Most overrated international destination?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dubai. Just all the essential slaves everywhere and the staring.

Las Vegas.

Maybe I just hate fake desert cities!

Palm Springs too.

Love Muscat and Tucson, though.

Loved Dubai - awesome sightseeing and awesome food.
Loved Vegas too.

So you’re a tacky person I take it?

I also love Dubai and Las Vegas. If that makes me a “tacky person” so be it!

+1. Dubai & Vegas have great restaurants and can be a really fun time. Not everyone takes themselves super seriously PP and some of us have an element of perspective!!!

What perspective is that, pray tell?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dubai. Just all the essential slaves everywhere and the staring.

Las Vegas.

Maybe I just hate fake desert cities!

Palm Springs too.

Love Muscat and Tucson, though.

Loved Dubai - awesome sightseeing and awesome food.
Loved Vegas too.

So you’re a tacky person I take it?

I also love Dubai and Las Vegas. If that makes me a “tacky person” so be it!

Tacky is supporting regimes like Dubai. Has nothing to do with what's there, but the people who run them. Get some perspective.


+1. Dubai & Vegas have great restaurants and can be a really fun time. Not everyone takes themselves super seriously PP and some of us have an element of perspective!!!

[Anonymous]

I think part of the bickering is about differences in how people hear "overrated"... Someplace can be "overrated" and still have a lot of value. Paris is an interesting & lovely city, but it is also dirty, crowded, gray (with just so much dog/bird sh!t), and so I think falls well short of the "City of Love" hype. I really like Rome, but I can see that if people are imagining just ancient ruins, trevi fountain, vatican & gelato shops on a large scale, it will be a letdown.

With that sense of the word, here are a couple more:

Dubrovnik (absolutely stunning, but attacked by waves of cruise tourists that looked like some sort of well-heeled zombie invasion until evening; thereafter, it was like wandering a lifeless museum)

Bruges/Brussels. Attractive enough, but a little dull, and I was expecting some sort of mindblowing beer and chocolate and it was... underwhelming.

Neuschwanstein. May be one of the few truly spectacular sights where the closer you get the less interesting it is. So much of Bavaria actually *does* live up to the hype (tho not Munich, agree) that it is shame to waste much time there.

Hong Kong. Perhaps there is not much hype, but I expected something super high tech & dynamic. It was unbelievably dense, made Tokyo look pastoral, and sort of boring.

[Anonymous]

Brussels is definitely high on my list of overrated but I liked Dubrovnik and loved Bruges (some of that may be that we went to Bruges a long time ago with absolutely no expectations).

[Anonymous]

Cabo. One and done. Drive through terrible poverty to get to any resort. Then overpriced for no ocean access and the sand is - well “exfoliating” if you can walk on it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Was in Amsterdam last month for a few days. Have been many times...always liked it.

This time the city seems much dirtier. Trash everywhere. The train station was horrid.

Can't see us going back anytime soon.

Sad to see.

In Amsterdam now... totally agree. It's disappointing.

Someone was kindly sharing a positive experience (for balance).

If you are perfectly capable of forming your own opinions, why do you come to a forum that is nothing but people’s opinions?

I am not sure you understand how this works.

Serious question: Could it be due, in part at least, because you are spending too much time on your computer while travelling abroad ?

Much of the excitement and mystery of travel is gone due to the internet which alters expectations.

Umm... no. I've been in Amsterdam for 10 days, and have seen enough "mystery" to render an opinion on the place. It's OK if you like Amsterdam. For me, it has been disappointing. We've had fun doing many of the museums, had wonderful Dutch guides for tours, etc., but it is a place that I've now visited and have no real desire to return. Those moments of joy have been equaled by moments of disgust and hassle.

And if I walk around a city for 10-12 hours a day and then spend a few minutes on DCUM at night, that doesn't make me less of a traveler than you...

I suggest you visit some of the smaller towns, and bike on the dikes.

Please stop suggesting that you know how to travel better. I did all of this during a total of 3 weeks in Benelux (just leaving today.) I am fully able to form an opinion. My day in one of my ancestral villages was a highlight. I also preferred Bruges to Amsterdam. Why don’t you focus on posting the locale you think is most overrated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t take anyone seriously who puts any location in Japan in the same sentence as the word “overrated.” Even their 7-11s are mind-blowing!

NP - I really want to visit Tokyo but the pic below is mindblowing!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The thread is a joke. The idea that people living in DC of all places are qualified to pass judgment on their superiors around the globe is hilarious.

Eh, much of Europe is plagued with rampant pickpockets. That simply isn’t the case here.

Much of the world seemingly tolerates littering. And public urination. Eww.

Much of the world has a shortlist of tourist spots, whereas the US is vast and you rarely feel a crush of tourists as you do at the Trevi Fountain or pretty much any tourist spot in Italy during the summer months.

We are very lucky in the US to have so much space and so many places to visit—including off the beaten path destinations.

Plus, American tourists know how to form a line and wait patiently. Apparently the rest of the world never got the memo.

haha! Like they did during the pandemic right?? Beating each other and fighting for junk in stores and groceries. Yeah...sure! They cannot even wait in a line at freaking Disneyworld. So much drama at Disney this summer with the lines and Genie passes/non-Genie people.

There are some countries with NO tradition of forming a line or taking turns. The US is not like that at all (of course, any country full of humans can have an unduly crowd).

Perhaps you gave not visited such a place, but they can be disconcerting, I agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dubai. Just all the essential slaves everywhere and the staring.

Las Vegas.

Maybe I just hate fake desert cities!

Palm Springs too.

Love Muscat and Tucson, though.

Loved Dubai - awesome sightseeing and awesome food.
Loved Vegas too.

So you’re a tacky person I take it?

I also love Dubai and Las Vegas. If that makes me a “tacky person” so be it!

+1. Dubai & Vegas have great restaurants and can be a really fun time. Not everyone takes themselves super seriously PP and some of us have an element of perspective!!!

That depends entirely on your taste. The idea of fake world monuments, plying people with liquor so you can part them from their money. Mottos that brag about infidelity and excess??!!

Not my cup of tea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Brussels is definitely high on my list of overrated but I liked Dubrovnik and loved Bruges (some of that may be that we went to Bruges a long time ago with absolutely no expectations).

I don't feel like Brussels is hyped as a must see. I spent some time there in an international program and it was fine, but no one expected anything special and we definitely didn't get anything special.

I liked Bruges and thought it lived up to the hype of being a really pretty little canal city.

[Anonymous]

Some of you really need to stick to Epcot.

[Anonymous]

As someone who hasn’t traveled a lot, but wants to..
when I hear overrated, I’m excited to hear a list of places that I shouldn’t bother going.
Im 38, and if I have a couple of decades of travel in me, I don’t want to waste it. Especially not near the beginning of our adventures.


We are now able to / prioritizing it more. Already have a couple of trips booked and planned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dubai. Just all the essential slaves everywhere and the staring.

Las Vegas.

Maybe I just hate fake desert cities!

Palm Springs too.

Love Muscat and Tucson, though.

Loved Dubai - awesome sightseeing and awesome food.
Loved Vegas too.

So you’re a tacky person I take it?

I also love Dubai and Las Vegas. If that makes me a “tacky person” so be it!

+1. Dubai & Vegas have great restaurants and can be a really fun time. Not everyone takes themselves super seriously PP and some of us have an element of perspective!!!

That depends entirely on your taste. The idea of fake world monuments, plying people with liquor so you can part them from their money. Mottos that brag about infidelity and excess??!!

Not my cup of tea.

I've been twice to LV not by choice, and I hated it twice. The fake indoor sky is depressing, the mall set-up makes even the high-end restaurants appear somewhat trashy, and overcrowded swimming pools are just gross. Shopping bores me out, clubs and gambling are entertaining in very small doses to me. The shows were fun, I'll give that.
I do have friends that spend many of their vacations in LV and like it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some of you really need to stick to Epcot.

Made me LOL! Agree-. I find it blasphemous to rip on international travel.YOLO OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As someone who hasn’t traveled a lot, but wants to..
when I hear overrated, I’m excited to hear a list of places that I shouldn’t bother going.
Im 38, and if I have a couple of decades of travel in me, I don’t want to waste it. Especially not near the beginning of our adventures.


We are now able to / prioritizing it more. Already have a couple of trips booked and planned.

Some of these destinations I think the PP must have just stayed in the wrong area. Santorini is fabulous - you just can't stay in the busiest cities. You get a place with a view and sit on your own balcony and don't fight the cruise shippers for the best sunset view spots. Paris is fabulous - I stayed in Bastille for 10 days and it was all postcard perfect. Costa Rica is also awesome. I can't imagine where PP went and didn't like it. Portugal is also great. Basically, you can just ignore all the posts TBH.