UNUSUAL TALKS #10 – Sustainable Tourism

Overtourism protests, housing crises, digital nomads and Mongolia's fast-paved steppe: who really pays for the way we travel?

In most european cities, people are taken to the streets against a model of tourism that is pushing them out of their own neighbourhoods. Homes turned into holiday rentals, rents no local salary can pay, everyday life reshaped around visitors. The housing crisis is no longer a side effect of tourism: in many places, it is the price of it.

Then there are the digital nomads: remote workers who settle where their income allows them a better life, often carrying stronger currencies and visas designed just for them. Freedom for some, rising rents and displacement for others. Is this a new form of colonialism, dressed up as a lifestyle?

And far from the headlines, in Mongolia, roads, resorts and infrastructure are being built at speed, cutting through landscapes that were once reached only with time and effort, and reshaping them for the tourist who wants the steppe without the journey. What do we lose when we pave the way for convenience?

In this English edition, we bring these threads together with guests to be announced soon. What does sustainable tourism really mean, who decides, and what can we do differently as travellers? Maybe part of the answer is to slow down, and get a little lost.

UNUSUAL TALKS

An initiative by unusual voyages: informal, in-person conversations that start from real travel experiences and cross into the big questions of our time. Travel becomes a way to question normalised narratives, take apart stereotypes and rethink how we look at the world, and at each other. The aim isn't to convince anyone or reach consensus, but to make space to listen, understand complex realities and build empathy. A way to travel without leaving the room.

In November, UNUSUAL TALKS takes place at Ler Devagar bookshop, LX Factory, Lisbon. Rua Rodrigues de Faria, 103 – Building G 0.3, 1300-501 Lisboa.