Hotspots" represent transient but highly congested regions in wireless ad hoc networks that result in increased packet loss, end-to-end delay, and out-of-order packets delivery. We present a simple, effective, and scalable Hotspot Mitigation Protocol (HMP) where mobile nodes independently monitor local buffer occupancy, packet loss, and MAC contention and delay conditions, and take local actions in response to the emergence of hotspots, such as, suppressing new route requests and rate controlling TCP flows. HMP balances resource consumption among neighboring nodes, and improves end-to-end throughput, delay, and packet loss. Our results indicate that HMP can also improve the network connectivity preventing premature network partitions. We present analysis of hotspots, and detail the design of HMP. We evaluate the protocol's ability to effectively mitigate hotspots in mobile ad hoc networks that are based on best effort on-demand routing protocols, such as, AODV and DSR.