Holiday destinations that were unexpectedly lovely OR awful.

[NickiFury]

Torremolinos - ex booked it and I really didn't want to go. It was beautiful, amazing food, beach, perfect for kids, been back loads since.

Thailand - I hated it from the moment I left Bangkok airport, Krabi down by the coast was ok but the rest of the time was awful, I actually cried with relief when we touched down at Heathrow.

Delft sound interesting JaceLancs. What time of year did you go? How did you get there?
Loved Venice and have been there twice, both times out of season. If you stay on the Lido or mainland it's not so rip offy! and you can still see Venice at night once the day trippers (and cruise ships) have gone.

I'd 2nd the nominations for Donegal.

Casablanca. Literally a shit hole. Dublin- boring. Monaco, disappointing.
Love florida, Rome, Barcelona, Cadiz & Turkey.

South West Ireland: magical
Florida: culture free hell & food tastes of nothing. Even a 5 star hotel cannot compensate

Unexpectedly lovely were the Azores but they were more than lovely, they were mind blowing. We initially thought that the islands were a quieter Canary Islands, how wrong! The scenery, the ambience, the whales and dolphins, the hot sulphur under your feet, a live landscape. We will never ever forget it and nor will the DCs, I think they were roughly about twelve years old at the time and it's the family holiday that they still mention.

Anacapri is much nicer than Capri'proper.'Ravello is lovely and much quieter though Amalfi was nice .

Wow waterfall, loved reading your post. We used to travel quite a bit before the kids and I can't wait for them to be a bit older so that we could pick it up again.

Ah Squoosh

I loved Capri when I went there on a day trip years ago. Went up to Anacapri though and did a lot of walking around there , views amazing. great fun to go up on the chair lift, so memorable. Everyone we passed coming back down on it was grinning and I grinned right back at them. Lovely memory.

Cuba, depressing place (looks pretty good now though, away from the mega resorts)

Oh yes, Niagra falls, what a pile of crap that was. To be fair, we did go in the winter but it was totally underwhelming.

DD found Cuba very depressing. It's not just the poverty.
India/Cuba are very different.

Hated Geneva. From the minute I landed. Was with H for an interview. The lake is nice but the rest of it was depressing. Thank Christ we didn't have to move there.
Loved Northern California. Southern California not so much.
Disliked Venice but loved Verona and northern Italy.
Florence nope, thought I'd love, nope, disliked, it's like a oversized historical theme park.
Byron Bay. What an utter shithole. Beautiful beach. The rest was awful.

Well ill admit i was a bit of a snob and turned my nose up at Tenerife thinking it would just be a load of sunburnt people getting pissed on a beach with a backdrop of generic hotels. But i actually thought it was really beautiful and had a brilliant time. We were stying mostly in Peurto de la Cruz.

My favourite ever trip was Vancouver and Vancouver Island (especially Tofino, which is just out of this world rugged and beautiful, plus a very happy surfer husband). I suppose I ended up finding Maldives quite underwhelming - we stayed in an amazing resort but the weather was overcast the whole time we were there and we had just come from amazing, colourful, lively (and much cheaper!) Sri Lanka, so it fell a bit flat. Antigua was nearly a disaster, but we changed hotels and ended up having an incredible holiday. I think that the resort you stay in makes a huge difference in the Caribbean. I recently went to Marbella with some friends and whilst I couldn't stand Puerto Banus and actually felt pretty intimidated while we were there, I adored Old Marbella - it was a completely different experience - we were surrounded by Spaniards, no tourists and a really lovely atmosphere.

waterfalls such an inspiring list! We are just starting to travel a bit again, after a long break while dc were little and can't wait to add some destinations to my list! You should definitely return to Canada - recommend Vancouver Island for surfing, hiking, horse riding, bear watching/whale (orca) watching on zodiacs!! And bald eagles are like pigeons! Amazing country with incredibly friendly people.

Paris: loved the first few days; but have never experienced racism like it anywhere else. There was a lot of groping on the Metro too.. not keen.
I was warned about safety in Rome, Marrakech and Rio but had a wonderful time in all of them. Never experienced any hassle at all in Turkey and people were universally lovely.

On the topic of tropical islands: -

Maldives are absolutely beautiful, breathtakingly beautiful but not a lot to do there if you are not a diver or on honeymoon. Zanzibar is also very beautiful in that turquoise sea and white sand way but far more interesting (again this was a while ago so not sure now).

Tonga, I had forgotten about Tonga that was so very beautiful but bugger all to do. We had done a lot of trekking and camping in New Zealand so it was nice to go and camp there for a week and just gaze at the stars and listen to the breeze rustling through the palm trees. There's a lot to be said for a tropical island when you are in the mood.

Tioman off Malaysia was very Jurassic Park, all jungle, rocky peaks and beaches. Really liked it a lot esp walking in the interior.

Camping on Fraser Island, Dunk Island and Hinchinbrook Island all off the coast of Australia very nice.

littlepeas would LOVE to go back to Canada and explore, so little time and never enough money haha! Although a lot of our travelling has been backpacking in relatively cheap countries, most done before children yes as with many people. Bug never leaves you though .

Have you considered home exchange? That's how we travel a lot despite being tied to school holidays school holidays and having Dc. Then you only have cost of flight you have free house and car. Magic - enabled us to keep travelling as a family. Eg last summer beautiful house in Alps with estate car.cost £400 for two weeks (cost of flights)

KERALA1: which website do you find works best for home exchange and can your insurance protect you?
We are downshifting in a year and will switch from lovely holidays exploring Asia (where we live) to low budget hols out of the U.K. . I thought that home swap would be a fab solution but wondering about logistics/safety. Thanks for any tips.

We use home link. Costs £110 pa then unlimited swaps. Prefer this site as other cheaper sites too many Brits. We inform our house insurers and are not covered if swappers rob us but otherwise they step into your shoes re damage etc. Putting others on car insurance costs about £30. We have done about 15 now I think (including Puglia, Sardinia, Paris, lanzarote, Brittany, Berlin, Paris, London).

Taiwan. Never really but hought going there but opportunity came up. Totally different to England. Really liked there and we are planning to go back.

Vienna. Really boring. No need to go back.

Caramel so far it's been nice middle class families (teachers, barristers, social workers). You build up email relationship before swap. Not for everyone but works for us. Wouldn't be right if you had a show home with lots of antiques but our kids as toddlers wreaked more havoc than any house swap family could! It's addictive though.

Not to derail these, but we're with Homelink too. It's a fab way to holiday.