28 The Grand Strand; Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
If you’ve never visited Myrtle Beach, you’ve most likely at least heard about the overcrowded beaches, inflated prices, and tourist traps. For the locals, this overwhelming tourist population (14 million per year) floods the beaches, resorts, and restaurants every year in the warmer months. Many residents blame the recent crime spikes on the influx of tourism, with one woman articulating in a Facebook post, which went viral: “Your tourist shops are filled with scams, your hotels are filled with bedbugs, your restaurants are filled with roaches. You allow tourists on unregistered, unlicensed, untraceable scooters to ride on sidewalks, pass cars in the middle of traffic or wherever without consequence. They hit cars and pedestrians and simply flee.”
