A travel guide's warning to avoid Lake Tahoe may jolt the region into managing huge tourist crowds

abcnews.go.com:

Tourism officials at Lake Tahoe were surprised when a respected international travel guide included the iconic alpine lake on a list of places to stay away from this year because of the harmful ecological effects of overtourism

SAND HARBOR, Nev. — Lake Tahoe tourism officials were surprised, and a bit miffed, when a respected international travel guide put the iconic alpine lake straddling the California-Nevada line on its list of places to stay away from this year because of the harmful ecological effects of overtourism.

But with an influx of visitors and new full-time residents due to the COVID-19 pandemic already forcing local leaders to revisit the decades-old conversation about overcrowding, “Fodor's No List 2023” may have served as a wake-up call that some sort of change is necessary.

“I can’t go to my own beaches anymore,” said Susan Daniels, 70, a lifelong resident of Kings Beach, California, whose parents met at a Tahoe-area ski resort in 1952. That includes her favorite, Sand Harbor, which lies just across the Nevada border and is known for its turquoise water and rock formations. “I cannot go to Sand Harbor, where I grew up, unless I get in line at 7 in the morning.”

Since Fodor's declared last November that “Lake Tahoe has a people problem,” some unlikely voices have expressed a new willingness to consider taxes or fees on motorists — a nonstarter not long ago.

Meanwhile, local business and tourism officials are lining up behind a new effort to persuade people to check out less trafficked parts of the lake and to visit outside of high season.

The idea is to preserve a $5 billion local economy built around the tourists who come to hike, camp, boat, bike, ski and gamble, while also easing their impact on