Where is the most overrated holiday destination you’ve been?

[phoanymoany]

Where have you been on holiday and thought “wow, that was a waste of my time and money”.

Mine was travelling to a fairly remote tropical island where people were supposed to be so friendly. Unfortunately we found the people we interacted with in the hotels and restaurants to be anything but nice. It piddled down with rain and then we almost got scammed.

Bondi beach is great! Maybe it’s improved from when PPs were there? It’s really cool and has some great shops and cafes. Clean, amazing surf. Gorgeous walks along the cliff paths to other little coves. Bondi Icebergs is an amazing art deco building and lovely pool and restaurant. Really interesting history.

Your gut sounds pretty accurate.

I think New Zealand has been exceptionally well marketed. It is beautiful and if you have a friend to stay with I'm sure it would be a different experience.

But the prices, the isolation and i found it very insular and kind of sad. Like a melancholic place. I think it's just so isolated. And expensive. Food almost double the price of UK and wages aren't so there is a low standard of living, unless you're very rich.

But it is beautiful, as are lots of places!

Nobody got my joke 😔

Thanks for info re Dubrovnik.
Re Barcelona, we went last summer and I was concerned about the crime I’d read about but in 5 days staying on Las Ramblas we saw none and never felt threatened. We took precautions and kept aware as we would in any busy city.

Barcelona. Shit hole

@TheCadoganArms I did and it made me smile!

Which joke? About going to Korea rather than Thailand?

Best thing we ever did was Venice in summer 2020. Magical and deserted. Don’t think we can ever go back now

I can recommend October, @TheaBrandt; much less busy and you can hope you get a misty day

Sheer magic ...

It's been a long time since I actually visited Dubrovnik (day trip from Montenegro) but we will be going there in September .

There is a big choice of hotels and AirB&B properties along the coast just north and south of Dubrovnik and within the Lapad area . From the pictures I've seen there are plenty of green areas and spaces to chill - plus public transport and/or taxis very easy into Dubrovnik itself. Friends of mine who visited last year enjoyed it a lot - but stayed at hotels in the areas I've mentioned rather than in the old town itself .

It took me a while!

Hahha I had to go back for it but this is great!

I still haven’t got the South Korea joke - can someone explain.

@Barbadossunset South Korea has plenty of Seoul.

Takoneko - of course! Thank you.
Can’t believe I didn’t get that.

This has to be of the most ridiculous comments ever written.

Or maybe Seoul?

Zante- but possibly influenced by DH (on our first holiday together after about 2 months together) being bitten on one ball by an insect and developing an unfeasibly large testicle which he could not bear to walk with, refused to get medical help and talked me into going to a pharmacy and asking the pharmacist for help.

I neither speak nor understand Greek but between the pharmacist's tiny bit if English and my miming the event and drawing a diagram of a cockroach and DH with his testicle, I was given some antibiotics and cream for him. He could not reach it because of where the bite actually was and how swollen the area was so I also had to apply the cream every day for almost a week until the antibiotics had effect...............It sort of made us closer, somehow. 😂

We've had years of dinner party stories and entertainment from it.

I'm bewildered by everyone hating on Lisbon here - but maybe if it puts loads of people off, it'll be less crowded in summer and I'll get my city back, the one I've known all my life. It has certainly changed, but I think that's as much down to bloody city-killing 'digital nomadism' and AirBnB culture as mass tourism. Most Lisboetas can't afford to live in their own city now - but then that's the same story in capital cities the world over.

All I can assume is that people are visiting Lisbon for just a few days, maybe just the weekend, and trying to fit the same five things into those days that everyone else is. It's such a beautiful, rich, ancient and very friendly city, it has so much more to offer than the sights in Belem and the castle and so on. I think you just need to ask yourself - do you want to spend 2 hours in the searing sun queueing to get inside the Torre de Belem (don't bother, there's sod-all inside!) or would you rather spend that time exploring back streets and undervisited museums and finding the perfect grill place for lunch with the people who live there?

Or - go in January (heatwave at the moment!) and it'll be so much emptier.

I'm bewildered by everyone hating on Lisbon here -

I'm bewildered by almost all the posts on here about anywhere I've been. Especially the ones that damn a whole country based on a week or two in one very tiny part of it.

The thread is about OVERRATED destinations. So all those places that don’t meet expectations. It’s not about whether a place is or is not a nice place in itself.

I totally get why stupidly busy and grimy Barcelona is disliked. Everyone bangs on about it being a great must do city break. Which it is but you have to do it right. Otherwise you’ll get the crowds, queues, traffic and dirty buildings.

I can’t believe all the Barcelona hate! It’s one of my favourite cities. Found it really friendly and full of interesting things to do. Didn’t get robbed! 😁

I think many people see La Rambla and the streets each side of it and think that is the sum total of Barcelona. A bit like someone going to Oxford Street and Leicester Square and thinking on the strength of that London is shit.

Some places get overhyped. Barcelona the only mainland Spanish city really mentioned as its been so hyped. I think its a great city but there's 5 or 6 other Spanish cities that don't get hyped much.

True

My personal favorites:

San Sebastian
Granada
Seville
Toledo

Agreed, Granada, Cadiz, Córdoba are some of my favourite places to visit. As is Seville, but that isn’t underrated. I am keen to visit Valencia which hasn’t come up really on this thread so I am hoping that is also great.