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!

Has anyone actually enjoyed Venice? I've been to most major cities in Italy but never Venice simply because I've never heard anyone say a nice word about it.

Matlock. Just a roundabout and two really busy roads. Not to be confused with Matlock Bath, which is just a single busy road and loads of men wearing 3/4 trousers and very white trainers.

Loling at the poster who said the food is shit in the canaries. It most definitely is not, you're going to the wrong places

I didn't like Venice. Too crowded and very very touristy. It was the only Italian city wjer we felt we couldn't avoid being fleeced.

I absolutely love Venice - have been six times over the years - hate Paris, been twice and have no desire to return.

Venice out of season though, October - March, although I did have to go to a wedding there in May but that was just a quick in and out trip!

@bruegeltheelder I liked Venice! I visited a friend who was studying there, and have memories of standing in one of the university buildings overlooking the grand canal, feeling fairly smug.

I liked lake Garda too :)

I didn’t like:

Lands End - May have changed but it was a substandard tourist experience plonked on some ok seaside area.
Parc Guell just outside Barcelona. Guadi sculptures, too hot even in October, full of people and cameras.
Las Ramblas in Barcelona, obviously.
The Louvre. Too big, scrum of people in front of the Mona Lisa. I should have done research and just gone for one bit instead of wandering and getting exhausted.
Leicester Square is not even a pleasant space to be in. If you could count it as a tourist attraction?
Las Vegas: like a super sized Blackpool in the desert.
San Francisco: I just could not get past the gentrification and homeless population, many with obvious mental health problems. The old counter culture haunts were long commercialised. We went round and looked at the murals of Mission and I just felt like a gentrifying tourist. A poor mainly Hispanic area, with white tourists (me included) walking around going ‘hmmm how urban and real’. Thank God we hadn’t taken a tour.

I liked Venice. I've been there three times on various day trips.

If course it is touristy, but just being careful, and prepared to look a little off the beaten track helped. I found it fun. We didn't bother with a gondola, but the vaporetti (water buses really) were fun.

Rialto Bridge and market were good to look at.

Reet, a friend of my DD3 visited San Francisco recently during a family road trip through California.

She said exactly what you just did, so you aren't alone in that.

Los Angeles,
Kennedy space Centre in Florida - boring as hell!
Brussels

i liked venice very pretty didnt smell at all when i was there

vegas is nothing like blackpool u cant gamble u cant go in massive hotels for shows and dinner i mean proper shows

its casinos in the desert what do u want

Salzburg. Freakishly clean, soulless, jammed packed with every window making money out of Mozart, selling Mozart chocolate.

Full of very snooty looking wealthy European pensioners.

Mind you I was 18 and inter railing. You felt as if all the men were saying to their wives "my dear, look away from the poor people ".

Lots of filthy looks!

The worst holiday resort I've ever been to was in Santorini - I can't even remember the name of it but it was a black sand beach (looked like fag ash really) covered in sun loungers. Row upon row upon row of sunloungers really close together. Beach bars all along the road blaring out music. We'd just spent two weeks in glorious surroundings: first in a really quiet hotel on the caldera with stunning sunset views, fab pool et, bus stop outside the door to Oia and Santorini Town, then in Naxos where we were about seven steps from a beautiful and mostly deserted beach. We were expecting something gorgeous for our last two nights and it was awful.

I love going to York as my brother in law lives there - we go every October half term. But we leave the centre by teatime on a Friday or Saturday as the drunken stags and hens are vile.

I lived in Dubai and am very perplexed by the holiday aspect of it - I get that the hotels can be stunning. The restaurants are also out of this world - and I don't mean just the expensive ones. But it is also unbearably hot for six months of the year. Oman is miles and miles better with just as amazing hotels/food plus a better coastline and shed loads to do. Watching baby turtles on the beach near Sur is one of the highlights of my life. We once went onto a beach and there were so many shells that it rattled when the waves came in. Amazing shells that were like something you see in a shell museum. I'd go to Oman again in a heartbeat.

I hated Tunisia when I went on holiday with a friend - we were harassed constantly, even in the hotel. But I went there with work and I had a very different experience, totally wonderful, taken to film in the most incredible places with hardly any one around.

The only other place that I thought was overrated was south Brittany in August. The weather was shit, every town we went to was heaving with people and we couldn't see Carnac for tourists. Also, I my parents live in France, I speak French and usually love French people. I found the Brittany French to be surly and rude. Maybe they were just fed up of all the tourists too.

And I LOVE Paris. I really love Montmartre. Not fond of the metro, but I could happily wander around Paris on foot for hours. Or on a boat on the Seine. But I've only ever been in Spring and not when mega busy.

Probably Rhyl. Last visited when I was a teenager for a holiday with a friend and her parents. Her parents drove into the centre of Rhyl every day for a week and we were left there while her Dad went to the betting shop and her mum and aunt went to play bingo. When you're a teenager used to going sightseeing, there's only so many times you can go to the funfair. When I suggested going to visit somewhere else, I was looked at like I had 2 heads! When I got home I told my parents that I'd rather have no holiday than go through that ever again.

@gabsalot not casinos in the desert, obviously! :D it bookended a West coast road trip for us (cheap flights) and we suspected it might not be our thing, but thought we’d give it a chance. Really didn’t like it. Gambling and massive hotels not my thing. Shows are ok.

Has anyone actually enjoyed Venice?

Yes, I adore the place - but the key is to go in shoulder season rather than high summer and to get away from the main tourist parts once you've seen the main sights

All the beauty's still there but that's when you see the real heart of the place, plus decent, sensibly priced restaurants and local shops who are very welcoming. The "other" islands in the lagoon are well worth a visit too

We completely adored Kennedy Space Centre (but we are v interested in Space travel). I even cried a few times. DH and I rank it as one of our top days ever.

“All Canary Islands - awful. Dull, boring and shit food”

You really haven’t been to the right places. Sure there are crap restaurants, funnily enough the ones that try to cater to the English who seem to think a roast dinner is typical Canarian food. However there are so many amazing seafood, tapas, and steak restaurants there to try. I use trip advisor and look out for restaurants which are frequented by Spanish guests. Last week in Lanzarote I had the most amazing Octopus I have ever tasted and divine fillet carpaccio. We went jet skiing, para sailing, big game fishing, visited a couple of museums, and plan to get our scuba certification next time so we can go to the underwater museum.

Boring and Dull? Only if you want it to be. 🤷🏻‍♀️

London - cold rainy full of rude miserable looking people, too expensive.

Tunisia- creepy men hassling you everywhere, beaches smelled of raw sewage

Istanbul- see Tunisia

I loathed Rome. Massively overpriced, and an absolute rip-off. Only 2 public loos in the whole city.

Amsterdam, I just don’t like the feel of it. The canals and canal side buildings are very pretty, but a lot of the shops are really shitty, the ref light district is a bad joke, and many cyclists ride too aggressively.

Las Vegas, it is what it is, but I didn’t realise how spread out it is. Getting around on foot was much more onerous than I was expecting. (I thought I’d walk along the strip from casino to casino like Bono in the I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For video. It wasn’t much like that.) Lots of touts trying to push goodness knows what, and quite sleazy in places.

Sharm el Sheikh, admittedly we went three days after 9/11, but the atmosphere was awful, and the pestering was extreme. There was a lot of nudging and winking in shops; I think we were being offered drugs and/or sex, but whatever, it was oppressive and really unpleasant.

Marrakech was a massive disappointment. The souk was interesting for a walk around, but a day there would be about half a day too long.

I’m glad I’ve been to those places, but don’t have any wish to return to any of them.

Has anyone actually enjoyed Venice?

Yes, spent a few days there and loved it. Even our teenage son loved it! Could have stayed longer.

@BruegelTheElder

Loved Venice, but think that's because we didn't stay on the main island. We stayed on Murano instead. Much more relaxing and better value.

An awful lot of New Zealand but Rotarua. Good god. I could not believe that we had travelled the other side of the world and beyond for that. Nearly 20 years ago and I still shudder.

Not keen on some other places but that is and remains top of my list.

London - cold rainy full of rude miserable looking people, too expensive.

Have to agree. I went a lot with my parents as a child. Been back 30+ years later with OH & son a couple of times and really hated the place. Everything is too busy and crowded, people are awful. Won't be going again and DS has also said he's not going to live/work there (He previously planned to work in The City and it's put him right off).

Las Vegas. Bleak, void of charm and character, plastic, cheap, tacky, stunk of cigarettes, Febreze and desperation.

Perfect description. We went to a brilliant Japanese restaurant one evening a few blocks from the strip. Had a great night then found out the next morning we had missed being witnesses to a drive-by shooting by a few minutes. Never want to go back, it's the antithesis of a place I want to be.

Was in Paris two weeks ago, it didn't smell and we had a great time.
Went to Venice in November a few years ago, again brilliant, quiet (especially at night) and great food.
New York, hot; seedy, dirty but at least I now know where to go (other than Las Vegas) if I want to see topless women painted with US flags in the street at 11 am (Times Square).
York, went a few times when children were small, went back to a university open day and there were drunk women staggering off the train in the morning heading for hen days. By mid-afternoon the town centre was full of hens and stags, horrible atmosphere. Such a shame.