Many places I go to have areas where people say “oh avoid that it’s so touristy” or they have their suggestions of “must sees”
I honestly usually don’t have issues when people say avoid it because it’s touristy because quite frankly I usually am a tourist
Yet sometimes the must sees are quite disappointing or downright awful. Of course I often feel I had to see it to realize how awful it is. Does anyone have any “must sees” that they really have not enjoyed at all
Two that come to mind for me
Leaning Tower of Pisa …. As my travel partner proclaimed OMG , it’s like a bad movie set!! And all of the vendors selling junk. Ugggh
City Museum in St. Louis. I hear people all of the time raving about City Museum, you have to go if you are in St. Louis. So of course we did…… HATED it. It was loud, overstimulating, no idea how people kept track of their children and completely disgusted trying to figure out how they could possibly keep it clean. Looked like an absolute germ factory and I am the furthest thing from a germ a phobe!’
Las Vegas - were told we “had” to see it. No, we didn’t. We all wished we had spent more time in Death Valley.
Mt Rushmore - our oldest chose it as his destination on one of our trips (we let each kid pick a destination). None of us were thrilled. We loved the nearby Badlands though.
We also love Niagara Falls, but only the parts dealing with the falls themselves (Maid of the Mist, tunnels, Goat Island, etc) - and eating Poutine when on the Canadian side. We don’t get involved with all the other stuff there.
As someone who loves the history of popular culture, I enjoy going to tourist traps because they’re tourist traps, especially if they depict history in any way. BUT I go to them for that reason not because I think they represent the area or subject better than anything else.
Timely thread. Yesterday I was thinking back to our Feb 2022 vacation in Waikiki Beach. I know many people have good memories of Polynesian Plantation (Cultural Center_, but recent review were mixed. Since we had no rental car, it would have been a pricey full day bus tour.
We opted to instead do a full day bus tour loop of North Shore (without Polynesian). It was fantastic, including a fabulous shrimp food truck lunch. Well, the last stop at Dole plantation was a bit tourist trappy, since there was not enough time to get out for actual tour of the grounds. No regrets, but if we are ever back on Oahu we’d consider at stop at Polynesian.
We were lucky to go with friends who hired a VIP guide, but none of kids or adults liked it much. Maybe the kids were too told (10 and 12 and our friends’ kids were 9 and 11).
We all enjoyed ourselves and being together, but no one is willing to ever go back.
We’ve been to Disney world so many times! My kids have always loved it. As a matter of fact, last spring break we were in Norway and had a wonderful time. Was thinking of doing something similar this year - my S22 asked if we could do Disney again.
Gatlinburg, TN is a nightmare! We entered Great Smoky Mt NP from the south and exited out through Gatlinburg. Bad decision!
Another nightmare was a waterfall we visited in Bali. Full of Instagrammers and the water in the pool below was very dirty. We all enjoyed our family only bike ride through villages and rice paddies and our bird walk much more. The monkey forest in Ubud was touristy, but the monkeys were so cute (if you left them alone), that we enjoyed it also.
Seems like so many places are becoming tourist traps these days. Every where you go, there’s a damn zip line.
Our tour company for our recent Costa Rica trip was great in that they booked us in places that were away from the crowds, except for one stop, but our private tour guide made it worthwhile.
Neuchwanstein Castle in Germany. The pictures of it are breathtaking, and the outside is lovely. But it’s a pain to get to and the “village” around it is tourist trap-py in the extreme, and it’s not that cool on the inside. We all felt like we wasted most of a day in trying to see it.
We had a strong dislike for Savannah Georgia. It was just….blah. Basic shops and dining, kind of dirty. We did a ghost tour - it was just ok. Felt like it was unsafe in many areas. Just not what I expected. We were done with it in a few hours.
Just about any place in the Caribbean when you get off a cruise ship. A few years ago I took an New England/Canada cruise out of Baltimore. Great cruise but what I noticed the most is not having to run the “gauntlet” every time I left the ship.
