Best/worst country to visit

[travelinterest]

AIBU to ask which countries/cities were the best or worst you have visited and why?

My favourite places have been Scotland, Germany, Finland. Favourite cities are Vienna and Hamburg.

DH likes Italy the best - likes the weather, the art/architecture and the lifestyle.

There's nowhere I've actively disliked (I don't tend to travel to places I don't think I'll like) but I can't get on with the eating times in Spain - far too late for me. And I wasn't keen on Florence.

Vancouver - nice but dull
Valencia - vibrant and interesting

Best cities:
New York
Dubrovnik
Edinburgh

Worst:
Dublin - I found it very grey and miserable tbh.
Mumbai - it's a fantastic city but some of the poverty I witnessed was utterly harrowing (involving children)

Best Australia Queensland wildlife, Costa Rica wildlife / rainforest, South Africa, Cape Town and surrounds wildlife, Finland brown bears in wild, Lapland, Brazil /Paraty, Venice and most of Italy

Less

Paris not helped by MIL living there.
Lake Como most boring holiday ever
Kos had been trashed by UK tourists with bars etc and chips with everything at 40C
Normandy

Best - had a brilliant holiday travelling through the Carolinas, Savannah, through the Blue Ridge Mountains in the USA. Also love New York.

Would love Paris if you could remove 80% of tourists as it was so amazingly busy - love the buildings, cafes etc though.

I love some of the bits of the Greek islands a bit off the beaten track - beautiful scenery and friendly people.

Didn’t like Vancouver - aggressive beggars everywhere. Seattle 20 years ago had a feeling of one wrong turn might lead to a stabbing, I assume it has improved.

Best-Italy (Rome and the Umbrian mountains) wow!!
Worst-Italy (Naples). Dirty, smelly, mafia run. Just awful!!

Dublin is a real mixed bag. I can see why people would put it as their best or worst place tbh! A bit like Paris in that respect.

Bangkok - hated it so much on arrival that I cried (in my defence I'd just spent a few weeks chilling out on various islands so it was a real shock!) filthy, smelly, noisy, 8 lanes of traffic through the centre, dodgy as hell. However, I got used to it and loved the Buddhas, temples, palace, parks, floating markets etc. Always said if I go back (probably will) I'll splash out on a luxury hotel near all the nice bits.

Oh yes forgot New England especially Cape Cod which I loved and Boston is fab.
Also love Edinburgh.

Agree that North Wales is grim.
Also hate Blackpool.

Best: Dubrovnik, Amsterdam and the Maldives

Worst: Zagreb, Torremolinos

Best:
Iceland by a long mile - you have to leave Reykjavik and drive route 1.
Italy.
The Pantanal in Brazil.
Iguazu falls
Russia - wasn't expecting to like it at all but loved it. Even the food was good. As a vegetarian I had anticipated starvation.
Myanmar.
Angkor Wat - despite being rammed.
Bolivia - North of Salar Uyuni.
Pyramiden - fascinating, but not really on the radar.
Lebanon - surprisingly lovely. The caves were highly impressive and we had Baalbek to ourselves.
Petra - turning the corner is magical. Go as early as you can. By the afternoon it's full of huge, Chinese tour groups.

Worst:
USA (except Hawaii) - have been to numerous places and don't get the love.
India - expected to love it. Didn't at all.
Dublin - grotty and dull. I was really disappointed. Witnessed a brazen theft and two drunks practically having sex on a bench within our first ten minutes of wandering.
Cuba - run down and worst food poisoning of my life.
Singapore - bland.
Giza pyramids - not secluded and mystical like I'd imagined in my head...

that was really long...

Adore Paris and New York. Fave country is probably Italy.

Hated Tunisia. Awful place.

Oh I adore North Wales though admittedly some of the people are not that friendly. But (aside from Rhyl) the scenery is spectacular.

I forgot to mention Tenby earlier too. One of my favourite places ever

@mononoaware1907 I hated Romania because of the begging. It is everywhere, aggressive and they have the habit of cursing you if you don't comply. Even if you don't understand what they are saying you will get the gist when they are damning you to a terrible end! The food is awful and the transport ridiculously bad. If you flash the cash you will be able to get round this but then you are just more of a target for being ripped off. This is the land that is essentially famous for vampires. However, I went quite a few years ago and you may be really adventurous and not mind the fact that the people aren't known for being lovely. Or to not flytip.

Loved - Rome. Even though you are literally fighting your way through crowds, it still has a great atmosphere, very chaotic, very Italian but also friendly and great. And they love children so my DD was actually listened to and well taken care of.
Mexico - Central and South Mexico are amazing. Wasn't into the North of Mexico - too americanised and people were rather unfriendly.
Didn't like: parts of Crete which are overrun by the young Brits. It feels like they are coming there to just behave like skanks. Same goes for Dublin - love the city but meeting the British stag or hen parties is a total bummer, disgusting low-lives with glassy eyes, stinking of booze.

Best - Guatemala. So colourful, friendly and interesting, yes it's dangerous but never felt like we were threatened at all and we went with little kids.
Iceland - loved it, would love to go back not on a university Geography field trip so could enjoy it more and spend less time flat on my face measuring lichen to date glacial retreat!
Also liked - Tangier, Naples (and surrounds) Honduras, Caracas.

Worst - Pisa, Florence, Venice, Vatican. I just don't get the charm of the Italian Renaissance!
Also didn't enjoy - Sorrento, Dublin, Bristol, Lake District, Salzburg.

Best: Argentina; Buenos Aires, Mendoza, Ushuaia (or it’s surroundings anyway), Iguazu, Salta.
Uruguay; Montevideo.
Brazil: Rio de Janeiro (amazing but Christ you’ve got to keep your eyes open), Iguaçu, Costa Verde (train trip outside Curitiba is outstanding), Paraty.
Bolivia; Salt flats and surrounding areas tour
Chile; Valparaiso.
New Zealand; just all of it. Ridiculously amazing country.
Southern Germany

Worst:
Australia; couldn’t wait to be out of there.

Best Country - Iceland, or Austria.
Best Cities - Kansas City, Melbourne, Algiers
Worst country - a tie between Saudi and Egypt. Both extremely horrible places.
Worst City - Riyadh

Best. Well that's tough.

Oman, Salzburg, Vienna, Parts of Guatemala, Costa Rica, Belize, Southern Mexico, New Zealand, UAE desert.

Worst - or at least the ones I would not ho back to:

Beijing, Guangzhou - it's dirty, polluted, crowded, bad bad bad food. Managua and Tegucigalpa - both awful. Didn't love Marmaris, Suez, Tel Aviv. Lived in Johannesburg for a short while - never again.

Best - Bernese Oberland in Switzerland, Bavaria, Berlin, anywhere in USA (so diverse), rural Spain, Zante, Nagasaki, HK

Worst - Shanghai, Mexico (only saw Tijuana - absolute shithole, I’m sure there are some nice places), Marseille, Sicily

I absolutely love reading these threads!

Best:
New York (so much so me and DP are eloping there next year)! We also loved San Fran, Chicago and D.C. in the states.

So many countries in Asia... Singapore, Thailand (Krabi and Chiang Mai specifically, not so much Bangkok!), Cambodia, Hong Kong. Amazing people, incredible food.

We visited New Zealand earlier this year and the scenery was breathtakingly beautiful. The South Island is truly stunning.

In Europe we’ve loved Santorini and Rome. Some parts of Spain are beautiful too.

Worst:
(I’ve never been anywhere I hated, but there were a few places I wouldn’t be in a rush to return to)

Beijing in China felt very unfriendly. We made the effort to learn some basic Chinese phrases, but it was so difficult to get by or get any help at all as a westerner.

I’ve been to Sydney twice and just don’t “get” it. The harbour area is nice but I don’t understand why people rave about it.

Also not a fan of Cyprus. I’ve never found anywhere as charmless, but maybe that’s because I’ve only been to Paphos and Ayia Napa

Iceland and Croatia are high up on our list of next places to visit, so I’m glad they’re being mentioned on this thread!

Best: Taipei, Zurich

Worst: China because I felt uncomfortable there.

#Clandestino. Jeez. Skanks? . Disgusting low lives? Not all stags and hens behave badly and going to Crete etc is often a rite of passage for young women and men before they start uni. It's only a few that spoil it for others. Labelling them all as skanks and disgusting low lives is just nasty