My Favorite City in the World Is Overcrowded—Here’s How I Planned an Off-the-beaten-path Trip

Last fall, I went on an exhilarating trip to Barcelona. 

If I mention this to friends, they tend to bring up the water-pistol protests. In July 2024, some Barcelona residents sprayed water at tourists eating on Las Ramblas, a storied pedestrian street. The people deploying the pistols were taking part in a larger protest against a tourism surge that, in 2023, brought an estimated 16 million visitors to a city with 1.7 million inhabitants. Before I went, I read about packed streets lined with shops selling cheap trinkets and bachelor-party revelers. It didn’t sound like a place anyone would want to visit. It also didn’t sound much like the Barcelona I used to know. 

I first visited the city as a college student, when I took a summer job in Madrid, and fell for it to such an extent that, for a while, I jumped at every chance I could to return. I went to Barcelona during my honeymoon; when my partner’s work required that he travel to Barcelona, I tagged along. Craving the city’s architecture, food, art, and nightlife, I ended up visiting half a dozen times, but I hadn’t been back in a decade. How much could Barcelona have changed in those years? 

I also heard the government was taking major steps toward making the city a more livable place for residents, including setting up superillas, or superblocks—streets open mainly to pedestrians and cyclists, with pocket parks at the intersections. (My friend Erin Nixon, who until recently ran a wine bar in the El Born district, described the superblocks as “game changers.”) Hoping to counteract prohibitive housing costs, the city’s mayor has also committed to completely phasing out short-term rentals, such as those found on Airbnb, by 2029. 

Tourism supplies 14 percent of Barcelona’s gross domestic product. Might there still be ways for people to visit the city responsibly that both locals and visitors would welcome? If so, what would such a trip look like?

When I landed in Barcelona on a brisk October morning, I began hearing stories somewhat complicating what I’d been reading about tourism. Red Savannah, a U.K.-based tour company, had put me in touch with a Catalan culinary-tour organization cofounded by Barcelona native Àlex Cardona. That morning, one of its guides, who asked to go by the name Alex P., took me on a brief stroll down Las Ramblas. Within minutes, I could easily see that the boulevard had become crowded and kitschy, hectic with vendors peddling souvenirs. The oldest and most famous market on the street, La Boqueria, seemed more like a fun-house hallucination of the tourist’s idea of Barcelona than a living, integral part of the city. 

Alex P. pointed out plastic cups filled with cut fruit, paper-cone bouquets of jamón and chips, and juice stands—much of the food and drink sold at La Boqueria is designed for tourists to eat while walking. Selfie-takers proliferated. The place bore little relation to La Boqueria’s legendary past as a place where residents did their daily shopping. While it does still contain gems—El Quim, for instance, is beloved for tapas—it was a market, Cardona later told me, where he and his father no longer felt relevant.

But then we took a short walk into the Sant Antoni neighborhood, and I felt as if I’d stepped through a magic portal into a different city. We stopped at another market, the Mercat de Sant Antoni, its stalls housed in an elegant, intricately tiled building. Inside was the Barcelona of my memories, as though I’d moved not just through space but also time. It was bright, calm, and spacious, the skylights high, the loudest noise the slap of fresh squid on a countertop. Most of the shoppers had the appearance of locals going about their day’s business, conversing in Spanish and Catalan. 

We walked past charcuteries, fishmongers, shops specializing in the prized tinned foods called conservas, and a stall offering nothing but a magnificent variety of eggs. Intoxicated by the market’s sights and smells, I was glad to stop at Bar Pinotxo, a celebrated tapas spot that, a few months earlier, had relocated from La Boqueria. We ordered cava and some dishes the waiter recommended: garbanzo beans with blood sausage; sautéed mushrooms. They were delicious, with Catalan flavors I can’t quite find outside the region. 

Just as we left the market, we walked through my first superilla. People were sitting on schoolbus-yellow benches and eating at tables under wide trees that provided ample shade. Quiet pervaded the space: it felt akin to a small, tranquil park. Alex P. said that the superblocks had at first been controversial, with opposition coming from commuters, taxi drivers, and delivery people. But they had turned out to be exceedingly popular—so popular, in fact, that Barcelona plans to install more than 500 superblocks by 2030 and make major avenues largely car-free.

From the superilla, we headed to Latorre Punset. This tiny shop specializes in foods suited to l’hora del vermut, the Catalan tradition of a pre-lunch snack and vermouth. Catalan vermut, which has been making a comeback over the past decade, has little in common with the astringent drink dashed into American martinis; it’s made from fortified red or white wine gloriously seasoned with herbs and spices. Latorre Punset’s house vermut was piquant and complex, my favorite of the trip. It paired well with the shop’s berberechos, exquisite little cockles that we doused in a spicy red sauce by local brand Salsa Espinaler and ate with potato chips. 

I’d have ordered more, but we had another stop ahead: Va de Cuina, celebrity chef Jordi Vilà’s specialty-food and takeout shop just a block from Mercat de Sant Antoni. As we walked there, I tipped my head upward to revel in the architectural details: an astonishingly heterogenous array of finials, scrollwork, turrets, spires, and balconies. When I looked down, I saw an expanse of panots, the decorative paving tiles designed by Gaudí and others. As I walked the long, tony Passeig de Gràcia, I could identify Gaudí’s tiles by their serpentine curves, spirals, and shell motifs: the effect is as fanciful as anything at Parc Güell. With every step, I felt as though I was taking in more of the city’s singular grace.

Later, I asked Àlex Cardona what he thought sustainable tourism in Barcelona might look like. He said that most visitors spend their time at the city’s best-known attractions—Las Ramblas; the Barri Gòtic, the center of the old city; and Antoni Gaudí’s Parc Güell and Sagrada Família basilica. While Gaudí’s extravagant creations, in particular, are perhaps too spectacular to miss, there is much beauty and history elsewhere in this millennia-old city. 

Cardona suggests that travelers try to support local businesses as they explore—not chains, but places where the owners actually work. People should also try to understand the diversity of the culture. As recently as last spring, polls showed that almost half the population of Catalonia would choose to be independent from the rest of Spain. Catalonia has two official languages, Catalan and Spanish; especially outside of Barcelona, locals may be more likely to converse in Catalan. “There is no such thing as ‘Spanish’ food,” Cardona went on: regions such as Catalonia, Andalusia, and the Basque country each have their own distinct cuisines. 

Chef Vilà grew up outside Barcelona in El Papiol, a Catalan town surrounded by kitchen gardens, and he conceived of Va de Cuina as a place to sell his versions of the traditional soups, terrines, conservas, and desserts of his childhood. We tasted his grandmother’s recipe for paté, a chicken paste so distinctive that I promptly resolved to make a full meal of his food. 

Al Kostat, chef Vilà’s more casual Sant Antoni restaurant, shares a space with Alkimia, which is more formal and Michelin-starred. (Cardona told me Al Kostat is where he goes to celebrate his birthday with his parents.) The restaurant’s interior is striking, with luminous jellyfish decorations and a hallway adorned with what appears to be a vast, stylized fish skeleton. But as I began eating, I quickly forgot the décor and was instead captivated by the chef’s inspired takes on traditional Catalan dishes, as well as inventions of his own. I still long for his delicate oysters topped with scrambled eggs, chicken cannelloni, and buttery pumpkin cappuccino.

I kept going back to Sant Antoni throughout my trip, but what I valued about the place—its relative quiet, almost ubiquitous beauty, and superb shops and restaurants—isn’t unique to this one neighborhood. I enjoyed just strolling around Barcelona. In daytime the city’s visual splendors filled my sight; come evening, I loved Barcelona’s ebullience, the liveliness of its plazas, the way I could walk the streets after midnight and feel anything but alone. And very often, I could avoid excessive tourist hordes by going ever so slightly off the city’s best-known paths. 

I spent part of an afternoon gallery-hopping along Carrer del Consell de Cent, a serene superilla adjacent to Passeig de Gràcia. The galleries I visited were empty except for the people working there. When I wanted a break, I had no trouble finding a spot at Al Kostat. It can be harder to get a reservation at Bar Cañete, an in-demand restaurant a block away from Las Ramblas where I dined another night. But if you’re willing to eat dinner when Catalans do—at 10 o’clock or later—you should be able to get a seat. 

Bar Cañete gets its fish and seafood from Catalan fish markets, and the produce is locally grown. I won’t easily forget its open-faced omelette or the gazpacho, which was some of the silkiest I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating. A band was playing out in the street. When they covered a recognizable song, the diners, a vivacious mix of locals and foreigners, sang along. As a karaoke enthusiast, I’m always looking for an excuse to sing with other people; I could imagine that, if I lived in Barcelona, I would become a Bar Cañete regular. 

Located on a hill with sweeping views of the city, the Fundació Joan Miró is rightly popular. The playfulness in Miró’s art seems to take hold of the crowds, who become excited and animated. But fewer people know to visit Espai 13, the contemporary art space in the museum’s basement. Miró conceived of Espai 13 as a place for new generations of artists to show their work. I wouldn’t visit the foundation without also seeing the latest basement exhibition. 

Even at Casa Batlló, a Gaudí-designed house where it’s not really possible to avoid crowds, there’s only a short wait if you get tickets for a 9 p.m. slot, right before they close. Casa Batlló is perhaps the Gaudí creation I love most. When I visited, I had just published my second novel, Exhibit, after years of obsessive, at times all-consuming work. I’d routinely slept three or four hours a night, the novel’s needs often prevailing over those of my body. On better days, I knew it was the privilege of my life to be so preoccupied with anything; on others, I had trouble recalling why I’d allowed the pursuit of art to define my existence. 

But as I saw people laughing with delight in Casa Batlló’s exuberant, fantastical rooms, eagerly calling to their friends to come look at the next wonder, as I marveled at what can be interpreted as a dragon lolling across the curving roof, I found myself in tears, my half-spent capacity for joy returning. Here was the fruit of someone else’s obsessions, and this was part of the why: art could bring such rejoicing. For a while, I had almost let myself forget. 

I experienced delight again while eating at Aürt, a restaurant fixated on getting as much as possible from the ingredients at hand. One ingenious dish featured a tomato that had been dehydrated, then rehydrated in concentrated tomato water—the tomato deepened by more of itself. Chef Artur Martínez said he adapts to the calendar of local vegetables. “We cook what we have,” he said. “We go with what the suppliers can provide.” 

I spoke with one of those suppliers, fisherwoman Cristina Caparrós, on a pier in La Barceloneta. In the 1970s, she told Cardona and me, the wharf had 109 boats; 15 years ago, it had 23 boats; now they are down to 15. She’s afraid of losing everything within five years. 

I asked what, if anything, travelers could do to be helpful. First of all, visit the city, Caparrós said. Despite reports of overtourism, Barcelona still needs some of the business.

Cardona then added, “Don’t eat salmon.” It would help, he said, if people cared more about where products came from. Wild salmon comes from Norway. Why not eat Catalan-sourced food when you’re in Catalonia? And there is too much demand in Barcelona for octopus, Caparrós added; to fill it, octopus is being brought in from Morocco. 

Gergő Borbély, a diver and oenologist, echoed others’ points about exploring beyond the obvious and going to locally owned restaurants, bars, and providers. “Some people believe Barcelona doesn’t need tourists,” he said. “Some people believe the earth is flat.” 

We were out on a sailboat, tasting wine from a bottle encrusted with beige, curling lines: algae that lent the bottle the look of a treasure retrieved from a shipwreck. Borbély and his wife, marine biologist Mariona Alabau, are the cofounders of ElixSea, which works with Catalan vintners to age wine at the bottom of the sea. With the increased pressure, constant temperatures, and micro-vibrations of the seafloor, Borbély said, wine can mature four to five times faster than it does on land. The submerged cellars also create temporary artificial reefs that attract marine life. Cephalopods, including octopuses, lay eggs in these artificial reefs, and ElixSea has worked with a conservation organization that helps incubate any eggs that go unhatched. 

Borbély poured generously from ElixSea-aged wines: first a cava, then white wine from the Empordà region, and finally a red Priorat from Catalonia. The sail flapped. We’d gone far enough from shore that I could see the spires of the Sagrada Família, the hill on which the Fundació Joan Miró sits, and the palm trees lining the beach—this city I love, shining in the last rays of daylight. 

Where to Stay

Almanac Barcelona: An appealingly understated hotel in L’Eixample district, with 91 rooms and suites that evoke a variety of design eras, from Art Deco to the present. The breakfast is superlative.

Cotton House Hotel, Autograph Collection: Cotton production was an important (and complicated) chapter in Catalonia’s history. The onetime headquarters of the Cotton Textile Foundation, in L’Eixample, was converted into this luxurious hotel in 2015.

Majestic Hotel & Spa: Some suites at this historic hotel on Passeig de Gràcia have glass-walled balconies. From the roof-deck pool, you can see almost all of Barcelona.

Where to Eat and Drink

Al Jaima De Abou Khalil: This handsome restaurant in L’Eixample serves excellent Lebanese food.

Al Kostat: The menu at chef Jordi Vilà’s outstanding à la carte restaurant mixes traditional Catalan dishes with inventions of his own.

Aürt: At his Michelin-starred restaurant, Artur Martínez builds a tasting menu around ingredients sourced from local suppliers.

Bar Cañete: A lauded tapas place in El Raval. Things heat up around 10 p.m.

Bar PINOTxO: Established in 1940, this classic tapas counter recently moved to the Mercat de Sant Antoni.

Cal Pep: Open since 1989, this restaurant makes a superb tortilla; it has a nearly molten center of egg and is topped with aioli.

Disfrutar: This Michelin three-star carries on the modernist-cuisine legacy of El Bulli. Be prepared for 28 courses served over four hours.

El Racó de l’Agüir: Extraordinary dishes steps from the Sant Antoni market. Try the signature baked arroz quatretondeta, made with chorizo, ribs, chickpeas, and botifarra sausage.

La Cova Fumada: The family-run tapas bar that created the bomba, a now-classic Catalan dish composed of a deep-fried ball of potato and spicy pork or beef topped with aioli.

Mont Bar: This innovative Michelin-starred restaurant is also refreshingly casual.

Suru: A Catalan-Japanese restaurant that gets its ingredients fresh from the splendid Mercat del Ninot, just across the street.

Ultramarinos MarÍn: Fresh local seafood and meats, hot off the grill or from the wood-fired oven. Chef Borja García trained at Noma and the Basque destination restaurant Asador Etxebarri.

Where to Shop

Latorre Punset: A shop with a small bar that serves fantastic tinned berberechos, or cockles, a wonderful accompaniment to a glass of the house vermut. Check out its sister store, Conservas Latorre.

Mercat del Ninot: A beloved market in L’Eixample with food shops as well as stalls that sell clothing, jewelry, and books. 

Mercat de Sant Antoni: A 143-year-old food market where residents shop for the day’s groceries. 

Va de Cuina: Fantastic to-go food from chef Jordi Vilà, including soups, terrines, conservas, and desserts.

What to Do

Basílica de la Sagrada Família: Visiting this masterpiece by Antoni Gaudí is inevitably chaotic, but seeing it feels like approaching a portal to wonder. For decades it has been the largest unfinished Catholic church in the world; while the interior is finally complete, work on the exterior continues. Get tickets in advance.

Casa Batlló: One of Gaudí’s most popular buildings. If it’s after 6 p.m., you’ll receive a glass of cava as you walk through the house. 

ElixSea: Take a ride on a sailboat while tasting and learning about the Catalan wines ElixSea ages in the sea. 

Fundació Joan Miró: The artist Joan Miró created this building in collaboration with the architect Josep Lluís Sert. Make sure to stop by Espai 13, a basement space devoted to the work of contemporary artists. 

Galeria Mayoral: Located on a tree-lined superilla next to other worthwhile galleries, including Galeria Joan Gaspar and 3 Punts Galeria.

Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya: This museum of Catalan art has broad views of Barcelona. 

Projecte SD: A superb gallery founded in 2003, located next to the galleries Galeria Marc Domènech and Estrany-de la Mota Art Advisors. 

How to Book

Clare Watkins ([email protected]), the Europe travel specialist at U.K.-based tour company Red Savannah, can custom-design a Barcelona itinerary with a focus on responsible tourism. Other options include an art-focused tour, with stops in Barcelona and Madrid, and a Catalonia food-and-drink itinerary with visits to family-owned wineries and a Wagyu-beef farm.

A version of this story first appeared in the April 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “A Better Barcelona.”