Tourism is big business. Cities spend vast sums attracting visitors, promoting landmarks and polishing their image. What they’re far less good at is thinking through the experience of actually being there. How a place works once you arrive. How you move around it. What makes sense, what doesn’t, and what quietly undermines the affection people might otherwise develop for a city.

In this episode, Iain Montgomery is joined by Maryam Siddiqui, a Toronto-based travel and culture journalist who came to travel writing sideways rather than by design. Starting out in PR before moving into business journalism, then arts and culture, Maryam brings a critical, socially minded lens to how cities are marketed, experienced and lived in.

Our conversation treats tourism not as leisure, but as a stress test for cities. We talk about over-tourism and t ...