 7% of plastic waste is recycled. Consequently, beaches such as Kuta and Seminyak are plagued by pollution. In addition, Bali was previously featured in the same category back in 2020 for similar concerns.

“Bali’s waste management is barely keeping up with the volume of trash, and that’s an understatement,” says Kristin Winkaffe, a sustainable travel expert focusing on Southeast Asia, as quoted from the website.

Here is the full list of best-avoided destinations in 2025 according to Fodor’s:

Perennial ‘No List’ Destinations:

• Bali, Indonesia
• Barcelona, Mallorca, and the Canary Islands, Spain
• Venice, Italy
• Lisbon, Portugal
• Koh Samui, Thailand
• Mount Everest, Nepal

Destinations Beginning to Suffer:

• Agrigento, Sicily, Italy
• British Virgin Islands
• Kerala, India
• Kyoto and Tokyo, Japan
• Oaxaca, Mexico
• North Coast 500, Scotland