Tread lightly

Here are some ways to visit great sites conscientiously and to avoid crowds:

Whenever possible, buy tickets in advance. In many cases, this can be done on the Internet; in others, it’s a simple matter of stopping by the ticket office a few days or even hours before you want to visit.

Check tourist brochures and guidebooks for information about admission policies and other crowd-avoidance strategies. For instance, tourist bureaus and some train stations in Paris sell visitor passes that enable tourists to go to the front of the line at site ticket booths and entrances.

Sign up for special tours, as I once did at St. Peter’s in Rome. I had to wait in line to buy a ticket for a two-hour guided visit to the Vatican Gardens, but the tour of the lovely landscaped grounds left the crowds far behind.

For every triple-starred tourist site, there is another not-so-famous and, therefore, less crowded place to see. Just north of Stonehenge in Britain, visitors can walk among and even touch the prehistoric megaliths in the stone circles at Avebury.

Plan trips to popular places at off times. Most major museums have evening hours once a week when a hush falls and the crowds thin.

— Susan Spano