I think the only places I’ve been to that I have no memory of, were when I was very young. For example, I’m told that when I was about a year old, our family visited friends in Buffalo, NY one day. Obviously, I have no memory of that.
But otherwise, I have some memories of pretty much every place I’ve ever been.
I’ve racked my brain for an example of a specific place where I’ve been but of which I have no memory of being there as an adult. At present, my answer is in principle the same as that of @Spoons – I can’t specifically remember such a place. Pretty much anywhere I’ve been to as an adult, I remember something of the place.
For what it’s worth, here are two examples of places my parents told me we were in early childhood but I don’t remember the visit: 1) an Italian restaurant that used to be in Toronto called Rosa’s Place. It may have been my first time in a nice restaurant and we were there with a colleague of my father’s and his wife. I remember these people, very vaguely, but I don’t remember the restaurant visit. 2) a mini-zoo in Toronto’s High Park. I have many very vivid memories of other features of the park, but not of visting the zoo as a child.
Human memory is a fascinating thing. I’ve read and commented about topics related to it with interest on these boards in the past. In general I have a good memory though not a perfectly photographic one. Even when it comes to vague memories from early childhood, I will typically have a vague idea of what happened at a given place where I know I once was.
A potential candidate for a place where I know I have been but that I don’t remember in adulthood might be some random small Czech town. In all my time in the Czech Republic, I have (through tourist visits and participation in events) been to many villages and small towns that have perhaps been genericized in my mind. It might have happened at some point that a friend said “remember when we were at XYZ?” and I couldn’t put an image to the place, but at present I can’t remember such a specific occasion.
A lot of my early experiences in the Czech Republic (came here first in 2003) I remember in a blur. It was a very stressful period for me.
The closest thing I can recall at present to the OP’s question is the modern art museum in Prague (the building’s Czech name, Veletržní Palác translates to “the Trade Fair Palace”). I’m relatively sure I was there once but don’t clearly remember a single exhibit. But even there, I think I remember some things of the place’s layout. Also, I can’t remember clearly now whether I went there to see the monumental work “The Slav Epic” (a cycle of 20 large-format canvases by one of my favorite artists, Alfons Mucha) when it was exhibited there (I definitely saw it in 2010 in the chateau in the sleepy town of Moravský Krumlov, but I can’t recall clearly whether I went to see it again when it was on display in Prague).
I’m surprised that the OP is surprised that one could have been somewhere but have little or no specific memory of it. I have dozens if not hundreds of such examples, particularly from the days when I did a lot of business travel. It’s actually the minority of places I’ve been that I have some memory of, invariably on vacation rather than on business and where the experience was exceptionally pleasant, and even then the memories are spotty.
Two examples. I know I’ve been to Dallas, and I’m sure it was on business, but I have absolutely no idea why I was there or what I did there. The sole extant memory is of having dinner at a restaurant (naturally, I have no recollection who I was with) and finding out that our waiter was Canadian. I asked him how he liked it down in Texas and he said it was nice, but too damn hot. That’s it. That’s all I remember.
OTOH, when my parents and I visited my brother in California, it was such a lovely visit that I have lots of memories, albeit spotty. My brother, bless him, took lots of time to make our visit enjoyable. Knowing my techie interests, he showed me around the beautiful Stanford campus and SAIL (Stanford AI Lab) and what was then Xerox PARC, in its heyday of essentially inventing much of today’s PC tech, took my parents to great restaurants and shopping malls, and to a California winery tour where I remember my Dad exclaiming in amazement, as we walked through the vineyards, at the warm sunny temperature in the middle of February!
'Zactly. 34 years times 10-12 days nights a month in some Marriott or Hilton somewhere, moving to a different one in a different city during each day?
I can remember some features of some of the more notable ones. or the ones I ended up frequenting late in my career. But if I dug into my logbooks and discovered I overnighted in Wichita on June 3rd 1993 (made up example) I could tell you nothing of the experience or the place I stayed. I have had pleasant layovers and sorta-memorable meals in downtown Wichita. But tying any of those vague recollections to one visit versus another? Nope.
Folks’ individual capabilities around their memory certainly vary.
But I also suspect that some people have lives that involve rather little variety. They’re doing their daily life in their hometown for decades except a few short and highly memorable vacations or adventures. Which things stand out highly to them. And rightly so.
I’ve been to the Buffalo Zoo multiple times and I don’t remember anything from the inside. I only remember the parking lot, because it had a sign saying that it was a “zoological gardens” and young me wondered how that was different from a “zoo”.
Speaking of which, I am told that I went to the Toronto Zoo when I was 4 but I also don’t remember it. I only remember the resort I stayed at that had an indoor playground much like McDonald’s Playplaces would be, except there weren’t any of them yet so I was particularly impressed.
I’ve only travelled on business once or twice, but have visited dozens of cities for pleasure and/or travel and haven’t forgotten the details of any that I can recall, in which I actually did things there as opposed to just stayed for the night. I do forget hotel rooms easily since a lot of them are so alike. Even the Hotel Breakers at Cedar Point, which I have stayed at multiple times as a youth, and which I should remember because it is part of an otherwise memorable experience and is a unique hotel. I don’t remember the room at all. The only things I remember about the Hotel Breakers is its private Lake Erie beach and its lobby which has a semi-famous circular bench in it.
I have probably too many to name. Problem is, I wouldn’t know it unless it was written down in a diary. But I traveled so much in my 20s, there’s clearly going to be places I don’t remember. Like our band played a club show in Paris, and I have no memory whatsoever of the show or the venue. I do remember being in Paris and remember loading the instruments up and down stairs.
But the show or venue? Not a clue.
Hell, I don’t retain movies or fiction books for more than a couple years after seeing them. I have books on my bookshelf I know I read but I couldn’t even sketch out a loose plot of what it was about. If my brain decides it’s not important to remember, it ends up in volatile RAM and is eventually discarded. But I can distinctly remember meals across various countries that meant a lot to me. The first baguette with butter I had in Paris, the first crème brûlée in Scotland, the first paprikash at my friends grandmother’s house in Ohio. That sort of stuff sticks. Places I’ve been? Depends.
At 19 and 20 I lived in five different cities, from about 3 months to 7 months. I remember four out of five clearly, but not one of them. Except… There was one incident that I remember while in someone’s house. (the incident was the person that lived there had a heart attack and died during our conversation).
Now that I think of it, I’ve also been to other amusement parks (Knott’s Berry Farm and Calaway Park) where I have no memories of the rides; I didn’t like roller coasters as a kid, so I probably rode the spinning teacups or the equivalent. At least I have some vague memories of Disneyland (Jungle Cruise, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion).
Wow, zoos must be particularly unmemorable for me, because I can count 8 zoos I’ve been to, and I have distinct memories of only 4 of them. I don’t even remember the Toronto Zoo like I previously said, and I think I’ve been to the Tampa Zoo as a teen but also don’t remember it at all.
And there are a couple other zoos that I’ve been to but also only remember the parking lot of.
But at some level I’ve always known this. One of the times I went to London, I went to Regent’s Park thinking I’d go to its zoo (in addition to visiting the rest of the quite nice park), but when I got to the entrance, I thought to myself that it would probably be the same as any other zoo, so I skipped out on it.
There are many places my family visited when I was younger that I only remember due to photographs. I know I went to 4 Corners because I have a picture of me there, but have no memory of it independant of the picture. I was 12 at the time and remember lots of other things from that trip, but I guess some parts weren’t nearly as memorable.
My wife’s grandfather had that same sort of memory. “Remember when we drove through Kansas? And we stopped for lunch, and you had the apple pie for dessert?”
That triggers a memory of having been to the San Diego zoo, though I have no recollection at all of ever being in San Diego. I think maybe it was a drive down from LA (a place that I also have very little memory of!). What I vaguely recall was the San Diego Zoo claiming that they were one of the first zoos in the world to pioneer the concept of housing animals in recreations of their natural habitats rather than in cages like traditional old zoos. Years later, I was happy to see that the Toronto Zoo was like that, too.
There’s a deli in the South Loop of Chicago, Eleven City Diner. I know I went there once in 2008, but I have no recollection whatsoever of my second visit there c. 2010.
Apparently I was there with two friends on that second occasion. One of those two friends occasionally reminds me of the part where we were about to get seated. I asked the host or hostess to move us to a different table because I didn’t want to be too close to a nearby table that had a baby. No matter how many times my friend reminds me of this, I still have no memory at all of it happening.
(It’s not that uncommon for me to make the request not to sit near babies, but I just don’t remember this specific incident.)
How “significant” does the place have to be? Because, for example, I know I’ve been to the Athens airport, because I went to Greece in 2019. I can picture the cab ride from the airport to my hotel. I can remember connecting through Heathrow on the way there. I can even remember having a Cesar salad at some restaurant in Heathrow’s Terminal 5 during that connection. But I cannot remember anything about the airport in Athens. But all that really means is that it must have been a pretty unremarkable airport that felt like every other airport I’ve been to.
I have some relatives in the Lake City, Florida area, and in early 1978, my mother told me, a tween myself, that a 12-year-old girl went missing there. “She was just walking from one building at her school to another, and never showed up.”
A year or so later when Ted Bundy was arrested, I asked if that was the same girl she told me about, and she had no recollection of the conversation. Obviously, it made a bigger impression on me than it did on her, and yes, it was indeed Kimberly Leach.