Reverse Bucket List…

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What would be your reverse Bucket List? Experiences that are meant to be awesome, once in a lifetime moments… but in reality rate as anything from ‘meh’ to ‘fuck that!’

Mine is…

A spa day. Totally boring and over priced to wallow in a pond of other people’s filth.

Everest Base Camp… never seen such a pile of litter. Made me feel sad.

Christmas shopping in London. Sensory nightmare.

North West 500… how to become the most hated being on the planet, drive a camper van round the narrow lanes of north Scotland.

Designer outfit. I still looked like a mad old bat.

Fish and chips by the sea at sunset. Getting covered in the shit of psychopathies seagulls isn’t what happens on Instagram.

Also
Raw kelp carb diet healing retreat.

The Great Barrier Reef. I love diving and it was such a dream of mine, but the coral there was totally underwhelming as not as good as many other places i had been (the bit I dived in anyway, I know it’s massive).

disagree about Everest Base Camp though OP (assuming you mean the trek not the actual camp)! The panorama from Kala Patthar was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

Agree with that one... I genuinely felt there was a chance of being crushed in the crowds .. I am not a dramatic person at all but I was terrified.

Going up tall things...Eiffel tower, Burj Khalifa, Empire State Building etc. I literally get nothing from it and will never pay to do it again.

Solo trek to the North Pole. No fucking way! Or climbing a high mountain. nope! Too lazy

Mine are:
Paris - cold, grey, dirty and miserable. Wouldn't go back

Cape Town - a 'nature safari' on a speed boat around the bay. It was a stormy day, honestly thought I was going to die - wtf was I thinking?!

The criticisms of stuff thought. Venice is run down…dear god.
it’s not just not wanting to do a few things.
amd actually, far from Pollyanna I’m a bit of a miserable git.

I am too lazy to do the London marathon (or any marathon) too.

A nature safari on a speed boat? Yes. Wtf were you thinking? Weather bad or not that isn’t going to work, is it?

DH saw a man pooing in the street in Paris. He was leaning against a car bumper taking his time. His mate was holding the toilet roll and they were both smoking a cigarette.

It hasn't put him off he's on about going together

Sunrise ballon trip over the Serengeti.
It sounded wonderful, up early and see the sun slowly brighten the savanna as the animals graze and wander to the watering holes. A serene experience with nature.
In reality the balloon is very noisy and between the noise and this huge shadow looming over them, the poor animals are panic-stricken. All you see is the backs of galloping hind legs and bouncing tails as they try to get the fuck away from you as fast as they can.
In contrast, balloon sunrise over the valley of the kings was gorgeous. I was glad I did that first as I'd never get in a balloon again after the Horror on the Serengeti.

Hamilton the musical. Every single person who had seen it told me how amazing it was, the best show ever. I went to see it and sat in the theatre surrounded by clapping, whooping loons not really understanding what was going on. They really needed a narrator to pull it all together. I’m still baffled.

Mega famous people in concert at an arena like O2 etc. You end up watching a giant screen as you can’t see the tiny ant sized person on stage.

All inclusive dining on holiday, buffets - in fact anything that involves queuing while holding a plate and helping yourself to sneezed on food with a pair of tongs crawling in bacteria.

Luxury hotels - I’ve never ever seen one without a worn patch of carpet in a corner or a scuffed skirting board. It can’t be helped due to the sheer number of people passing through but it does spoil the illusion.

The North West 500 is called the NC 500 and the locals are fabulous. They are not a fan of tent campers / canpervans because of the mess they leave / illegal parking and how little the campers put into the local economy.

They support car driving / B&B staying guests.

It's absolutely amazing and I'd do it again in a heart beat.

Sports related ceremonies. I’ve wanted to go to one for years, and applied for opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympic and Paralympic at London 2012, and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow 2014. Finally got tickets for the Birmingham closing ceremony last summer and while it was undeniably a brilliant experience, the shows are actually better to watch on TV. They don’t make much sense without the close ups and the commentary.

Dubai - I will never understand the allure of flying for 8 hours to somewhere so utterly plastic, built on the sweat of poorly-paid, mistreated foreign workers and chock full of thick-as-fuck reality tv 'stars' and social media influencers pretending to live the millionaire lifestyle.

Cruises - THE worst of polluting tourism bar none, with the added horror of my most-hated form of 'entertainment' - cabaret and the inability to truly escape any lunatics / bores without throwing oneself into the cruel sea to certain death.

Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius or anywhere with those poxy cabins on stilts over the water where there's fuck all to do and you've flown for sodding hours and hours to sit in a resort with a load of other Brits you wouldn't give the time of day to back home. In fact, add 'resorts', generally, to my reverse bucket list. I tend to avoid any destination described thus.

Music festivals - overpriced tickets, food and camping, awful toilets, a large percentage of shit performers labouring under the misapprehension they're the next big thing when the reality is they're just massive noisy show-offs who couldn't song-write their way out from under a soaking wet copy of Rolling Stone magazine.

Spa days - overpriced, over-hyped, jacuzzis crawling with greasy pervs and the afternoon tea never lives up to expectation.

Swimming with dolphins - leave the poor fuckers alone, they've got enough to contend with from climate change, over-fishing and getting slapped bandy by boat propellers and Orcas.

Supercar experience - what's the point without being able to treat it like you would your own car? eg: battering it up the kerb outside Costcutter five minutes before closing to grab an emergency bottle of sauv blanc and a family-sized bag of cheese balls and using it to impress your work colleagues by arriving sideways in the company car park and acting all nonchalant when confronted with their incredulous faces?

Helicopter flight over Las Vegas and landing in Grand Canyon. Thought it would be one of the best memories of our lifetime having had a surprise helicopter transfer in the alps once which was amazing. Total anticlimax and a colossal waste of money..but the problem with bucket list things is that if they are on your bucket list and you don't do them then they'll stay unfulfilled dreams forever...so while I'd never recommend anyone do it, at least I've done it and can stop fantasizing about it!

Also Ulura (Ayre's rock) - takes days out of a travel itinerary and it's just not worth it. But try telling someone holidaying in Australia not to bother with it...High expectations are the route to disappointment!

Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius or anywhere with those poxy cabins on stilts over the water where there's fuck all to do and you've flown for sodding hours and hours to sit in a resort with a load of other Brits you wouldn't give the time of day to back home.

Don’t know about the other two, but there’s plenty to do in Mauritius and I didn’t see any stilts the whole time!

Running a marathon, just not for me. I find most runners highly irritating, it's all they talk about/ post about on social media. No one cares about your screenshot of your strava.

Swimming with any animal in captivity, pains me to see people still do this.

Dubai - I don't get the fascination

Skiing - I have absolutely no coordination what so ever so would be a nightmare for me, I imagine the alpine lodges, hot chocolate are nice though.

Did you scream though?

I went when I was a kid in the 70s, when you could wander among the stones and touch them. I can't remember if it was 'tranquil', but I don't think it was heaving. Afaik the stones weren't quite as big as I'd imagined but still quite impressive to think of the effort and wonder just exactly who'd made it and why.

FA Cup Final.

But was probably bad luck. Had the chance of a ticket when I was less interested in football but didn't want to turn it down. Cold and rainy. Was 1 - 1 (Arsenal v Sheffield Wednesday iirc). Didn't really support either team but wanted the underdog team as usual. This was in the days of replays so didn't even get to see a team win, get their medals etc.

Agree with every suggestion here

Went to the Seychelles years ago with a friend...most boring holiday ever. Maybe it's different now but by 8 pm every night for a week went to bed with a book. No night life at all. Even a honeymooning couple were bored.

Stonehenge, shown this by a boyfriend who lived relatively near by...huge disappointment...saw it from the motorway initially and couldn't believe this 'mystical' place seemed to be just stuck in the middle of a bunch of roads.

Venice, smelly.

Catacombs, didn't see them as I was harassed by a pervy man the whole way through, was on my own, so I left early, back to Rome where I was harassed by a pervy man in a Starbucks!

Have given up on going to places just to see the 'sites' rather go and just hang out and see and experience the cities, people watch, how people live their lives in other parts of the world.

Sometimes though even bad experiences are worth it for the memories, the stories, the laughs, the lessons learned, and why you'll never do those things again.

.

Being backstage with bands.

Slightly better toilets. Slightly worse people.

Ah but what you don't realise is I was a young teen or maybe not yet teen.

I had been imagining houses on stilts and everything being done by boat (like I had seen on Newsround for somewhere or other which was actually somewhere else entirely)

When we did go on the canal we went round the backs of buildings which looked shabby and run down.

Of course the main bits of Venice were probably amazing, but I was hot and tired and didn't appreciate them.

I love the rest of Paris but agree with the Eiffel Tower. It’s way too high at the top and very windy. You can’t really make much out because it’s so high! The first two levels are much better to actually see things or the Arc de Triomphe is a much better view!