(
Photos: Arches, PhotoQuest/Getty; people: Philippe Beyer/EyeEm/Getty. Art: Petra Zeiler.)
Looking back now, it’s hard to believe we ran a feature story on overcrowding in 2020 that doesn’t contain a single mention of viral loads, the effectiveness of masks, or the ethics of large-scale human gatherings. Mark Sundeen’s January report, which explores how Utah’s five iconic national parks became victims of the state’s genius marketing efforts to attract tourists, now seems like a relic from another era. But one day soon, the pandemic will be in our rearview, and when that happens, the biggest issue facing adventure travel in the recent past—how do we protect the world’s most sought-after destinations from being loved to death?—is destined to dominate the future. —Chris Keyes, editor