Most unclean city you have visited during your travels

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not well traveled but of the cities that I've seen I'd have to say the New Orleans was the dirtiest. We saw human poop on the sidewalk and the individual who was presumably responsible for taking a dump on the sidewalk was passed out nearby taking a nap.

Saw that in San Francisco too

[Anonymous]

Bali

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Athens, Greece was the worst in Europe. I think they were having a trash strike but it sounded like it happened a lot. Trash piled sky high every where. Higher than cars.

I’ve been all over central and South America. Some places were poor but it was obvious the residents took pride in their cities and cleaned.

Op. Why is it that the big cities are always unclean? We stayed at a $350/night Holiday inn express in Manhattan (budget constraints) and the street was a dump. Thankfully the room was clean.

I wonder if it's because of the population density, but the same amount of space on the sidewalk and alleys for trash, but instead of 10 families living on one block, about 500 families live on that block. Hmmmm. Perhaps?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:India.

Paris

Rome

Lisbon

Hospital-grade sterile compared to India.

+1

I vote for Varanasi, because of all the random corpses.

Human corpses?? Please explain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:New Orleans... walked out of our very nice hotel after brunch and there was a man passed out on the sidewalk, pants down and gross stuff coming out.

By this standard it's Philadelphia for me. I have witnessed public defecation multiple times in center city.

Same. Center City has become quite bad since the pandemic. It’s sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who say they haven't been to China, it is actually ridiculously clean. And those who say Southeast Asia, have you been to Singapore? You get whipped for spitting out gum on the street.

Longtime expat here, and China has changed so much in the past fifteen or so years. We live in a nearby country and travel around Asia a lot, and the difference in what the "tier one" cities in China looked like back then, and their level of cleanliness and convenience, has changed radically. I went to Shenzhen for a work thing a few weeks ago with a colleague who had never been to China, and she kept gushing about how clean and beautiful and modern Shenzhen is. The first time I visited Shenzhen was fifteen years ago, and I stayed for a month back then: it was super polluted, and you could taste the air sometimes, with smoggy skies every day. Now it is blue sky and clean, a big change from Chinese industrial grit to a modern innovation hub, just as they describe it now. It looks more modern and clean than a lot of US cities.

There are still many very polluted cities in China, and their human rights record is terrible, but the tier one cities are completely transformed to shiny, clean, and modern places I would actually recommend visiting now.

Concur on this. Lived in Shanghai 1998 and then again last year. Total change. Credit where credit is due

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Bali

Bali is an island, not a city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:India.

Paris

Rome

Lisbon

Hospital-grade sterile compared to India.

+1

I vote for Varanasi, because of all the random corpses.

Human corpses?? Please explain.

PP1 - If you’re cremated there you reach nirvana. Many hospices with people reaching death. Corpses wrapped in flowers carried - everywhere - to be cremated near the Ganges. Narrow passageways - motorcycle, corpse, tuktuk, corpse, cow…

Open air funeral pyres. Like, you will inhale incense + pyre smoke + god knows what.

Bodies that cannot be cremated - death by fire, “unnatural” death, …. - are sunk in the Ganges. Corpses that are un-sunk are washed ashore. Dogs find the bodies, body parts, and do what dogs do with things they find.

India is mind blowing.

[Anonymous]

This thread is making me very glad that o am not well travelled. I’d be so upset to take a vacation to an exotic foreign land and find it to be a trash bump.

[Anonymous]

New York City - they have never figured out trash removal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is making me very glad that o am not well travelled. I’d be so upset to take a vacation to an exotic foreign land and find it to be a trash bump.

For many people, travel is more than “a vacation”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:India.

Paris

Rome

Lisbon

Hospital-grade sterile compared to India.

+1

I vote for Varanasi, because of all the random corpses.

Human corpses?? Please explain.

PP1 - If you’re cremated there you reach nirvana. Many hospices with people reaching death. Corpses wrapped in flowers carried - everywhere - to be cremated near the Ganges. Narrow passageways - motorcycle, corpse, tuktuk, corpse, cow…

Open air funeral pyres. Like, you will inhale incense + pyre smoke + god knows what.

Bodies that cannot be cremated - death by fire, “unnatural” death, …. - are sunk in the Ganges. Corpses that are un-sunk are washed ashore. Dogs find the bodies, body parts, and do what dogs do with things they find.

India is mind blowing.

And there are people who swim/bathe in the Ganges at Varanasi with all the ashes, dead bodies, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:India.

Paris

Rome

Lisbon

Hospital-grade sterile compared to India.

+1

I vote for Varanasi, because of all the random corpses.

Human corpses?? Please explain.

DP. Varanasi is a city on the Ganges. It's a very holy city in India and people go there to die. When you go down to the ghats, people are being cremated all day long. These are funeral pyres. Basically, you will smell like bbq when you are on the river in Varanasi. Corpses are being burned 24/7. Not for everyone. But besides all the dead human bodies, Varanasi is alright. Big destination for Buddhists too since the Bodhi Tree is nearby. I would not put Varanasi on a list of dirty cities. Different cultures deal with death differently. India is absolutely filthy, but there is nothing remarkable about Varanasi, except all the dead people being burned next to the river.

I found Copenhagen to be much grittier than expected. I find spray paint and strip clubs and porn shops more annoying than dealing with death. The Danes need to get it together.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Miami
All of India
San Francisco
Punta Cana
Lisbon

Miami is really clean so I am not sure when/where you went.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New York City - they have never figured out trash removal.

They are working on it!
https://www.nyc.gov/site/dsny/news/26-016/official-nyc-bin-availability-expands-citywide-ahead-june-2026-compliance-deadline#/0

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/nyc-specialized-garbage-bins-rats/