Travel with Tom Breathnach: Why we need to go off the beaten track this summer

"The challenge now is to train tourists to be a little more intrepid and live for the experience — not the comment count."

View from Roys Peak near the city of Wanaka, New Zealand. 

New Zealand really can seem to do no wrong at the moment. This week, the country’s national tourist board launched a fresh marketing campaign urging tourists to filter Instagram hotspots from their travel itineraries and not to travel “under the social influence”. 

It’s seriously slick — and funny. In the Do Something New advert, a hapless ranger serving with the S.O.S. (the Social Observation Squad, of course), chases down tourists at the country’s most trending photo locations, before relocating them to hidden gems elsewhere. But beyond the Kiwi humour, it all prompts the wider travel question of whether we as tourists choose our destinations by desire… or design?