travel influencer speaking outside with caption 'DONT GET ME WRONG I LOVE IT BUT BE SERIOUS THIS IS LITERAL MANUAL LABOR NOT VACATION' (l) Amalfi Coast with small city (c) travel influencer speaking outside with caption 'DONT GET ME WRONG I LOVE IT BUT BE SERIOUS THIS IS LITERAL MANUAL LABOR NOT VACATION' (r)

IgorZh/Shutterstock @millenniallex/TikTok (Licensed) Remix by Caterina Cox

‘People like this are why the rest of the world hates American tourists’: Influencer’s rant about the ‘manual labor’ needed to visit the Amalfi Coast garners backlash

She also had issues with the infrastructure not being able to handle the tourism boom.

 

Michelle Jaworski

Internet Culture

Posted on Jul 13, 2023

A TikTok influencer’s video about the Amalfi Coast in Italy is getting dragged online after she detailed what it took to get to that famous location.

TikToker Lexi Jordan, who posts at @millenniallex, is filming her video from the Amalfi Coast. But in it, she’s incredibly fed up with every step it took for her to get to where she needed to go—and how none of the people whose videos ended up on her For You Page ever detailed how to get to the Amalfi Coast, noting in a caption, “Dont get me wrong I love it but be serious this is literal manual labor not vacation.”

“First of all, it’s impossible to get here. You have to fly into Naples, then you have to take a train from Naples to Sorrento,” she said. “Then, you have to stand in 90-degree weather, waiting for a ferry, to get on a ferry with all of your luggage—mind you, we’ve been in Europe for two weeks—all of your luggage, lug it onto the ferry, get to Amalfi Coast, finally.” 

@millenniallex honestly my main takeaway is if youre gonna come here dont make the same mistake i did – go for at least a week and definitely not TWO DAYS 😭 #amalficoast #eurosummer #dying ♬ original sound – Lexi Jordan

But her troubles didn’t end with her arrival on the Amalfi Coast.

“Then, to get to the highest of the high points, the beautiful hotels with the gorgeous—this?” she continued, gesturing toward the seaside view. “There’s no streets here. There’s no cars driving. So you have to walk up 160 stairs with all of your luggage to get to the top of this gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous area with these beautiful views, carry it, and also, the power went out because the Amalfi Coast doesn’t have the infrastructure to support this tourism.”

Jordan’s video is framed as a way to vent about the unforeseen hiccups in her trip and pull back the curtain about the unglamorous truth behind those travel videos. But her rant quickly went viral on multiple social media platforms as viewers were largely unsympathetic to her complaints, where they criticized her for not properly researching a place before traveling to it to her unrealistic expectations for American-style commodities in another country. In some cases, it made one of the “plot holes” of The White Lotus’ second season feel more realistic.

“🚨WARNING! TRAVEL MAY IMPLIES: TRAVELING🚨,” one person wrote.

“People like this are why the rest of the world hates American tourists, the entitlement and expectation that everything’s gonna be like a resort….” @doctorbaixue wrote.

Others pointed to the irony of complaining about the Amalfi Coast’s infrastructure being unable to support the tourism industry when she is part of the problem.

In a video no longer on her TikTok page, Jordan addressed the reactions to her first post about her trip. The video features glamour shots of the Amalfi Coast as Jordan noted that despite her complaints about carrying luggage up 160 stairs to where she stayed, she didn’t carry any of it herself; that task went to her boyfriend and the B&B host.

“The only thing I was hoping to shed some light on is that it’s not as easy to get here as some people make it seem,” Jordan explained. “It’s actually quite difficult and time-intensive. While the views are gorgeous, you’re staying along the water, there’s amazing food and amazing people, it’s not as easy as it might seem. So if you wanna come here, definitely make the time investment and plan to stay here for more than a couple of days.”

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*First Published: Jul 13, 2023, 2:05 pm CDT