This is just a reflection on how cramped and crowded the UK is compared to the US. It’s based on having made my first visit to one of the US National Parks – Yosemite – and being surprised at its unexpectedness emptiness.
Now I have to quickly give a caveat to my impressions – when we first got to Yosemite, a small part of the park was closed due forest fires, with some potential visitors no doubt deciding not to go given the risk that all of the park might subsequently be shut/visitors need to leave, or more realistically, going there when there have been fires would compromise on the experience as the air might be less clea. As a first time visitors, it was hard for me to tell what different any smoke residue was having. As you can hopefully admire in the below photos, it was still rather beautiful.
The year we went was the first time visitors to Yosemite were required to buy a permit to enter. And our expectations for huge crowds were set by the fact that we were advised to reserve our permission to buy a permit as soon as the booking window (similar to booking for festivals) came out. It turned out we were only asked to show our permit once, and even then, it wasn’t clear that we needed to have made the advance reservation. Instead, the roads were in the main pretty empty and there didn’t seem to competition for car parks (except for one point at the weekend at the main commercial center for the park). And in general, it was striking that there few signs of commerciality (even the shops I did see were pretty basic).
This is all very different to what goes on in UK national parks. For a start, there is just simply a much larger volume of people going into the them. The Lake District gets around 19m visitors a year , compared to Yosemite’s 3.3m . And then there is the fact that the US parks are genuine wilderness in that no one lives (or farms) in them. This is unlike the Lake District, which has 45, 000 who live in the area and supporting these ‘vibrant communities’ is very much part of the area’s long term vision.
Not sure I have strong view as to which is better but I have to say, you couldn’t really get a good of tea (or coffee really) in Yosemite. Maybe it’s about natural refreshment.