Most UNDERRATED destination you've visited

[YankeeDad]

I thought it would be just as interesting to hear about places visited where you had very low expectations, and were pleasantly surprised by how much these were exceeded.

I will start with three:
Turin, Italy
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Portsmouth, England

Tasmania isn't often mentioned

Absolutely stunning

Felixstowe.

Agree with others about Germany!
Myanmar (before the current situation)
Lyon
Ireland

This for certain, fairytale is right, nowhere like it !

Poznan (Poland)
Bergamo (old town)
Ohrid (Macedonia)
Beverley (Yorkshire)
Lichfield (Midlands)

Sendai and Hirosaki - Highly recommend if anyone has an upcoming trip to Japan!

❤️ my grandmother lived there and I visited every year. I loved the city (especially the Altstadt) and of course, now she’s gone, it holds a special place in my heart

Germany.

Leiden

Everyone seems to visit Amsterdam or Den Haag (which was great), but I could have stayed in Leiden forever. Beautiful with a wonderful vibe.

Pollensa, in Majorca. Not Puerta Pollensa, but the town 5km inland.

We’d never heard of it, and it was magical.

Yosemite
Kings Canyon
Sequoia National Parks in California

LynetteScavo · Yesterday 22:28

Middlesbrough

To be fair, when people see that it's got tarmac and streetlights, their expectations have usually been exceeded....

Lubmin. What with it being the landing point for the Nord Stream pipeline and having a defunct, Soviet era nuclear power station.

The village is pleasant and the beach is beautiful.

@FreedomDrops I used to work in Swindon, so trust me, I've seen enough of it to last me a lifetime 😂😂

The one in Swindon isn't as bad as the one in Hemel Hempstead.

LA and Milan that get a lot of hate but I personally loved after living there for a bit.
I also actually loved New York, San Francisco, Naples from those that got a lot of hate on the other thread. And Mallorca too when venturing out to historical towns like Sollar and Valldemossa.

Ghent - I enjoyed it more than Brugges, charming little town
Strasbourg - the cutest Christmas markets throughout the city
Sarajevo
Sardinia
Uganda

Hamburg

Most people have heard about the red lights district. Has anyone heard about the two lakes in the centre, beautiful parks, small compact size, brilliant transport system and generally beautiful architecture. Harbour, World heritage site redevelopment of the warehouses of the former free port.

I grew up there, longed always to be in London and remained completely oblivious to the pristine beauty of Hamburg

Goerlitz, a German city on the Polish border. Spend ten seconds doing a google image search.

I rest my case.

I second Hamburg, a petty and peaceful city.

Torquay. The Fawlty Towers experience of yore is dead.

OMG! Spokane! It's tiny. My family used to run the post office there. The tavern is lush.

A bit surprised by some of these including County Longford. Longford town is pretty bland and congested despite the bypass, where do you recommend?
Also Liverpool is pretty well known as a lovely city and attracts a lot of visitors.
My own contribution would be Cardiff. For some reason I'd been led to believe it was grotty but found it to be an attractive and friendly city.

I used to live in Portsmouth it's gritty but I loved it. The shipyard is great, the castle is good, sea views, great arts scene along Albert road lots of independent quirky shops and things (pie and vinyl a face of mine). There's a really good independent pub culture too, the kings theatre is lovely. The navy based there it's a very interesting place. Poor and rough in places but interesting.

the countryside round Dunstable looks stunning!

Imagine going to Swindon to look at a shit roundabout