Holiday destinations that were unexpectedly lovely OR awful.

Ooo yes the Lake District, must go there again. I loved it too

Hated: Turkey, full of sleazy men who kept touching me like a piece of meat (this was 25 years ago so may have changed by now); Padstow, overrated, tacky and very expensive; Blackpool, went there for a weekend when my now 14 year old was a few weeks old so appreciate it maybe wasn't the best time, it rained, blew a gale and there was nowhere I felt comfortable breast feeding so I ended up in our grotty B&B room (courtesy of exH) for hours while he sauntered off round the pubs

Loved: Cyprus, been there 3 times now & loved it each time; Brixham in Devon.

Pleased to read that those of you who have been to New York loved it. It's top of my bucket list, followed by San Francisco and Hawaii.

We didn't like Alcudia either. Souless.
Puerto Pollensa was nicer.

Are you me Jed?

We stayed in Alcudia, which we nicknamed Alcloudier because we had crap weather there,but hiring a car made the holiday for us and we really liked Majorca, just not Alcudia. Same with Sorrento and Pompeii.

We loved New England, but that was just the 2 of us. It was anything but dull.

Thinking about it, I love the Lake District but haven't been for years. Must revisit soon.

If anyone tours NZ in a tent or motorhome and wants some beautiful places to stay, my favourite two campsites we have stayed at are Pelorus Bridge not too far from Nelson on the South Island and Kaitoke Forest north of Wellington. They are stunningly beautiful and I could go to them again and again. Amazing walks and forests, rivers, waterfalls and for the not faint hearted, swingbridges. For those LOTR/hobbit fans parts of them were filmed there too. Very different to top 10 campsites which a lot of tourists tend to stay at (we find them far too crowded). My favourite places we've visited in NZ so far have been Arrowtown, Wanaka, Banks Peninsula, Picton and the Kaitoke Forest. Wellington is great too, He Papa museum is fab, but I'm not that fussed by Auckland city itself, but there is beautiful scenery around. Queenstown is in an amazing location and the skyline is well worth going up but we found the town itself full of bars and hostels so weren't that impressed.

Its interesting those of you who've said it makes a difference being shown round by someone. If any one finds themselves in Hawkes Bay and wants a tour give me a shout

I'm Europe I'd love to go back to Rome, Vesuvius and Pompeii and Herculaneum one day. And the Dordogne. I do really miss beautiful English villages, country pubs and castles. And the museums and history of London.

We had a crap holiday in Alcudia donkeys years ago. Went in mid July & it was fucking boiling. I was in a crap job with no appropriate cover and booked a fortnight to make a point at work. Spent most of the fortnight lying on the bed of our air-conditioned room in our pants, and not in a sexy way - it was too hot for sex to be appealing. I haven't taken against Majorca though - it was a square peg/round hole situation. Same goes for Rhodes, though - lesson learned - we went much earlier in the season & had a week of rain & freezing our arses off in inappropriate light summer clothing.

DH and I loved Barcelona, though made sure to book a hotel in Paral.lel on our 2nd visit, not the Gothic Quarter, which felt edgy & threatening at night on our first visit. A friend visited recently & said it was less fun & much more expensive post-2008 crash.

Touring New England with small children was dullsville, though the kids were a hit with locals which led to lots of good happenstance conversations. Boston was nice.

Sorrento & Capri were crowded and expensive, frankly a bit of a chore, although Pompeii just about tipped the balance to give the trip a favourable score. I generally find the cheeky rounding up & light fleecing in Italy makes me grind my teeth & it was a lot worse in Sorrento than northern Italy.

Also love York (UK), Edinburgh, Belfast, Hamburg, Iceland, Tuscany, Cornwall & Canada.

Am inspired to visit Lanzarote and Berlin off the back of this thread.

Apologies for being a twat.

Re: London. Big cities are as much about the people showing you them as the actual place. Sorry if I sound a cliche but New York to me when I visited in the 80s was walking about all day, everything amazing, clubbing, meeting a cocaine taking clown in Central Park and clubbing with him, eating Polish food, eating Chinese food, going to thrift stores and also visiting the Statue of Liberty; and watching people play basketball and chess and let off fire hydrants in the heat.

If I went as a tourist I probably would have just done the Statue of Liberty bit.

Shut up Charley get off dat wine!!!

My sister went to London - saw Oxford Street, Buckingham Palace, Madam Tussaud's, Leicester Square and Piccadilly Circus and declared she hated it - next time she visited we made sure she saw the better bits!

No, I won't visit London because I fear a terrorist attack.

Which is strange as I believe when your number is up your number is up.
Contradictory I know

Holly will you really not visit London because of recent events? Millions of us live and work there every single day.

I just wanted to add Ljubljana. It's beautiful.

Areyoubeing
London boring...... faints.
I love London and would usually visit once a year but with the heightened security issue I won't go this year

"It is obvious that everyone has different ideas about the same places"

Clearly. I can't believe that some posters hate Italy

It is obvious that everyone has different ideas about the same places.
My American cousins came to stay with me ( I was living in a London at the time).
They had a brilliant time because myself and Dh took time off from work and therefore had time to spend with them.
They loved London
They told me that they had been worried about coming to London because a friend of theirs had told them that London was boring .

Fell in love with: Croatia, Copenhagen (could live there)

Not so great: Riga (Latvia) nothing to do, and was so cold in April. Good if you want the strip clubs, but these are run by the mafia - my boss went on a stag and had a gun pulled on him.
Also sunny beach Bulgaria - was stuck there for 2 weeks with ex and family. Most shocking was me and ex decided to stay in the room one evening, put tv on and some very very graphic porn suddenly came on on one of the main channels straight After the lottery at about 9pm! It freaked me out as a 17 year old and made me wary of the men..
LA and Hollywood: dangerous, unnerving, dirty - not at all glam!!

Iceland is hit and miss.. I went to a festival there so had stuff to do, if it hadn't been for that I think id have been bored, you need money and a car.

Next year, hoping for Oslo and Montenegro (not been mentioned yet). I though Berlin looked grim on a travel doc but after what people have said it's def on my list now!

Not to derail these, but we're with Homelink too. It's a fab way to holiday.

Caramel so far it's been nice middle class families (teachers, barristers, social workers). You build up email relationship before swap. Not for everyone but works for us. Wouldn't be right if you had a show home with lots of antiques but our kids as toddlers wreaked more havoc than any house swap family could! It's addictive though.

Taiwan. Never really but hought going there but opportunity came up. Totally different to England. Really liked there and we are planning to go back.

Vienna. Really boring. No need to go back.

We use home link. Costs £110 pa then unlimited swaps. Prefer this site as other cheaper sites too many Brits. We inform our house insurers and are not covered if swappers rob us but otherwise they step into your shoes re damage etc. Putting others on car insurance costs about £30. We have done about 15 now I think (including Puglia, Sardinia, Paris, lanzarote, Brittany, Berlin, Paris, London).

KERALA1: which website do you find works best for home exchange and can your insurance protect you?
We are downshifting in a year and will switch from lovely holidays exploring Asia (where we live) to low budget hols out of the U.K. . I thought that home swap would be a fab solution but wondering about logistics/safety. Thanks for any tips.

Have you considered home exchange? That's how we travel a lot despite being tied to school holidays school holidays and having Dc. Then you only have cost of flight you have free house and car. Magic - enabled us to keep travelling as a family. Eg last summer beautiful house in Alps with estate car.cost £400 for two weeks (cost of flights)

littlepeas would LOVE to go back to Canada and explore, so little time and never enough money haha! Although a lot of our travelling has been backpacking in relatively cheap countries, most done before children yes as with many people. Bug never leaves you though .

On the topic of tropical islands: -

Maldives are absolutely beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful but not a lot to do there if you are not a diver or on honeymoon. Zanzibar is also very beautiful in that turquoise sea and white sand way but far more interesting (again this was a while ago so not sure now).

Tonga, I had forgotten about Tonga that was so very beautiful but bugger all to do. We had done a lot of trekking and camping in New Zealand so it was nice to go and camp there for a week and just gaze at the stars and listen to the breeze rustling through the palm trees. There's a lot to be said for a tropical island when you are in the mood.

Tioman off Malaysia was very Jurassic Park, all jungle, rocky peaks and beaches. Really liked it a lot esp walking in the interior.

Camping on Fraser Island, Dunk Island and Hinchinbrook Island all off the coast of Australia very nice.

Paris: loved the first few days; but have never experienced racism like it anywhere else. There was a lot of groping on the Metro too.. not keen.
I was warned about safety in Rome, Marrakech and Rio but had a wonderful time in all of them. Never experienced any hassle at all in Turkey and people were universally lovely.