Worst 'tourist' places you've visited

[ThunderOnlyHappens]

A little inspired by the school trips thread but I have been thinking about the worst places I've visited in pursuit of leisure. Disclaimer-sorry if you live there/love it. These are not anything other than my experience on that day/time.

There was the time I took a group of patients for a nice country stroll, which turned out to be a lay-by off an A-Road.

Or going on holiday to a small town near Gainsborough and realising that there was nothing to do, at all. We were there for a week!

Our holiday to the Dominican Republic in 2009. Because:

1. I suspect now I had swine flu when we went. Sat on the beach in 33 degree heat shivering in a towel.
2. The food gave us and lots of other guests the shits - the reps said it was because we were drinking local spirits as opposed to the branded (non all-inclusive) ones. 3.) We ran out of anti-shit medication for the above number 2 and had to get a taxi to the nearest pharmacy. Locals stood outside with guns watching us. 4.) If we wandered a few steps outside of the hotel beach the locals were stood with rifles staring at us 5.) I accidentally took a double dose of the weekly malaria tablets. Ended up with blurred vision, gunky eyes and spitting blood 6.) They "sanitized" the water system. It went from looking like weak piss in a glass to smelling of bleach. 7.) Whilst retrieving our towel from the bushes below our balcony after it had blown off, DH stood on a thorn that was about an inch long and went about half way into his foot whilst in the pissing down rain and in the flower bed almost up to his ankles in mud.

We were queuing to be the first on the bus out at the end of our 2 weeks....

Sandy Beach Bulgaria. The hotel was fine other than the man on reception from our third day kept asking me for '£5 English' for a glass he said I had broken in our room. I told him the only glasses in our room were in the bathroom and still intact. By the fifth day he would ring our room and demand payment, I hung up on him and went down to reception with both glasses and demanded to see the manager. He said 'Ok. I let you off!' I told him not to speak to me again either in person or on the phone. Pretty much summed up the holiday really; the black sea coast is lovely but the feeling was always 'we want your money-now go'.

Amsterdam. Hated it. So tacky.

Venice. Like being in a very expensive museum that smells.

The holiday was fine really but my first all inclusive was at St Lucia and the place was surrounded with fencing and locals, who lived in shacks the other side, would come up and peer through. Anyone who tried to land on the hotel beach was intercepted and moves off by security with guns.

As I say, the holiday itself was fine, but I was 20 and so naive. All I could see was a EU country (hotel owner) asset stripping their beautiful land. I live by the sea, can you imagine our beaches being taken away from us like that.

I dont know if I could return to the Caribbean again. Id like to think I could do it putting money into the lical economy but I think self catering is not particularly safe on many islands. Pity. Beautiful place.

I'm with @offtheshoulder - Amsterdam was a let down for me. It was picturesque in a way but felt really grubby and grimy.

Hong Kong smelly, overbuilt and horrible.

Also Los Angles 400 miles of huge roads full of traffic and some very grotty in between the luxury properties.

Widecombe-on-the-moor, sounds nice, photos look attractive but the reality is a small tourist trap with nothing to do. Best avoided.
New Zealand, Ok bit like Dorset, just a long way away.

The Ring of Kerry. As a teenager. In the back of my parents car.
Basically fields, sheep and travel sickness for about 5 hours.
It was hell.

Fuerteventura for me, I went with a friend who promptly broke her foot but wouldn't get it looked at by a doctor , leaving me to spend great periods of time by myself.
It was freezing cold at night and our hotel was further away from the town than first thought. It was not the best holiday I have been on!

I did one of those package hols to an all inclusive Spanish place because of pestering by DC involved ( not mine ) because there were big water slides etc

Myself and both DC got D and V and it was shit, tacky and full of uncouth types 

NEVER AGAIN.

Margarita, a Venezuelan island.

I suspect the weather played a part (pissed down for the whole time we were there was dry season and ruined all our planned trips including visiting Angel Falls and piranah fishing and rainforest trek and we'd prepaid and we had a nightmare getting a refund)

Food was God awful, you couldn't leave the complex for your own safety

In the second week I resorted to vodka and orange for breakfast and slept until it was a more decent time to drink some more alcohol.

We lived on vodka and bread.

Awful trip.

Oslo on a bank holiday weekend. We arrived on the Friday night, the shops shut at 2 pm the Sat until the Tues morning when we left. The weather started well but then it rained solidly for all of Sunday and Monday. Let's say we did a lot of museums as there was literally nothing else open that wasn't soaking wet.

It was a beautiful city but I learnt to always check local opening times!

These types of thread fascinate me - dh and I absolutely loved NZ and Amsterdam .

Different strokes for different folks and all that!

Tenerife. Miserable culture vacuum, everything horribly expensive, gross black sand, permanently windy so didn't even feel warm. Awful. I'd rather sit in my living room for a week than go back.

Nimes on a Sunday was a bit of an error too.

I can't think of anywhere I've actively disliked, maybe just been lucky I guess! In Egypt the pestering wherever you went was unbearable though, and the pollution in Cairo shocking, burning rubbish and stray dogs everywhere, wouldn't go back to Cairo but I'd go back to Luxor

Kavos when I was 19. I wanted a nice quiet beach holiday, and found a little villa on one of the quieter Greek islands. Friend overruled and we ended up booking an apartment above a bar on the main Kavos strip for a week of disappointing food, excessive drinking, and a fair amount of debauchery. Hideous.

gretna green-beyond tacky, tourist shop tat, grim cafe (uht milk only)! how in the name of all that's holy do people think its romantic

Blackpool. I have never felt so very unsafe and vulnerable. Horrid, grotty, and full of creepy alcoholic local men.

Paris. The permeating stink of piss does not make it a romantic destination.

Hong Kong. Went for a 2 week holiday - after 4 days we'd seen all the sights. It was boring.

Guernsey. Dodging golf balls everywhere. An island with " a tomato museum". Had it not rained every day perhaps not as bad.

Crete. Ended up there for three weeks all--inc because I got pregnant unexpectedly and as a result we couldn't go on the African trip we had planned. It was November, stormy, unsafe to swim in the sea, not really warm enough to sunbathe by the pool, nothing to see or do apart from a trip to Knossos, power cuts every night, couldn't drink, awful cabaret in the hotel, boring food. Never again.

Albufeira. Dogshit everywhere, golf arseholes and amoebic dysentery from a 'nice' restaurant

Hollywood I think. I’m glad I seen it but I don’t feel the need to go back. Loved the rest of California though.

Not a fan of Lake Garda - I went in mid-August when it was packed out and just an absolute nightmare to get anywhere due to the crowds. Service in the restaurants was dismal - lots of waiters enticing you in to a restaurant but then not actually serving you once you sat down. DP and I got constantly stared at by other tourists - possibly very small-minded Germans who wanted a good gawp at a non-white couple, I've never felt so on display. The whole place just felt overdeveloped and touristy, not the quaint Italian experience I expected. I was underwhelmed by the scenery