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!

A hotel on a posh beach in Kenya. Hotel was very nice, but we had to take a dodgy ferry to get to it which was heavily overloaded with people, then drive through a large shanty town and pass armed guards into the compound. The ferry was so dodgy, our driver warned us not to open the windows, even though it was stiflingly hot in the safari truck. We also couldn't go on the beach without being harrassed by scary looking touts.

Tarifa is a known windsurfing spot... thanks to the - yes - wind!!

Ottawa. Been twice, and both times it was closed. Not even a mountie.

Venus : smelly , boring & a rip off

Loved Epcot, it's the only park I'd go to again in Disney, all the others are extremely underwhelming, including MK.

Loved NY, lost count of the amount of times random New Yorkers complimented my outfits, it was great! Didn't feel it was unfriendly at all.

Great Yarmouth. Dire. Love the rest of Norfolk though.

I'm always a bit  at people complaining about poverty in certain tourist destinations. Is it because the mere sight of the world's poverty-stricken is simply an offence to their eyes and thus ruins their holiday, or is it because it makes them feel uncomfortable about the gulf between the haves (us) and the have-nots?

A bit 

Surely you just go to Fuerteventura to sit by pool or beach

Eh? Why?

Of course it's nice to have some relaxing pool and beach time, but there's plenty of other things to do, making just sitting by the pool or going to the beach a bit of a waste really.

Well known watersports destination, nature reserves, boat trips to see whales and dolphins, nice towns and villages to visit and apparently cheeseries are a thing to visit, according to the Canary Islands tourist information website, which clearly has work to do to get people to do more than lay in the sun there.

Oh fgs.... Raised eyebrow smiley isn't working

Hemsby - well we drove through it by accident...just seemed a street full of arcades and a caravan site.
I live in a very touristy town and really hate going into the city on the summer - it's packed full of tourists and really difficult to get through

Puerto Rico. Freeport, Bahamas. Los Angeles.

Dublin. Boring, had air of being a theme park, food dire, nothing to do but drink.

I didn't like Marrakesh, street hassle (despite being middle aged, accompanied by my mother and not wearing revealing clothes), hot and dirty, horrendous traffic.

I liked Blackpool purely for entertainment value of people watching.

Bangkok - utter dump.

Edinburgh - grim and unfriendly. In contrast, loved Glasgow.

I'm amazed by some of the places mentioned on here - I loved most of them! My jaw dropped when someone mentioned Cádiz. I was there a few weeks ago and loved it.

There's nowhere I've really hated, but I didn't particularly like either Monaco or Milan.

We love the Isle of Wight and go several times a year....there's always something new or a new beach to explore each time. But the one place we've never recommended there is the Needles Battery amusement park. You can't see the Needles at all unless you take the underwhelming Cable car ride, there are tonnes of coaches and I'm afraid you burn through cash for a load of tat in minutes.

Auckland, NZ - my home town. Dull. Up itself. Wellington is fun and quirky though.

Love NYC. New Orleans was lovely, didn't get a bad vibe from it like someone up thread.

Cairo - amazing history and monuments, set in a sea of filth and people on the make. Never again.

The Lake District. Hotels that had decor based on one of Noel Edmond's jumpers from the early 90s and overpriced food.

Ibiza. Unbelievably wanky and too expensive. Even the hippies and their drum circles are just another tourist must do tick box.

Glastonbury. Full of teenagers in identikit festival gear almost ticking off a 'must do this at Glasto list'. Nobody watches or enjoys a gig anymore they just hold their phones up and film it. The fun of Glasto was what happens there stays there. Not with camera phones and Facebook it doesnt.

Fuertaventura. Just sandy and nice water, but a week, when I'm not into sunbathing. We hired a car just to go and look at some palm trees

Pwllheli, Wales - really run down

Living most of the week in spring, summer and autumn on the outskirts of york we tend to use it more if we need to pop in for bits and pieces from Boyes, see if there’s anything going on in the main square l they often have food festivals and a fringe festival in the summer. We became members of the little picture house cinema near the river as it o

Istanbul - dirty, depressing and run down with constant traffic jams and car horns (all day and night). I remember saying at the time it reminded me of Forest Gate in rush hour x 10. Sure it had impressive palaces and mosques (but there you had to run the gauntlet of people on the make), but when you've seen one mosque/palace you've really seen them all and that certainly wasn't enough to mask the unrelenting grimness of the rest of it.

Oops
Often gets films we wouldn’t see in our home town
Sometimes when we’ve left the cinema or restaurant late it can be pretty deserted and yes, very sad to see so many homeless people there
A soup kitchen pops up outside Betty’s, one of the most expensive tea rooms in york
I rather like the ‘no car’ atmosphere and judging by the crowds on the pavements plenty of people still come into the city
On race day, it’s fun to watch ‘the fillies’ in their finery trotting sling the cobbled streets

You don’t see that amount of dressing up outsof a wedding these days

Yes, Pwllheli
What happened there?
Quite shocked with it being a previous butlins town

Itsnotabingthingisit Sadly it's not just after 5pm on a Saturday any more.

I avoid York on a Saturday altogether these days.

I'm always a bit  at people complaining about poverty in certain tourist destinations. Is it because the mere sight of the world's poverty-stricken is simply an offence to their eyes and thus ruins their holiday, or is it because it makes them feel uncomfortable about the gulf between the haves (us) and the have-nots?
Definately in the uncomfortable camp. It seemed rather obscene to be enjoying an upmarket holiday with so much poverty around. I only hoped that some of our money went to alleviate the poverty.

I lived in Melbourne for 10 years- beautiful city.
Sydney has cracking beaches, and wonderful coastal towns further north.
Surfers Paradise in September was great fun, not too crowded.
Hated Salou. With every ounce of my being.
Loved Albuferia, the people where lovely and enjoyed old town. The strip tho....just awful.
Adored Amsterdam, and Paris is my fave city. We stayed in the Republique district last time (August) and where blown away by the atmosphere and people.
Never noticed any pissy smells! Found it immaculately clean.
Alcudia is awful.... so grubby and loud

Simi Island, off the coast of Rhodes- blown away but so so hot.

@Jaxhog

I used to live in the Philippines and felt much the same; it certainly makes you appreciate what you have (especially healthcare & vets, I found).