Why Is Everyone Suddenly Obsessed With Traveling Here?

First thing’s first: Tomato Girl Summer. It’s a TikTok trend that revolves around the “Tomato Girl” aesthetic. Not familiar? Let’s get you up to speed. According to Women’s Wear Daily, tomato girl trend is “all about embracing the themes of a romantic European summer, which in, most cases, is very reminiscent of the tomato itself: bold, vibrant and delicious.” So, contrary to logic, it actually has little to with the actual fruit and everything to do with Italian weather-inspired outfits, spritzes and the color red. For its part, Tomato Girl Summer, “encourages non-voyagers to cosplay a vacation to Southern Europe, particularly Italy,” according to Vogue.

Of course, the Tomato Girl aesthetic isn’t new. It’s La Dolce Vita with a coastal twist. “It is harmonious with the idea of slow travel, a certain type of Provençal lifestyle — the kind where everyone has the time to grow their own vegetables and still get dressed up for lunch and dinner to show off their chilled rosé wine by an (immaculate-looking) pool,” Alex Ledsom wrote in a new report for Forbes.

So what, pray tell, does this have to do with you, who is not a Tomato Girl?

Where Do We Draw the Line With Selfie Tourists?

Selfie at a Miranda Lambert concert? OK. Selfie in the middle of the Tour de France that causes a major crash? Not OK.

Well, it’s successfully perpetuated the obsession with Southern Europe and, more specifically, Italy, that we’ve been seeing for the past few years now even further. Everyone is after the Amalfi Coast lifestyle, if not literally, than figuratively. It’s all relatively harmless as TikTok trends go (it’s mostly girls in New York pretending they aren’t in New York), save for the fact that Southern Italy, in particular, is not hurting for tourists. And that these things very often have a way of creeping into real life.

Take Sicily, for example. After serving as the backdrop to the second season of HBO’s The White Lotus, internet searches for Sicily saw a marked increase with the Four Seasons’ San Domenico Palace, Taormina, the series’ filming location. And Sicily has been a popular vacation destination for years, long before the airing of the second season. So now imagine what a “marked increase” might entail.

“We live in a time when aesthetics and vibes are the markers by which people go by when choosing a vacation. People used to care about the activities and food, but now people find the aesthetics just as important,” writer and influencer Evan Ross Katz recently told Observer.

In short, if you’re headed to the Mediterranean anytime in the foreseeable future, be prepared for the Tomato Girls living out their Tomato Girl Summer IRL. They’ll be the ones worried about filming themselves on vacation, rather than, ya know, vacationing.