52 Shocking Travel Destinations That Failed to Impress Even the Most Eager Tourists
Go to the Grand Tetons instead if you’re in the area.
Istanbul. I’ve been there twice and i get the feeling that people are kind of rude and there is a lot of scammers on the loose. And I was expecting a rich gastronomy but it was pretty basic. I hope I can visit other parts of Turkey and change my mind.
Amsterdam, too many tourists and expats. I live there, so take my word for it.
Philippines – had a person from an organized crime syndicate call my hotel room pretending to be a driver for prearranged travel. Hotel said someone must have leaked my personal information – and moved me to another floor. I contacted my travel agent – requested a different hotel, they said I was already in the safest hotel in Manila.
Seoul was just not my vibe. All the main sites were just Instagram traps, I found people quite rude and food was meh for the price. I’d rather fly to Japan.
Los Angeles.
Poverty, dereliction, homelessness.
Everybody had nothing to do, or in a big hurry to be somewhere else.
At least we saw the stereotypical overturned car causing a huge tailback on the freeway.
Only saw downtown and route to/from airport.
St Lucia. Beautiful island, but people constantly bother you while trying to relax. Start up fake conversations to sell you something. Ask for tips and get mad when you don’t. Wonderful island, not such wonderful people. Made the entire honeymoon non-relaxed.
Hawaii. Not a fan of resorts, did the island in a camper van. It was beautiful but on the north side it was sometimes hard to feel safe at night. The first night I stayed in a hostel in Honolulu. I locked my backpack up in one of the designated lockers and left for a few hours. Someone broke into the locker and stole my stuff. .
Indianapolis. No disrespect intended, but I was completely underwhelmed. Hotel called the downtown location was a 15 minute taxi from downtown. There was simply nothing to do entertainment wise. Food was almost all mid fast food. Hooters, Buffalo Wild Wings, etc. People were nice, but the place was so boring. Went for Big 10 basketball tourney. The city didn’t even seem to notice. If there were any outside events, they were not promoted. Even the venue was lame. And the food there was worse than 7-11. Way worse. Like, middle school cafeteria free food bad. I feel sorry for Pacers fans.
Seville, Spain. Happened to go there right at the beginning of Feria last year. It was 96F (35C) during the day in April, lows in the upper 70s (27C) and I genuinely don’t understand how people were wearing full-on suits and thick-a*s dresses without passing out.
Food was cheap, but also just… not great. The croquets were just breaded fried hunks of meat+cheese that didn’t have much going on in terms of flavor or character. The Spanish restaurants in my end of California are *miles(kilometers)* better than what we had in Seville. The coffee/espresso was awful too.
My wife passes as both white and hispanic (she is half Irish and half Mexican), so initially the locals thought she was also Spanish. But the moment she started to speak *Mexican* Spanish, they instantly turned from friendly to scowl – god forbid we try and speak *their* language. The men were misogynistic as hell.
The buildings were super pretty, though.
(On another note, Dublin was a 10/10 experience. Even the super-touristy Guinness Brewery tour was great, and I highly recommend doing the private tasting experience. Food in Dublin was actually, really, really good and orders of magnitude better than Irish food in rural Ireland. We still have our taxi driver’s phone number and he chatted with us about pretty much everything during our trip, and made us feel like we were coming home. The Irish countryside was absolutely beautiful.).
Russia, Moscow specifically, it’s the arsehole of the Universe.
Such miserable, unhelpful twats.
And it smells like the 70’s – oil, petrol, bleach, poverty, cabbage, tramps.
Don’t think of going unless you’re on a “tour”.
Montreal. Overly touristy, everything felt very fake, the locals clearly didn’t like tourists nor want them there, it was dirty, and the homeless population were aggressive.
Mallorca – It’s a beautiful island, peaceful and full of nice people. However it’s almost exclusively tourists, there are so many that you feel like you are essentially just ruining somebody’s otherwise lovely home by your visit. I wouldn’t visit Spain again, beautiful place, great food, fantastic culture, but I’d rather leave it for the Spanish to enjoy.
I just came back from Tulum and I wholeheartedly agree! The taxis were a rip off ($110) just to go 8 minutes down the road, the beaches were full of sargassum seaweed, and most of the food was subpar.
New Delhi. Well, I don’t know how popular it really is, but I never ever want to go back. Felt like I had smoked 50 cigarettes and got tricked at every corner.
Cairo, Alexandria, Luxor in Egypt. Simply put, just go somewhere else, especially if you’re a woman – worse if you have blond hair.
Paris. The city is beautiful, but the streets kinda smell like p**s.
Rome, thiefs everwhere, police wont do a thing (ig they are also involved) and every 2 minutes some indian guy is trying to sell you a selfie stick.
Barcelona. Truthfully I didn’t hate it and had a nice time, but seeing the *tourists go home* graffiti and subsequently reading about the problems of overtourism made me decide it’s best not to go again. Also I’ve been to Malaga and Andalucia and the food and overall *vibe* was much better in both places.
Niagara Falls.
My parents were insistent on being there for two days. Way too touristy for my liking. I was also 18 at the time so I couldn’t even take advantage of being able to have a drink or go to the casinos on the Canadian side.
