Where would you have once liked to visit but now wouldn’t go?

[buddhasbelly]

For me San Francisco. Would have loved to visit Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge etc but seeing the reports of the drug epidemic /fentanyl use just makes it seem like it would no longer be a place to feel safe whilst sightseeing.

Where would you no longer wish to visit?

I wanted to see St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. Sadly unlikely to be possible now. Also wanted to travel to India and China, but nowadays I’m not brave enough to cope with the street harassment and the animal cruelty, which appears to be getting worse.

Great wall of china (wouldn't touch China with a bargepole now).

Australia (too old now for such a long trip).

USA.

Iran. Watched Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road series. What an historically fascinating place.

Iran, Russia, Syria

Russia.

San Francisco for me too - as an 80s hippy kid I was dying to go and check out Haight-Ashbury with flowers in my hair. Looked at it on Google street view and it's a no.

NYC since I heard midtown stinks of weed and human shit now.

(Tbh all of the US until they fix their gun laws)

I also wanted to go to the Winter Palace in St Petersburg but that's definitely out for the foreseeable.

Canada. Wanted to go for three weeks to celebrate my 50th.
Will think of somewhere else now, maybe Japan.

I would have Syria on my list too. The driver we had in Jordan (a country that blew us away with everything to see and do, and how friendly everyone way) always said that Damascus was even better, his favourite place. I have a list as long as your arm of other places too that are just not safe any more - Ethiopia, Myanmar, Sierra Leone, Venezuela.

I would say from speaking to colleagues that though China is open again there has been a marked shift post-Covid in how westerners are seen. I met a Chinese fellow competitor at an international sport event last year and he was not optimistic it would be a place he could invite us to compete in for some time. My colleagues were treated atrociously there during Covid, worse than you would treat a prisoner. It has made my colleagues wary of the place, and we used to have such fun on Beijing and Shanghai trips but not now.

Hong Kong has also got a different vibe now to a few years ago. Much more edgy, less welcoming.

As for San Fran, I got off the bus there once at the wrong stop and have never seen so many passed out drug addicts with needles hanging out of them. And it is apparently worse now than it was a few years back.

@Eranzer not many people know about the Richat Structure! I have seen it from the air. Fascinating thing, but I don’t think you would see much from the ground or even from a light aircraft. You really need to be at airliner height to get the best view, and the weather conditions often make it hazy so when you can see it it makes it even more special!

USA

How come?

I’ve always fancied the Trans Siberian express but can’t see that happening any time soon.

Same. I would have loved to go but heard so many horrendous things about it 🤮

Mine is Afghanistan. Sounded like such a cool country in the 70s but obviously that's off the list now, as is Syria.

Saint Petersburg (Russia), China.

Such a shame. I've been to a lot of places in the US and San Francisco was easily one of my favourite cities, I absolutely loved it. Could have seen myself living there.

Many places people have mentioned on this thread so far are places I never would have wanted to go to ever, but Mexico is somewhere I won't go. I used to want to years ago, it looked great but now I am older I wonder why anyone would choose to go on 'luxury' holidays to a completely lawless, violent place is completely bewildering to me!

My partner has been and told me all about the reality of it and that was me out.

I'm still learning mandarin, but that's now a hobby to keep my brain ticking over and not with the view to going there ever.

Pretty much everywhere with poor human rights.

As kids we went to lovely countries where my parents marvelled at how cheap everything was and how you were treated like a king for tipping 20p. It took me much longer than it should have to wake up.

The culture in some of these countries is so rich but I don't know how to visit them without basically funding human rights violators. I give to charity and go on short holidays to expensive places 😞

Why not Canada now? It's a great place to visit.

Canada, China, Russia

Ethiopia, Iran and Yemen. Hopefully one day..

St Petersburg
California

@ReviewingTheSituation
Lots of different reasons including their opioid crisis, euthanasia policy and their attitudes to surrogacy and gender ideology.

Butlins. It sounded SO much more fun than the holidays I went on with my parents 50 years ago. Never quite made it, though I managed a few trips to Centerparcs, Oasis and Haven when my children were small. I think that boat has floated, or it no longer floats my boat, or something like that.

As an adult, the Himalaya. When DH and I first met, even before we were a couple, we were going to go to Everest together when we could afford it and our children no longer needed us alive. Not to the summit, but maybe as far as advanced base camp. But at nearly 60 and with very basic mountaineering skills we'd just be a liability, quite apart from the wider environmental and political aspects of Everest tourism. I suspect some of the classic Alpine peaks are also off our agenda now but I'm not quite ready to commit to that decision yet.

Went to Russia 5 years ago to visit in laws - blown away by Moscow and St Petersburg. Probably never get to go again.

I went to China 25 years ago for a long trip - not sure I'd ever go back even though it was fascinating, and hard work as an independent traveller.

I'd love to go to Venezuela and Mexico - but both scare me a bit now.

Syria.

People writing off the whole of the States seems a bit much really....