Holiday destinations that were unexpectedly lovely OR awful.

How can anyone hate all of Spain

By assuming, wrongly of course, that Spain = Benidorm, Magaluf, Playa de las Americas etc

Loved San Francisco, Yellowstone. Didn't like Orlando, las vagas.
Love France, didn't like salou at all!
Love Austria, Germany.
Really enjoyed Pisa and Pompeii.

Think it depends on lots of things, accomodation, the weather and what you like. I don't like beaches at all so even a pretty beach would count as a bad holiday.

How can anyone hate all of Spain?

I found people in Vienna so nice and helpful! Falling over themselves to give us directions and some even us walked with us to make sure we got where we were meant to go.

Loved: Germany, Austria, Corfu, Costa Rics, Australia and NZ. Cornwall.

Hated: Dubai, Sri Lanka, Mexico and Spain

Encouraged to read a few comments about liking Belfast. We're trying hard!!

Love:
France -esp Annecy, Puy du Dom and some parts of Brittany
San Francisco, New York and Rhode Island (RI was in March - Lovely time to visit and not too busy)
Bavaria

Dislike:
Gran Canaria - just too grey and soulless
Tenerife - Playa de Las Americas was a shithole imo
Cyprus - honeymoon with exDH so maybe that's why!!

HitList:
Sri Lanka
Iceland
Bergen/Fjords
Lake Garda
New Zealand

I found Venice strange. Fabulously beautiful, but like a kind of middle class theme park. It didn't feel like a city but like a huge museum. I still had so much fun, but I was bemused by it as a place.

I loved Vienna (big fan of the architecture, Otto Wagner, and SO much great art I couldn't fit in everything I wanted to se etc) but I felt like the people were really unfriendly, and the attitude in some of the cafes was appalling. It is completely unclear whether you're supposed to seat yourself or wait to be seated, and you get really told off for doing the wrong thing - I actually cried. I speak reasonable German, too, so it wasn't a language issue.

I loved Crete. Get off the resorts, hire a car, and get a villa in the countryside in a real village in May, when the flowers are in bloom. The Cretans are the most wonderful, generous, bonkers, friendly, crazy people! I would go back in a heartbeat. The resorts, however, did look like hell holes from a distance.

I found Japan quite difficult at times. Again, an amazing country, with so much that is beautiful to see - but I also witnessed some really reactionary attitudes to women and people from the BME community. It's also hard to find things to eat if you're veggie.

El Gouna in Egypt was ok but the airport in Hurghada was enough to put me off ever going back - absolute chaos, like being stuck in a cattle market - basically an airport full of people all pushing themselves towards passport control at the same time, everyone shouting and swearing at each other and people trying to grab your suitcases off you to carry them through arrivals for a tip! Err no thanks! Them got stuck on a bus that didn't go anywhere for two hours in 38 degree heat. Horrid.

Malta, boring and the local men are very rude

Love Australia

My worst places

India - all of it. Travelled the country and hated the culture, the people the filth. New Delhi traffic. Dead cows on the pavement - people openly defecating, I found it lacking in anything spiritual which I wasn't expecting.

Tenerife and Crete. Soulless, windy tourist traps.

Vienna. Boring, couldn't find a thing of interest to do.

South Africa. Beautiful in places but terrifying rates of car accidents, rapes and murders. I felt desperately unsafe the whole time I was there.

My favourite places

Nepal. Amazing, beautiful. The people were wonderful, I was on my own there for a month and I loved it.

Gibraltar. Went there in my early twenties and snogged a different sailor every night for 14 nights

Costa Del Sol especially Torremelinos - beautiful, spotlessly clean. Classier than it sounds.

Turkey. I know some resorts are naff but generally I love the country. So much culture. Lots of sexual harassment though. You have to be resilient there.

Rhodes and Ibiza - much nicer than some of the other resorts.

Sardinia and Corsica. Beautiful and classy.

Edinburgh and London both such lively, energetic cities. Love them both with a passion.

I honestly don't take much notice of anything anyone says on here... not being rude but... one person's Utopia is another person's hell.

It's all a matter of circumstances isn't it? Pick a place... any place... throw in rude locals, grotty hotel and a restaurant where the food is crap, and you'll hate it. Someone else can go to the same place and chat to a local who helps you find the right bus, your hotel is quaint and atmospheric and you ate the best pork dish you've ever had... and it will be heaven.

There's lots of places on here that people hate, and I've loved and vice versa. Some have really made me laugh

Loved Rouen.
Not impressed by Marmaris in Turkey. Not a good place for a young woman to go.
Nairobi was a bit scary but I loved the more rural parts of Kenya I stayed in.

Grand Cayman . . . flat and boring if you're not into diving
Jamaica . . . absolutely stunning!!

Love Sri Lanka and Singapore; disliked Bali intensely, except for Gili Air.

Enjoyed Florence, but it was a work trip in January. Hamburg was great. Visited Brussels fairly regularly for work and with family and always enjoyed it, but have yet to visit Bruges and Antwerp which I am looking forward to. Did not like Amsterdam much, nor Rotterdam (both work trips). Northern coast of Spain, especially Santander and Asturia was lovely, but not southern Spain or Portugal.

I was surprised that I didn't like Canada very much (dull, bad food with horrible campsites, huge mozzies and frequent drug deals) although the Vancouver waterfront was lovely. Much prefer the US, although I lived in NYC for a long time; have had good and bad trips in California.

Fiji was okay (but wouldn't return); loved NZ, especially Nelson and Awaroa Beach, also Wellington and Bay of Islands.

I have also really enjoyed Dubai and Oman, but these are family visits rather than tourist trips.

And have spent lots of time in France, mostly in Provence (adore Arles, less keen on Avignon; Aigues-Mortes and St Remy are also lovely) as we had a boat share on the Canal du Midi several times, but not very keen on Carcassonne (touristy). Brittany is very patchy for me. We had a very wet week there once in the middle of nowhere, which was depressing in the extreme, but the gulf of Morbihan is wonderful with great beaches. And when DS was tiny, we went to Ile de Re several times (friends there, and we rented a nice gite through their contacts) but it wasn't peak summer, which I am told is to be avoided at all costs!

Saving the rest of Europe for my dotage.

I'm another Dublin disappointee I'm afraid. I wanted to love it, I really did, and even read James Joyce's Dubliners while I was there to try and engender some enthusiasm for the place, but still wasn't really feeling it. My overriding memory is of that fast food chain that was basically every fast food restaurant and cafe rolled into one. Supermacs or something? There were loads of them!

Belfast however I was blown away by - I visited with work and was expecting something bleak and industrial, but it's gorgeous.

Bordeaux - it's exquisite ! Reminds me of the best aspects of Paris and Bath.

Another one here pleasantly surprised by Brussels, had to go through work so not expecting anything! Went at Halloween time and were charmed by the decorated chocolate shops, Art Nouveau, Museums, The Atomium, Food & Beers.

Amsterdam, It's not all Sex Shops and Weed Cafes. So much more history.

Fontainebleau- expecting nothing we just stopped off on the way through for a sandwich, DP & I ended up having the best day ever there! Often overlooked for Versailles (which is amazing but in a flashy way). Hardly anyone was there and even though the Château de Fontainebleau is on such an enormous scale it seemed low key.

Dublin wasn't at all as I expected, some interesting history & museums, but on the whole I was disappointed. Very expensive, difficult to find decent restaurants, Temple Bar was like a cattle market and I felt unsafe - we witnessed a massive brawl and riot police.

Poland - went on a coach holiday for next to nothing when I was student. Absolutely brilliant. Headed to the Zakopane area - mountains, forests, winter sports. Absolutely beautiful and so inexpensive.

Cuba - exceptionally safe. (10 years ago) Travelled around on my own for a few days and was never hassled. People went out of their way to help me.

Dublin - expensive, touristy, quite boring. And I'm of Irish descent and love it, but Dublin was a massive cliche.

I now want to go to Kraków, Washington and Ibiza

Commented on this thread a couple of times near the beginning and just caught up with it.

Did anyone have a bucket list of places that you now have crossed off based on the previous posts?

Dubai

That was mine

Places I've loved:
Jaipur - so atmospheric, albeit mental!
Boston
Washington - so interesting and pretty to visit at blossom time
Toronto and Montreal. Snobbily expected Canada to be a sort of USA-lite and couldn't have been more wrong - it has a character all of its own.
Used to adore New York but, having been there 3 months ago, it was filthy with piles of rubbish bags in the streets and the homeless problem is appalling.
Marrakesh - I think having an Asian husband helps because the locals seemed to think he was one of them and we didn't get hassled at all. Felt very safe there and loved the medina etc.
Belize - we stayed on San Pedro (Madonna's Isla Bonita) and it was lovely. We got lucky because we hit the very end of the low season just before high season began and the crowds arrived. Practically had the place to ourselves!

Places I've hated:
Wales - never have DH and I experienced such blatant racism as in Pembrokeshire. The whole of Wales can go fuck itself as far as I'm concerned!
LA - flat, soulless and boring. Full of self-obsessed people who all think they're the next Oscar winner. Meh.
Agra - the Taj Mahal is fabulous but the rest of it is a dump and full of camel shit.
Cornwall - filthy, touristy, shitty narrow roads, unfriendly locals, never going back!

Surprised Dublin gets so much hate. Love the place. The tourist trail is crap, but it's a great city to just hang out in. I like walking around Ballsbridge pretending one of the houses belongs to me

Also LOVE Florida. We are also quite particular about how we do it (have family there so go every other year). A week in an apartment in Orlando. Kids not fussed about Disney, but Universal is brilliant and the Disney water parks are great. I could spend days in Typhoon Lagoon.
Love Miami, but only for a few days with kids. Lying on a canopied sun lounger atNikki Beach on Ocean Drive with a cocktail is my idea of heaven.
Anna Maria is gorgeous, too. Have had some of our best ever family holidays there.