"All Geared Toward Fleecing Tourists Who Don't Know Better": People Are Sharing The Tourist Attractions They Would Never, Ever Visit Again
Last month, I had a blast visiting Amsterdam, London, and Paris. I loved everything from a canal dinner cruise to climbing up to the top of St. Paul's Cathedral to roaming around the Palais Garnier (the opera house that inspired The Phantom of the Opera).
So, I was intrigued when I stumbled on this recent Reddit thread where user u/starsfan6878 asked about tourist attractions that were total disappointments. While these opinions will vary from person to person, it's super interesting to see what folks find overrated! Here are some of the top-voted responses:
I also included responses from Reddit threads here, here, and here.
1.The Leaning Tower of Pisa (Pisa, Italy)
"Look, I love Italy. Damn near everything about Italy brings me sheer happiness. And there is nothing wrong with the Leaning Tower. But it just leans. Has leaned. Will keep leaning. My neighbor has an outdoor shed that leans. But for whatever reason, we don't get 1,500 people a day pretending to hold it up while someone is taking their picture."
2.The London Eye (London, England)
"Extremely crowded, 30 minutes for the full experience in a capsule with around 20 people (think children screaming and being pushed around by the guy with the expensive phone trying to get a picture). And VERY expensive for my kind of budget."
"Go to the Sky Garden instead. Better views, it's free, and you're not treated like cattle."
3.The Gum Wall (Seattle, Washington)
"The smell. I'll never forget it."
"It's like Wintergreen mixed with aged, neck beard saliva. It's bad."
4.The Little Mermaid (Copenhagen, Denmark)
"It's just so...ordinary."
"Came here to say this. In one of the most magnificent cities in the world, that little statue surely is not worth wasting any time going to see."
5.Temple Bar (Dublin, Ireland)
"Overpriced pubs. Overpriced food. All geared toward fleecing tourists who don't know better. The Temple Bar pub is horrendous, too."
"Lived in Dublin for three years, and Temple Bar became a place I actively avoided and despised. The drunken violence of both tourists and locals was enough to put me off, let alone the crowds."
6.Bourbon Street (New Orleans, Louisiana)
"It's filthy and smells like piss. There's shitty beer everywhere, and there's enough broken glass on the ground to warrant open container laws."
"One of the worst-smelling places I've ever been."
7.The Peak Tram (Hong Kong)
"It is uncomfortable, expensive, and crowded. And there is nothing to see out the window. Instead, get the number 1 bus from Exchange Square in Central. Sit upstairs at the front, left side if you can."
8.Checkpoint Charlie (Berlin, Germany)
"It's an utter tourist trap. If you want to learn about the Berlin Wall, go to Gedenkstätte Berliner Mauer. If you want to learn about the Cold War, go to the Alliierten Museum. There are at least a dozen museums and memorials about the recent history of Berlin that are much more informative, cheaper, and more aesthetically pleasing."
9.Times Square (NYC, New York)
"It’s a tourist trap, and the restaurants and shopping aren’t really unique to NYC. Why go to Times Square to eat when you can eat at the same places in a Midwestern city for cheaper?"
10.Bran Castle (Bran, Romania)
"Was there last fall. Normally, I avoid touristy stuff, but for the price and because I figured I would regret if I didn't see it while there, I went anyway. Didn't realize how little time Dracula spent there until I was there, and I really didn't care much to hear about the royal family there, TBH."
11.Stonehenge (Wiltshire, England)
"Don't go to Stonehenge. You will be underwhelmed. It's expensive. You cannot get that close. It’s really not close to much. If you really are into it, go on the solstice. It’s free, and you get to party with some cool people and get right up there with the stones."
12.The Chocolate Hills (Bohol, the Philippines)
"Super underwhelming and not as nice-looking as the pictures make it out to be. They’re not brown on most days, and they’re spaced so far apart that it looks nothing like the pics."
13.The International UFO Museum & Research Center (Roswell, New Mexico)
"My great-grandparents bought a small cabin in Ruidoso, New Mexico, when my mother was 18. So once a year growing up, my family and I would spend a week up there. On our way to Ruidoso, we would drive through Roswell. Every year, I would beg my mom to stop and take us to the museum. She never did.
Well finally, when she had grandkids, they convinced her to stop so they could see the aliens. I was 23 at the time and was absolutely stoked. Y'all, that was the lamest bunch of shit I had ever seen. I could have looked up X-File posters online."
14.Las Ramblas (Barcelona, Spain)
"Lovely city, but everybody hypes up this one street that’s crowded, full of people. It’s practically highlighted in every tour guide of the city, yet I still don’t understand the draw. Every restaurant and shop on the street is a tourist trap as well: overpriced and under-quality. It’s much more worth your time to stroll around the Gothic neighborhood of the city rather than Las Ramblas."
15.The CN Tower (Toronto, Canada)
"When my now-deceased grandma came to visit us, we took her up the CN Tower. Her response: 'I don’t understand. When you’re on the ground, you look up, and when you’re up, you look at the ground.' Funnier in the native tongue, but the lesson is the CN Tower is definitely overrated."
"It's the most unique part of our skyline, so when you're up in it, you're just looking down at the tops of buildings, grid-patterned streets, and maybe Niagara Falls on a clear day (Niagara Falls is a lot better close up, though!). Save your money (admission is super expensive), and go to the Toronto Island to get skyline pictures with the CN Tower included!"
16.Fisherman's Wharf (San Francisco, California)
"Bad food, shitty souvenirs, and you can find a million better views across the city. Only go if you have to catch a ferry to Angel Island or something. I don't know a single local who willingly goes over there."
17.Schloss Neuschwanstein and Schloss Hohenschwangau (Germany)
"Both castles are expensive to see, you have to go at a very specific time printed on your ticket, and then the tour is lightning fast with no time to linger and enjoy things. It's all over in a blink. Photos cost extra, and that is enforced. Super, duper crowded. Not at all worth it."
18.And finally, Plymouth Rock (Plymouth, Massachusetts)
"I was visiting from the UK and drove hours to see that fucking rock. It's just a rock, and someone carved the year into it. And god forbid you touch it. I said to the American bloke there, 'Wow, this is underwhelming, but it's pretty amazing this is where they first landed.' And he said, 'It wasn't, it was over there somewhere, this is a just a rock they liked.' WHAT? There's no proof it's a significant rock, and they didn't even make a do of it until 100-odd years after the event. WHY IS THAT ROCK EVEN THERE?! WHAT IS THE POINT OF THE ROCK?! They even ensconce it in some poncy faux-Roman temple. Why did they do this? It makes no sense. I threw a penny at it and wished I'd visited a different attraction.
My wife bought a fridge magnet shaped like the rock because she thought it was so funny how bad it was, and now I see that stupid rock every day. It wasn't even the best rock I saw that day, never been so aggrieved by a rock in my life. My wife asked, 'Why are you harboring so much resentment toward this rock?' And I said, 'I feel like this rock has taken something from me, like it's wronged me, I can't explain it.' I TOOK A PICTURE, WHY THE FUCK DID I TAKE A PICTURE? I looked at it on my phone on the flight home and just felt ashamed of myself. That's all I have to say on the matter; I don't want to talk about Plymouth Rock again."
Have you ever visited a tourist attraction that was a total let-down? LMK in the comments below!
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
