To ask which country you would not visit again and why?

[travelcat]

I love hearing about travel experiences and am interested in knowing about places you have visited that you wouldn't go back to.

AIBU to ask which country you'd avoid in the future and what specifically made your experience less enjoyable? Was it due to culture, safety, or something else?

Senegal
Tonga
England

I'm not 50 yet and I remember
Stephen Lawrence being murdered, the scumbags, the mistrials and the racism within the police force.

Not much has changed, but don't do his Mum a disservice by saying it's been 50 years.

I’ve never found a whole country I disliked. I don’t usually visit just one spot in a country - I travel around, so I can get a real feel for a place. The only place I’ve really disliked was Delhi. I found it extremely challenging in that I was lied to constantly by everyone - taxi drivers pretending places I wanted to go had closed down and trying to take my to their friends businesses instead, and similar. I also found the city extremely visually unappealing and boring. However, I adore other places in India - I think Kerala is one of my favourite ever places! I didn’t really like Milan, but didn’t hate it like Delhi. It was fine, but I just found it dull, although Italy as a country is, I think, my favorite country of all! You can’t judge a whole country! Especially if you only visit the touristy areas where you can’t get much of a feel for the place.

Jesus Christ

I was interested in this thread since I love travelling and have visited around 50 countries. I've found it a bit depressing and unhelpful as I think people are taking one off experiences and applying sweeping statements to a whole country. Personally I've travelled back to some places many times and sometimes had a very different experience one time to the next in exactly the same places. Also tourist hot spots are not a good way to judge a country. I.e. if you've only been to Marrakesh, you don't know Morocco. Also even England where I live! I hate England in January but love it in June! Don't love Swindon either but hopefully no one judges us based on Swindon, or Leicester Square for that matter.

There's also a lot of talk about harassment. One thing I do like to do is try my best to blend in. Especially if it's further afield I check what are the cultural norms and try my best to dress in a way that doesn't make me look like a complete tourist with a placard above my head as it attracts unwanted attention. I've even been to some areas where you want to keep a low profile as a tourist due to kidnappings.

Now there is no circumstances where harassment of any kind is justifiable but I'm just saying I found that blending in as much as poss gives me a more positive experience and makes me feel safer.

That said I do have a bit of a black list of places I don't want to visit because I just think they sound awful as a whole and there are moral issues and outright risks. I.e. Dubai as many have mentioned. I'll prob end up going one day for work, but the materialistic culture and treatment of migrant workers/slaves is appalling. Also Saudi Arabia. I've been to Russia but wouldn't go back now due to the war.

Trying to think of countries I've visited where I wouldn't go back at all and despite some negative experiences here and there I can't think of any. Possibly Belgium for being a bit boring 🤷🏻‍♀️

I was quite shocked to hear this as I've heard multiple times about what a safe country it is.

I loved Netherlands - I found most people to be direct but not unfriendly at all. Quite the opposite! We took a recent trip to a rural location south of Amsterdam and loved it.

Dubai is somewhere Dh and I won’t go for all the reasons given on this thread.

I absolutely wouldn’t return to Israel. For many reason. I experienced terrible harassment there and had some very scary experiences in Jerusalem.

I wouldn’t rush back to Mexico, Morocco or Thailand.

Israel and Russia - would not support their economy with my tourist money
India - gross poverty and lack of hygiene - never again
Dubai - nothing to inspire there
Southern States of America - unhealthy mix of Bible bashing and guns - bonkers

Yes! Exactly the same thought had crossed my mind.

OMG that sounds truly awful. Makes me feel quite sick.

Will never return to Africa or any majority Muslim country. Not pleasant, not safe.

Yes that was a weird one! I think you need to have been there to understand that the buildings are so high and so dense, if you're in Manhattan you're not really seeing much of the iconic skyscrapers anyway.

Singapore is wonderful. I'd ignore the pp who said the people are rude - that's absolutely not the case and shows a lack of understanding of how other cultures display courtesy.

Presumably you were in North Wales Petrichor?

Ditto San Francisco for all the reasons you cite. Have never felt so unsafe and couldn't wait to leave. Wouldn't go back for a million quid!

I have sadly written off China as a destination - the political situation there and creepy authoritarian government is gradually sending the country off in the whole North Korea direction. Loved traveling there in the 2000s though. The country seemed to be opening up and moving in the right direction, and I met so many nice people.

The Middle East and North Africa really needs to do something about their large numbers of unpleasant young men with horrible attitudes. Even if the governments don’t care about the local women who are forced to live with these men and their violent, sexist behavior, the economic reality is that it massively puts off tourists and these are countries which have the potential to attract so, so many more travelers. Delicious food, wonderful sites and history. Horrible young men (or at least, a lot of them are horrible).

England. I was born there, and have been back numerous times to numerous places, but you couldn’t pay me to visit again.

Dubai
Hong Kong
Anywhere on the African continent
Yugoslavia
Any of the Southern US states (Virginia, West Virginia, Georgia, Texas, etc)

Turkey for the same reasons as PPs.
Isn't it appalling that so many of us have been subjected to leering and groping, and sometimes worse, by sleazy men in these countries.

Yugoslavia hasn't existed since 1992.

It's now seven different countries

This is so funny to read as someone who spends 3/4 of the year in China! I’ve never found anywhere more lovely, safe, and welcoming, with friendly, helpful, warm and happy people. Don’t believe everything you read in the media about China. Its absolutely nothing like North Korea, absolutely can’t be compared at all. Since being here I’ve realized how truly biased western media is and what a one-sided perspective of everything you get.

Sadly, Austria. It's a very beautiful country which I visited with my parents when I was 13. It was in the springtime and we stayed in the gorgeous little town, St Anton. One day we took a cable car half way up a mountain to an open air swimming pool, it was devine. The whole holiday was just brilliant.

I went back to Austria 20 years later, in a February - for my first, and last skiing holiday - with my nearly new husband (married for about 6 months by then and no I didn't buy him from the nearly new stall in the market!). We stayed in Bad Hofganstein in a hotel that had an open log fire, except they didn't light it for the whole of our stay. We had paid extra for a room with a balcony as I didn't want to ski as much as my husband did, who was a skier from before I met him - I had had some enjoyable lessons on a dry ski slope in England where I even managed to "juggle" my mittens during one of those lessons - so I had been looking forward to wrapping up well, and sitting on the balcony with a good book, and a steaming hot drink, while my husband skied the more difficult slopes.

The hotel management put us in a ground floor room, which obviously didn't have a balcony or any outdoor space. When we pointed this out to the hotel management they just said that they had let the rooms with balconies out to some German tourists who it turned out had booked after we had, and they hadn't even arrived by the time we got there. It was already quite late, so we couldn't speak to our rep until the next day as they weren't staying in our hotel. Nearly every local person that we met throughout our stay in B.H. seemed arrogant, and acted like they were looking down on us because we were English, and noticeably not very wealthy.

I also suffered quite badly from altitude sickness from when I had gone up one of the taller mountains to watch my DH ski down it. By the next day my whole face had swollen up like a balloon and I felt quite sick, so I had to see a local doctor, accompanied by my rep - as I didn't speak German - my altitude sickness seemed to turn quite flu like, so I couldn't even get up for about 3 days. There was supposed to be an evening sleigh ride, pulled by horses, that we booked when booking the whole holiday, but the organisers cancelled it because we were the only ones who had booked to go on it, so it wasn't worth it for them.

On top of all of that, the ski instructor who was supposed to speak English, could only say "No" and "Stop" in English, so I gave up trying to ski quite quickly (probably too quickly, but with everything else I wasn't feeling too great by then - I did not used to be a quitter in those days, so I was also disappointed with myself!)

I doubt that I am being fair in judging the who of Austria for my very disappointing late honeymoon in Bad Hofganstein, but it was the attitude of the people there that has put me off Austria for good. Oh, and even though we complained about the worst of our issues at the hotel to our rep while we were there, and to the travel company when we got back, we never got any compensation for any of our trip. By the way that was the only holiday that I have ever felt completely ripped off and disappointed by, and we are another 30 years after that now...

Sorry @travelcat, but you did ask for the reason 🙈