If you choose a city as a holiday destination what do you expect to 'do' there?

[NonHighStreetClothes]

I read the regular 'worst places to visit' threads with a morbid fascination & i'm always amazed at how many posters say they've visited x, y or z city & found it 'boring' with 'nothing to do'.

I find it incredibly hard to relate to this as its never been my experience. So it got me wondering- if you decide to visit a city what do you look for?

What 'things' do you want to do there?

I've been to 160 cities in 30 countries across 4 continents (I have an app). Some places I've been to once but many I've been to multiple times as I travel quite a bit for work.

I have never once found a city boring.

Certainly there are some i love more than others. Some i adore spending time in but would never want to live in - I'd live in Paris in a heartbeat but I wouldn't consider living in London though I love to visit regularly.

I'll start - when I plan a visit anywhere, particularly if its my first time its usually because I am especially interested in something related to thst place & in my case that usually means writers, artists, Historical figures.

Things I look for:
I read about the history of that city
Museums
Art galleries
If in Europe I love to look up the oldest 'Grand Cafe' & make sure to havea drink there
Historical walking tours - we've done brilliant ones in London, Dublin, Prague, Budapest, Trieste, Krakow etc
The best wine bars
The key attractions (i'll only usually do this once & once ive seen them i focus on other stuff on subsequent visits)
Booking tickets to an event - opera, performance, exhibition etc
Churches/ cathedrals etc
I've often read a book thats inspired me to visit a place or an area in a city so ee love mapping that out & locating it

We love sitting at streetsife cafes soaking up the atmosphere & people watching

Then at night we love research the oldest traditional bar, a jazz bar, a cocktail bar, the best place for steak or seafood etc depending where we are

Every city ive ever been to has all of these elements + more

So...I'm curious- if you've found places boring & couldn't find anything to do - what is it you look for?

DH probably fits your description of the type of person you’d like to understand. He likes “surprises” and will rarely do any research into our holiday destinations. In reality, that means I get to plan to my heart’s content and he just follows me, but, for example, he took DD to Dublin last year to a concert and made no other plans, preferring to just wander round and see what they came across. That’s what he prefers- have an explore or wander without any itinerary. Would drive me batty- what if you miss all the good stuff!

@WickedGoodDoge how did they get on doing that? Did they happen upon good stuff & did they enjoy the trip?

About 13 years ago when our dc was quite young we brought them to Budapest for the first time. Dh has been several times before when he was young but I had never been.

It was a trip that I felt we got a bit wrong. We picked a lovely apartment but we hadn't really researched its location enough & it was a fair schlep to all the places we wanted to see

This meant we spent too much of our precious time navigating around.

We also didnt really plan what we wanted to see or do there so each day a lot time was wasted discussing & deciding what to do.

Overall we had a great time & absolutely loved the city.

We've been back since & it was a totally different experience because by then I'd really gotten the hang of properly researching trips & smart phones were better etc so easy to look stuff up & make plans.

Also we knew the area we wanted to stay & our hotel was in a fantastic location. Dc was also mid - teens by then & more interested in things that they weren't into the previous time. Planning ahead all the stuff we wanted to see & do meant we covered a lot more ground & didn't run out of time to see what we wanted.

I've fully adopted the planning approach since. Including loads of research on bedt restaurants & bars so there's no hangry wandering about looking for places to eat

When visiting a new city I like to:

Try and find a fre elical event

Check out local supermarkets

People watch from a cafe

*free event!

We sometimes plan lots of activities before we go but lately we’ve left the planning to the actual day. For example in Seattle earlier in the year we knew we’d wake up mega early because of jet lag so my DH and I sat in bed with our phones and booked tickets to some really good stuff and we had a fab time.
We did the same in Doha last year too.

Sometimes I'm a fan of a smaller city and just soaking up city life - be not do places. We stayed in Narbonne for a few days last month before heading to a music festival on the coast.

It is a fairly small city, but we had a great time pottering round the very attractive streets and squares, we went to the Roman museum, saw the Cathedral and the historic town hall - where there was a very good exhibition of Dali, Picasso and Miro paintings and ceramics.

We spent a lot of time at the food market and in the bars and restaurants along the canal du Robine. As is common in cities in that area of France the evening streets were full of live music, dancing and DJs.

One day we took a boat trip down the canal.

We also caught a local bus to a nearby village to see the salt lakes and flamingos.

It was great.

Our family city breaks, as well as landmarks, museums, parks, restaurants, markets, and other attractions, seem to invariably include a local football match and a chairlift/cable car ride to a nearby vantage point (if available!)

I’ve been to cities I found boring.

i’m a wheelchair user and some cities really are pretty inaccessible. I also have stomach issues so eat a limited diet and most local food is either tricky or needs adapting.

most vegan food fits my requirements and there are increasing numbers of vegan restaurants around.

i also don’t drink due to medication, am happy to sit at an outside bar in the afternoon but wine bars etc have no interest.

i do have things I am interested in and actually I travel quite a lot but some cities are boring for me.

i enjoyed Brussels, I was there for work then joined by DH for a couple of nights and we found lots to see ….wouldn’t rush back as a destination but would happily find myself there again en route elsewhere.

I find it weird when people do no research into where they’re going, and I’m married to one of those. We went Budapest in May and I’d booked a dinner river cruise as it was our anniversary, and somewhere for breakfast. Done research into where to go and what to see. He’d done nothing. I love planning holidays, DH pretty much lets me organise them and just go along with what I want so does have its advantages.

Friends of ours went to Barcelona and said it was boring. Once you’ve done Las Ramblas that was it apparently! We’ve been twice and found loads to see and do! I think their idea of a city break is sitting drinking coffee. Which is fine but. It all day every day!

I love researching and planning a holiday, I usually have a list of top attractions, sometimes I prebook tickets if there is a risk of it being sold out but like to have some unplanned time so we can be spontaneous, we often just like walking, discovering unusual shops or cafes, a small park or street art etc.

I always check this site out too, it lists the unusual things in a place that might not be in your guide book.

https://www.atlasobscura.com

We like to mooch about admiring the different style of architecture, I found Dublin a bit dull on that front, but I was visiting my brother so he was responsible for itinerary. Also, I live in Edinburgh so the bar is pretty high and when I was younger I probably didn't get that many places are going to come up short by comparison.

I love organising holidays. In a city break I look for the botanic gardens/park (and where to get food so we can have a picnic), any unique attractions, museums (but not art galleries), the zoo, something like hiring a bike, maybe somewhere to swim. Then somewhere a bit off the beaten track. If we are going to be doing a more educational visit, I always find something to do before or afterwards that will interest the DC. Eg. WW2 museum is paired with an adventure playground. I also work out the public transport system and whether we need to hire a car to reach attractions a bit further out the city (e.g. we spent 2 weeks in Prague but had a car to visit other attractions within an hour's drive or we spent a few days in Palma and then hired a car and went to visit the rest of Mallorca). But our holiday this year we took the in-laws. They usually do a package holiday or cruises and have everything preplanned for them. No concept at all of how to plan and organise a holiday and I'm not sure what they'd have got out of it, if I'd not researched it all before we went.

in the early 00s no advance booking of attractions was usually necessary, although sometimes queuing was needed for some things.

I like art galleries, museums and would book some of these in advance of the trip if needs be. Off season this is less necessary. On a recent trip to Florence, we did book a couple of museums in advance but all the churches - that are crammed full of art - were fine to just rock up to on the day. Although, I had researched opening times and days. It was March.

I do like free things when visiting places. There are a lot of free museums and galleries in London. Often there are places you can go for a free view of a city. In Florence there's the Piazalle Michelangelo if you don't mind a long walk and a lot of steps. In Paris there's the terrace at Galleries Lafayette.

Things I'm not usually keen on are stuff like kiddie orientated things. DC all grown up now, we did sometimes book kid oriented stuff but they rarely proved to be the thing our DC enjoyed the most. The exceptions to this were parks and local toy shops, plus equivalent to science/natural history museum in various places.

I do almost zero research beyond booking a couple of restaurants in advance and checking what the weather will be like but I’m happy wandering while there and (other than Berlin where I was racially abused) always had a wonderful time and really enjoyed my city breaks.
Totally depends on your outlook really doesn’t it? I’m very happy to go with the flow, often end up chatting to a local somewhere who will give personal recommendations on must see/do things too.

I was isolated in the rural uk until my teens so LOVE to travel.

Things that make a city boring:
Over crowded.
Generic- sights become all about tourism, no locals or local charm.
Exorbitant tourist pricing.
Loud Americans. Especially as all their conversations are bragging about what they’ve seen or about to see in each city. ( did wonder if the Op was from the US actually) . I want the chit chat of locals.
Having to do loads of research or book tours. I do both but because I love thinking about holidays. It’s disappointing when you can’t get a sense of a place without it though ; see generic.

I think European cities are especially bad in comparison to other places in the world.

I think a lot of people don’t really like cities anyway so I guess they wouldn’t enjoy them on a holiday. The hustle and bustle and the distance from a to b is probably a lot for some.

I think some cities could potentially be boring if you are on a very tight budget and don’t enjoy wandering around or parks. I think in most cases you need a bit of cash to get the most out of a city break - even if it’s just having the spare to grab a coffee or an ice cream whenever you feel like you’re wilting.

@SomethingFun This is true.

DS (20) took his girlfriend to NYC and whilst he knew it wouldn’t be cheap they couldn’t fully enjoy it.

I have never once found a city boring.

I'm assuming you've never visited Wrexham.

I broadly agree with you though, op. Even cities I haven't found especially interesting and wouldn't choose to return to e.g. Brussels, Durham - I've been able to find something to do to pass the time reasonably well.

We love going to different cities. The key is definitely research. I've seen people make the comment about a particular place being boring and I think it says more about them than many cities. So many places have hidden treasures.

Brussels is a case in point. I loved there for a few years and at the end was still finding little surprise places. But it's not like Disneyland - everything isn't on show and you have to dig a bit.

I am just getting that app you mentioned to see how many places I've been.

I live in a touristy place. I find it fascinating that peiple can arrive and have done no research about what to see and do here.

A lot of people also join our local Facebook groups (mainly about bin collections and missing dogs) to ask about accommodation and recommendations, which they would be much better googling.

I love a city based holiday, but increasingly since smartphones and COVID you really do have to book lots of things in advance, and it's a pain.

As an example we were in Amsterdam this summer, and had to book the Anne Frank House 6 weeks ahead. Whereas 15 years ago I just joined a queue outside.
I'd rather be be bit more spontaneous, and sometimes feel like a fun sponge tell the family that we need to get in X place at Y time, but if you don't book you miss lots of bigger attractions (we did some cool less famous stuff as well!).

We've done smaller UK cities and loved them but won't go back as we've done little they have.

We are hamped by no car so more central locations or with public transport to sites is needed. Some things listed as being in a city are actually quite a way out so inaccessible with no car.

We tend to love bigger UK cities though and a few European ones- and can wonder round and just enjoy a place but research tends to help - vauge plan.

I was with some work colleagues when one wanted to wonder round San Francisco walking - so have a bad memory of that outside tourist areas we also saw which were good. Didn't hit any good shops ended streets of nail bars and sandwiche places. Think same place with DH would have found something more intertesting or gone back to interetsing parts.

I used to book and then plan when I got to the city. I would have picked up tourist leaflets state hotel and mostly discovered things walking about. I was a fan of big red buses.

but now with DP he researches each city to death. Plans most cost effective way to visit the sites. He likes a city pass type thing. I have a list of things we could see. I have to pick and
he makes an itinerary. So we get everything in.

plus side we do lots and see lots of cons is exhausting and sometimes things are really interesting you want to stay longer. But he is organised and I am less so.

We now have a very short mystery see list and a few would like to do things on that day.