I love Williamsburg for both current reasons (in recent years they’ve greatly improved the diversity of their history telling) and sentimental reasons (a trip there when I was 11 in 1974 set off my love for history) and even chose to recently spend my 60th birthday there staying in one of the historic buildings. I also have long called it “Disney World for history nerds.”
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I think some of the places mentioned were once nicer less touristy places to go to until “everyone” started going there. A few have been mentioned that I went to years ago and don’t remember them being so crowded (ie unable to enjoy them as previously) when I’ve been back in recent years.
I’ve gotten several ideas from this thread for future trips!
South of the Border is never ever going to be as good as the billboards. It is a perfect example of marketing genius. I begged my parents to stop in the 1970s and my kids begged us to stop in the 2010s.
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When I was in high school, my family took a trip to Colorado. One of my favorite parts was going to several little historic mining towns. Cute shops and restaurants, plus interesting history. When I went back as an adult, I was appalled. There were almost NO cute shops - just one small casino after another! To even eat lunch, we had to walk through a casino. It was depressing.
I love Fisherman’s Wharf.
I did a lot of road trips in the West as a kid. I was very excited to take my own kids on their first big road trip out West. They were 10 and 12.
We flew into Vegas in Feb, when it was very cold at night. The success of this trip was 100% due to us doing it in the winter. Almost everywhere we went was deserted, for reasons which will be made clear.
We did the classic “circular” route:
- Hoover Dam
- Grand Canyon (with a pit stop in Chloride, AZ.)
Mule ride to the bottom with an overnight stay at Phantom Ranch. Amazing. Encountered a horribly scary, but in retrospect, exciting snowstorm on the way back up. This became a legendary family story, and to this day, we say that something is “Mule Ride Cold” if it’s the coldest thing you can imagine. - Harrowing drive through same terrible snowstorm with a long pit stop in Flagstaff at a Denny’s, where hubby and I argued about whether or not to continue to Monument Valley and the appropriately named The View hotel. We continued and it was worth it in the morning.
- Monument Valley
- Four Corners
- Mesa Verde National Park, which was super cool. This was followed by another harrowing drive in the snow as we wound down the mountains out of the park. But we saw a bobcat so that was cool.
- The Arches
- Canyonlands
- Goblin Valley
- Capitol Reef, where we got very stuck in mud in our two wheel drive Vegas rental car. This was a scary situation because there was nobody in the park. Miraculously, a man in a red van came along by chance. He had everything needed to pull us out. I’m not religious, but he did have a beard, so…
- Bryce Canyon
- Kodachrome Park
- Zion
- Grafton, Utah, a very neat ghost town. We were the only ones there.
- Back to Vegas, where we saw The Lion King.
My top tips are to do this trip in the winter because it’s spectacular, and, of course, rent a four wheel drive. I’ve been to most of those places in the summer as a kid. They may be super touristy, but totally worth it.
Attached are not great photos of my kids at Bryce Canyon and Arches.
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We’ve done a couple of similar trips, but in the fall after school started (our homeschooling years had their perks!). We all loved the trips and not a single place was crowded - plus no snowstorms!
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I also love traveling off season and off the beaten path. Crowds make things feel more touristy even if they really aren’t. Great benefit of being empty nesters.
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Ditto, except our kids were in a “year round schedule” elementary school and had the whole month of November off. We went on so many great trips in November!
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This reminds me - I took my son and a friend to Zion & Bryce one February about ten years ago (they were about 12 at the time). They wanted to climb Angels Flight, and of course, after my ziplining experience in another thread, I was too scared. At the time, I had no idea what Angels Flight is, and so happily waited at the bottom for their return. It was only once they were safely back on ‘the flats’ and showed my pics. that I realized I had handed them their lives in their hands!
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Pat’s or Geno’s cheesesteaks in Philly. Tourists usually either go to one or the other. There are better cheesesteaks to be had elsewhere in Philly.
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It drove me crazy that the, “characters,” in Colonial Williamsburg would not break character to answer questions. I couldn’t just ask the wig maker a question about the making of wigs. I had to pretend as though I wanted to buy a wig to get them to engage. No thanks. Not into role-playing. So, I left with whatever curiosity I had about colonial wig making completely squashed.
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So true! I feel it’s the same with those restaurants you see in Europe that say “We have English menus,” “we take all major credit cards,” “no frozen food.” We ate at one of those restaurants once and the food was very disappointing and was very overpriced.
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And the Key Lime pie places in Key West. I got sucked into trying what supposedly the “best” Key Lime pie place and it was terrible! The pie was half frozen. We were only there for the day and I definitely wasted my chance (it’s one of my favorite pies!)
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That’s their job. Same on the replica of the Mayflower in Plymouth.
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I adore Williamsburg. I went there in high school with my family. One of my college profs was an architect responsible for a lot of the restoration back in the '70s.
So I was excited to take my kids there in 2011 or so. Ha, they hated it! So much so that one day, I left everybody behind at the hotel and spent the day in the village by myself.
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We did a family vacation to Williamsburg. One of the kids was fascinated and the other was so bored, it was painful.
The good news is that we could split up and there is plenty to do in the area.
BTW, I have so much fun sometimes going by myself. I spent an entire day exploring the Smithsonian by myself. It was a lovely day.
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We like williamsburg, but like busch gardens better. In 2008, we made that our summer vacation. The kids were 10&7. If we stayed with one of the colonial Williamsburg hotel, we got some deal with busch gardens/water country. Spent 1-2 days doing the parks. The other days we did our parental duty taking them to Williamsburg, Jamestown, Yorktown to be educated during the day, and then went back to Busch Gardens at night for fun!
Another thing I’ve noticed is that the service in real touristy restaurants isn’t very good! I think the people working there are overworked and they know most of the patrons won’t be returning!
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I am sorry you had that experience. In my 30 years here, I actually never stopped in the casino area of Colorado. There are a lot of small cute towns- Fruita, CO for instance which is a mountain bikers mega and has a great downtown.
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Yes, I love a lot of Colorado. It was just seeing how a favorite small town had changed so drastically that made me sad.
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The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen and the Alamo in San Antonio. I don’t regret going, but they turned out to be pretty disappointing. Otherwise, I tend to find tourist traps fun. I’ll stop anywhere on the road with a dinosaur out front.
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Just remembered another one - Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. This was in 1999 during a drought, and not much water was going over the falls. The trails to the falls were very undeveloped, so you had to push branches and other vegetation out of the way to get to the falls. Also, you were constantly pestered by people coming up to you, trying to sell you things.
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Someone previously mentioned Deadwood. Agree. It’s all bars and t-shirt shops. We just drove through without stopping.