Places that were a let down

[DarcyDear]

Have you ever been anywhere on holiday and felt it wasn’t what you thought it would be? My friend is just back from New York and absolutely hated it. I’ve never been let down by a holiday but I remember being really taken aback at the levels of poverty and homelessness when I visited Los Angeles in my youth.

You are not alone in this thought. I wanted to take a cloth and some Flash bleach to it.

Though I did very much like the rest of Sydney.

@MissAmbrosia I love Amsterdam and also Utrecht and Haarlem - even the old right light area is now a lot more mixed and smartened up - there are 2 streets in Amsterdam that I call weed central and are horrible but the rest isa favourite of mine, especially the Pipj area and the Jordaan - I do wonder if maybe a lot went 10 or more years ago ? Or only stayed round central station

Florence. Just very dirty, very hot and very crowded with lots of junkies.

I was disappointed in Manchester, I usually really like visiting cities but I really didn't get Manchester at all.
My biggest ever disappointment was Lands End. Just awfully, stunningly commercialised.

I was referring to your mentions of ‘huge’ salaries and extensive holidays, not working overseas.

I think you are ignorant because you make broad, sweeping (and let’s face it offensive) statements about entire, massive countries. You’ve written off the entirety of Greece and the USA fgs. And with no tangible qualification. Intelligent, cultured people don’t come out with crap like that.

I also feel you are also making assumptions about my own background given your condescending tone. I said I have lived in the UK for 37 years…but I am somewhat older than that.

If I gave you my extensive place list for the places in the US & Greece that I've visited, would that qualify my opinion? Or am I, like every other poster on the thread allowed to express my opinion in the way I choose?

In your FIRST response to me, you called me ignorant. My condescension was in response to your extreme rudeness. If you want polite discussion, be polite.

I don't care where you've lived or how old you are. This thread is intended to be a fun, light discussion and you've instead chosen to attack. Keyboard warrior.

I agree about Manchester. I haven’t spent much time there admittedly but both DH and I felt it had an unsettling edge that I’ve not felt in other Northern cities. Probably not helped by witnessing 2 fist fights between the train station and the hotel, and the most aggressive taxi driver I’ve ever had the misfortune to encounter.

Oh I don't for a minute think it's just a MN thing, however funnily enough I've never heard all these complaints from anyone I know in real life. As I said, travel is wasted on some people, others make the most of every opportunity and enjoy it. The people I know who have been to Paris loved it.

This thread is literally about places people disliked though.

If it was about places we'd loved, it would have nothing but positive accounts of travel. I could rave at length at the places that I've adored. I love one particular country so much I bore people about it on a regular basis!

I love travel, but I don't like Paris.

I don’t remember seeing your list of visited places for the US, but whatever it was I can’t imagine it was adequate to quality you to pass opinion on the whole country as violent, racist, tacky and whatever else it was. I have lived there for several years and I certainly wouldn’t attempt it. If you don’t like to receive it then don’t give it out. If it’s polite discussion you want then try starting out with that yourself. You don’t care where I’ve lived or what I’ve done so why can’t you seem to stop banging on about your own travels like it makes you an authority over the other posters that might not agree with you.

The vast majority of every other poster in this thread as you mention have restricted their opinion to exact locations, and backed up that opinion with specific examples and lived experiences. If you honestly can’t see the difference between that and the rubbish you spouted in that first post of yours, then I can’t help you.

Adore Paris. Second date with my husband of 35 years.

I think the only place I have visited that was a let down was Cairo and that was probably more due to my crazily high expectations and being 19 and new to travelling. I had wanted so desperately to visit Egypt for most of my childhood and when I got there I think I experienced my first very big culture shock! Other places, I try not to expect too much now!

Some of the places mentioned on here, NYC, I loved but can see that not everyone would. San Fran, same as NYC. But Jerusalem, yes it’s toxic for obvious reasons but it is beautiful and fascinating. One of my favourite city’s in the world.

Really? By coincidence I have been to both this year and absolutely loved them. Each to their own I suppose 😉

I love this. The whole of the US is tacky and racist. All 400 million people and half a continent 🙄. Not to mention Hawaii and Alaska, which is obviously super tacky, what with the 10,000 mountain peaks. So gaudy.

Where is Heritage Street? Do you mean Hastings Street or Main Street? That's where you are most likely in Vancouver to have an eye opening experience in terms of poverty, homelessness and drug use.

It’s not purely places people dislike, it’s a bit more nuanced. The OP wanted to know about places that didn’t live up to expectations / hype. Eg when the OP went to LA expecting (presumably) glitz and glamour and found instead high rates of poverty and homelessness.

The Lake District. Mostly very pretty, but very crowded and packed with tourists, even in October. Encountered a lot of dangerous driving there too, especially on some of the narrow twisty roads with stone walls. It was also very wet and grey when we went, which probably didn't help the overall experience.

Cumbria overall just gave me the creeps and I couldn't wait to leave.

Zante. Had a dreadful holiday there. It was dirty, noisy and the paths and roads in the resort were being re-done with tarmac whilst we were there so we were treading in tar, no matter how careful we were being. I also got food poisoning whilst there, so all in all, not a great place at that time (early 1990’s) and I’m not inclined to give it a second chance. It’s been the only holiday I’ve had when I’ve been relieved to get back onto UK soil.

On the threads I often wonder if people have visited the same places as me when they rubbish places like Paris, Athens, Greece (!), Amsterdam etc. People are weird.

Ew! Mumbai,l Cairo, Los Angeles, especially LAX, Istanbul, New Orleans, Paris, Sarande ( Albania), Fanning Island , Colon in Panama,, Rio de Janeiro, Dubai
Did I mention LAX?

Like! lEverywhere in Norway, & Iceland, Pyramiden, Longyearbyen, Athens and Delphi, Crete, ( fantastic museums), Santorinu, Delos, Vancouver Island, Quebec, Newport Rhode Island, Robinson Crusoe island, Port Stanley, Adelaide, Palm Beach, Cairns, Brisbane, Stockholm, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Cape Town, Lisbon , Long Beach, York, Munich, Bay of Islands, Auckland....
I'll stop now!

I’m quite sad about this. My new husband and I went on our honeymoon in 1992, only a couple of months after it opened. It was magical.

Why are you sad? Other people didn't like it, why does that take away from the fact that you did? You can still love it.

No, I don’t think I’m weird BourgeoiseBabe, rather I’m recounting my experience of one particular place in Greece at the time I was there. In no way was I suggesting that the whole of Greece was awful (I’ve not visited the whole of Greece, only certain places), but just that my experience of that particular resort on Zante (I should have said its name - Zakynthos), was not an experience I would care to repeat, and it’s a place I have no wish to ever visit again after my experience of it. So no, I’m not rubbishing it as such. I’m saying it was awful for me at the time I was there, and so it has affected my view of the place.

I imagine the PP wasn’t aiming that at you. There has been another poster who has disparaged entire nations (including Greece) but I’m sure your experience in Zakynthos was valid and understandable.

I wasn’t a massive fan of Kos when we went last year. The hotel itself, locals and food were all great, but driving around there didn’t seem to be much going on. Architectural ruins hadn’t been well maintained and felt a bit lacking from a visitor perspective. The landscape was rather barren. And Kos town a bit meh. I hadn’t researched the place particularly well so while I can’t exactly say it didn’t live up to expectations, my experiences of other Greek islands had led me to hope for similar in Kos. But of course the Greek islands are all different.