Of late, I’ve been feeling insanely selfish and protective of many of the places I’ve been fortunate enough to visit over the past few years. Stunning locations that are close to my heart, mountains that showed me the life-saving power of wilderness, places where I’ve made warm memories and close friends. Places that are now slowly being dragged out of the safety of anonymity, ritually drowning in litter, noise and Insta-fame.

I just did a quick Google search on “Instagram ruining places” to find the search pages filled with never ending articles and stories of people being stupid for the sake of likes on the current darling of social media platforms. It is clear Instagram is here to stay and it is also clear Instagram is ruining places. Take New Zealand’s Wanaka Tree or Norway’s Trolltunga or Greece’s Santorini Sunset Point or Sweden’s Broccoli Tree among many others. All these places hit their peak popularity on Instagram and have already paid the price for being Insta-famous.

This new medium to show off perfect lives, score brownie points for daredevilry and brag about how clued in one is to the current zeitgeist of being an “intrepid explorer”, is coming at a great cost. Not only are our beautiful places are being lost to irresponsible tourism, lives are also being lost in the process. I cannot dictate how much one should be invested in their vanity but what I’m really concerned about is the environmental cost of this new obsession.

Closer to home, I can offer Ladakh’s Chadar trek, Maharashtra’s many dizzying fort hikes in Sahyadris, Himachal’s Jibhi as examples of places “discovered” on Instagram that are now facing the unmitigated wrath of the masses. If the rest of the world is on one level, India is on another level altogether when it comes to our population and the mind-boggling potential we have in unleashing swift destruction of the places we love.