A ridge with sweeping views across Jotunheimen, a mountain region in southern Norway, seemed like the perfect hiking route for tour operator Georg Sichelschmidt to bring visitors. Then locals informed him it was home to nesting eagles.

The trail remained open. But Sichelschmidt didn't want to disturb the apex predators at home in the massive peaks, dotted with turquoise lakes and glaciers.

"We decided not to use this trail anymore. We had to find another solution," said Sichelschmidt, who runs nature-based tourism company JVB travel.

Norway's right-to-roam rules, known as allemannsretten, give people broad access to nature regardless of land ownership but also require them to respect it. For Sichelschmidt, who moved from Germany to Norway 16 years ago for its nature, the decision was an easy choice.

But with climate change reshaping summer travel, protecting nature will require far more than individual decisions. According to a 2026 OECD tourism trends report, longer and more intense heat waves across southern Europe are helping drive interest in cooler destinations. That shift is raising concerns about whether nature in countries like Norway can withstand growing visitor numbers.

Is the heat changing the way we travel?

The travel industry has coined the term "coolcation" to promote the shift in summer travel habits. It's too early to know how widespread the trend is, said Daniel Scott, a professor specializing in climate and tourism at Canada's University of Waterloo.

Booking companies, hotels, and airlines don't publish data showing how many travelers switch destinations because of heat alone, he said. Still, he added, "we know that people are thinking about it. Some say they are acting on it."

Sichelschmidt said he's seeing the trend firsthand. Partner tour operators offering trips to Mediterranean and the Nordic regions report growing interest in "active" northern vacations, such as hiking and biking, during summer.

"It is difficult to go hiking in France, Spain or Italy in July and August when it is 40 degrees [Celsius, 104 Fahrenheit] plus. The Nordics are a good option to escape from that," he said, adding that Mediterranean travel is shifting to spring and autumn.

More visitors, more pressure on nature

Northern Norway already offers a glimpse of what rising visitor numbers can mean for fragile environments.

Lofoten, with its dramatic cliffs, deep fjords and wild beaches, is home to around 25,000 people. In 2025, it recorded more than 807,000 commercial guest nights, according to Statistics Norway. Increased interest in cooler vacations could add to existing pressure on nature there.

The archipelago is home to hundreds of bird species, including a colony of puffins that could be disturbed by growing visitor numbers. Nesting birds are vulnerable in late summer. But other wildlife can be impacted too, including reindeer during calving season in May and early June, said Elina Hutton, a tourism researcher at UiT The Arctic University of Norway.

Lofoten's coastal heathland, bogs, and alpine vegetation are also highly vulnerable to foot traffic. When hikers walk on wet ground, they can damage roots and strip away the thin soil covering mountain bedrock.

Using satellite data, Hutton tracks how growing visitor numbers are impacting trails on Lofoten. Along the route to Kvalvika Beach, an isolated bay only reachable by foot, the worst trails have widened to about 20 meters (65 feet), destroying surrounding vegetation. Northern ecosystems recover slowly from damage.

"That kind of damage is pretty much permanent here," said Hutton, who urged visitors to stick to established trails rather than seeking out "hidden gems" to post on social media.

Managing tourism, not just promoting it

Sichelschmidt believes tour operators can help reduce environmental harm by steering visitors onto well-managed trails, while avoiding the most sensitive areas.

"When we're talking about a large number of people, we need to direct them to where they can go so that the trails can be maintained without destroying nature," he added.

But decisions like Sichelschmidt's to avoid the eagle's nest cannot be left entirely to tour operators. Destinations will have to decide where visitors should go, which areas need greater protection, and how much pressure nature can sustain.

Norway is already experimenting with ways to manage tourism. Under a new law, communities facing particularly high tourism pressure will be allowed to charge a 3% accommodation tax starting in 2027. Hutton said the tax would not reduce visitor numbers but could help in other ways.

"At least it gives us a bit more tools, a bit more money to build better trails, to build better toilets and have better infrastructure to receive this number of tourists," she said.

Some countries are offering ecotourism initiatives that involve visitors in nature conservation work. In the Faroe Islands, for example, the "Closed for Maintenance" initiative invites volunteers to repair trails and maintain natural areas before they reopen to visitors

Still, destinations, municipalities and tourism businesses need to consider how many visitors they can accommodate and spread tourism evenly throughout the year, Hutton told DW. "It's not good for anybody if we just get more tourists," she said.

Even 'cool' destinations are warming

But as humans continue to burn the fossil fuels heating the planet, the search for reliably cool destinations is becoming harder. Daniel Scott shared preliminary findings from an unpublished study with DW examining how heat risk is changing across Euromonitor's top 100 global city destinations.

The research suggests tourists will increasingly be exposed to higher temperatures and more frequent heat-related risks.

According to the analysis, only nine cities, including Dublin, Auckland and San Francisco, averaged fewer than 10 days per year with temperatures of 32C or higher between 2015 and 2025.

By the 2050s, that number is projected to fall by more than half, highlighting how even traditionally cooler destinations are expected to become significantly warmer.

Hutton finds it concerning to see destinations welcome tourism business opportunities created by Europe's extreme heat. "The same climate change impacts us too in one way or another, and no destination is going to be a winner when the situation evolves like this."

As more vacationers seek cooler weather, Sichelschmidt has decided not to use the term "coolcation" in his company's marketing.

"We don't want to use this situation for promotion," he said. "It's a real situation, but it's sad that we have to talk about it — or that we realize that we are destroying our planet and things change so fast."

Edited by: Jennifer Collins