I am also not a fan of OBX. and yes i've been to several different towns and areas. I think the actual beaches are gross. The restaurant options are dismal. And the homes/rentals are just not my style. Even the nice ones. I mean I'm sure there are many homes there I would like, but in general I didn't like them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The first time I went to Los Angeles I was like “what”??? I feel like popular culture plays it up as this glamorous and super cool place and to be honest I found it very dirty, too spread out/car centric, and not particularly pretty. I liked San Diego 10x better.

Yes! I am originally from Asia and had this image in my mind of LA that did not match reality.

Agreed. I was super disappointed the first time I went to LA. I thought Hollywood would be beautiful and glamorous. Instead it was gross and seedy.

I think you have to be in the in-crowd to go to the glamorous places.

There are no glamorous places in LA unless you want to spend a ton of money. It's all about expectations. Don't go for the cheesy "movie business" things. Cool things there:

Nice beaches like Manhattan Beach, Malibu, less busy parts of Santa Monica
People watching for an hour in Venice, followed by going to get good food and coffee there
Hanging out in hipper neighborhoods like Silver Lake, Culver City, Highland Park
Hitting up random strip malls with amazing food (look for Jonathan Gold's recommendations)
Hikes in the mountains/Griffith Park/horserides in the mountains/LA Zoo
Theme parks if that's your thing
Grand Central Market if you like Union Market in DC but with a lot more options and lot busier
Disney Hall, the Broad and MoCA if you like architecture and art, plus LACMA
Tar pits if you like slightly cheesy things but interesting for kids, plus the Grove/Farmers Market nearby
Drive/walk through Hancock Park to look at beautiful classic homes
Drive along Mulholland
The Getty if you have time without kids
Pasadena is nice if you want a laidback upscale dinner and evening walk around vibe

Fort Lauderdale. Awful place and people.

South Florida from Palm Beach to Miami - way too crowded, too many NY-ers, I95 miserable. And the Florida Keys are a long way to no where.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Total waste.

WHAT? We had such a blast here. Are you white? Maybe that's why.

Tons of whites there. That would have had nothing to do with it. I think they just didn't get out much.


--PP who posted pics of UAE a few pages back.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some of you come off as very spoiled. Coming from the perspective of someone who can’t afford to travel much at all, I would seriously be over the moon to travel to all of these places. I think you need to take a lesson from the Pollyanna poster and get some perspective. We pulled enough money to go to Rehoboth for a long weekend last year and it was so much fun. Not disgusting at all. I can see labeling a hotel bad, but an entire tourist locale?

—green with jealousy, but a happy positive person in general

Like you, our family tends to have fun wherever we go and we are always grateful that we are able to travel.

Having said that, imagine how you would feel if you saved up for years for a big trip and then were disappointed. Imagine dropping $10k to schlep to Hawaii and then having a bad time. Waikiki used to be decent, but now it is really dirty and overrun with addicts on the street.

Waikiki dirty and overrun with addicts? It’s lined with upscale stores and has masses of Asian tourists in great clothes who stay at the beautiful hotels (the Moana Surfrider, the Hallekulani, the Royal Hawaiian etc.). I think you must have visited in the 1970s because they aren’t building Ritz Carletons in places that are gross and unworthy of a visit.

That said, Waikiki isn’t my favorite place to go but I have family who lives there and I’ve learned to really appreciate its multicultural and cosmopolitan tourism scene.

Anonymous wrote:Cruising. Just not for me.

Same. It’s a love/hate thing.

OBX -- horrible! Confederate Flags and rednecks all over the place

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This only partly answers the question, but- I was stunned about how awful the food was in Italy. I wanted to pull them aside and teach them how to cook Italian food.

I think maybe you were eating at the wrong places.

It's either a troll. Or a high school student wanting to be cool by being contrary. Or someone who was genuinely, genuinely and terribly unlucky. I suspect either of the first two (or both). Italy is possibly the easiest country to eat well of all the countries in Europe and the Western world. Although I do remember one school trip to Italy decades ago when we were served the same boring spaghetti and simple tomato sauce every night for dinner but it was hardly awful and we had opportunities to eat other things during lunches and for snacks (and ate very well).

Anonymous wrote:This only partly answers the question, but- I was stunned about how awful the food was in Italy. I wanted to pull them aside and teach them how to cook Italian food.

I think maybe you were eating at the wrong places.

This only partly answers the question, but- I was stunned about how awful the food was in Italy. I wanted to pull them aside and teach them how to cook Italian food.

Vegas

Morocco. Husband is French, and lots of our friends love it, but I really disliked it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We love the Outer Banks, but we go to Hatteras (Frisco area) in September or October when the air and water are warm (but not too hot), and there aren't many tourists. We've splurged for houses with pools, and sometimes right on the ocean. It is beautiful and relaxing. But, I agree that the northern part of the outer banks isn't as great.

I've also always stayed at Hatteras. I love the OBX - I love relaxing beach vacations where you see very few people. We are also very sporty and love to fish and kayak.

I imagine the kind of people who hate it are the kind of people who love getting drunk and bro-ing it up at Do-me beach or Ocean City.

Nope. I hated it there. Mediocre beaches, crummy rentals, bad traffic. We love relaxing beach vacations, but not there.

Mediocre beaches and crummy rentals? Where did you stay?

We went out to Ocean City when we first moved to this area based on the recommendation of a bunch of our neighbors. No-one told us how SUPER crowded and trashy it is. We were so disappointed. We actually left a day early because it was awful.

That said, we've gone to Rehoboth a few times in the off season when it was basically empty and had a really nice time.