Positano, Italy, Is Beautiful but Expensive and Overrun With Tourists

Thanks for signing up! Access your favorite topics in a personalized feed while you're on the go. download the app Advertisement Positano, Italy, is a lot like the "Kingsman" and "Rocketman" star Taron Egerton.

  • Positano, a colorful town on Italy's Amalfi Coast, has become a trendy spot for budding social-media influencers to visit.
  • Its kaleidoscopic terraced houses make for a great photo, but is the town itself actually worth going to?
  • I traveled all the way to southern Italy to find out.
  • Positano is not quite what it seems in the photos — you'll have to deal with inflated prices and hordes of tourists if you want to see it for yourself.
  • As is typical there, I bumped into some influencers, Christian LeBlanc and Katy Esquivel, while in the town, and they told me why it has such a big draw.
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Positano, Italy, is a lot like the "Kingsman" and "Rocketman" star Taron Egerton.

"Oh, that guy!"

They're not household names (yet), but I'd wager pretty much anyone would recognize them in a photo. That's because, over the past few years, Positano has become a trendy spot for budding social-media influencers to visit. It has even welcomed celebrities like Bradley Cooper and Irina Shayk (all good things must come to an end).

Read more: I visited Pompeii in the middle of Europe's deadly heat wave, and I couldn't believe how many tourists braved the sweltering temperatures

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It makes sense, too: Positano is stunning to behold. Its kaleidoscopic buildings cascade down the hillside like someone has spilled a giant bag of Skittles. It's the perfect spot to strike a pose, take a selfie, and get the all-important food shots all in one place.

The #Positano hashtag has been in the captions of more than 1.5 million Instagram posts, and that's without mentioning the times it has been tagged as a location.

The issue with Instagram is that you don't get the full story — as long as something looks good, it is good, according to the platform.

But what is the town itself actually like?

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I traveled all the way to southern Italy to find out whether Positano was just an Instagram thirst trap, or if it had a soul of its own.

Lo and behold, I bumped into the influencer couple Christian LeBlanc and Katy Esquivel, who have 3 million combined followers on Instagram and 7.5 million combined followers on YouTube, and spoke with them about why the town has such a big draw.

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