Stonehedge was a let down for me for a different reason: when we went there was an outbreak of foot and mouth disease and they wouldn’t let you get out of your car to walk on the grass, so we had to just drive by it.
Perhaps! But on the other hand I love Tokyo, St Petersburg and Death Valley.
pdts
Almost touché… All of this stuff was indeed there - but I had come straight from South-East Asia that not only has most of the natural wonders you mention (minus the marsupials), but also things to do when the sun goes down. But like I said - east coast only, in winter. Not the best introduction. And I liked Byron Bay; it was gorgeous, and there was also stuff to do in the evening.
I was going to say exactly this. Turn your back on the Mona Lisa (it may be great but you’ll never get close enough to see why) and feast your eyes on the Marriage at Cana.
I think that’s true of the Visitor’s Bureau (or whoever is in charge of tourism advertising) in a lot of places. The tourist attractions with the most money also tend to have the most advertising, so more visitors are made aware of their existence.
A good case is when I visited Monterey, CA, which has no shortage of nice places to visit. I remember flipping through an area guide and saw that one heavily advertised place was a gallery that had a lot of Thomas Kincade (sp?) stuff. Not something I would necessarily associate with Monterey in particular, but they had a semi-long writeup in the “things to do” section and a full-page ad. Obviously they had a bigger advetising budget than some of the other places in the area.
This is why I often turn to those “off the beaten path” travel guides, or just hit up plain ol’ Wikipedia (which usually has a list of local attractions if you look up a city) to find out what is really *interesting *in a place I’m about to go to, rather than what’s merely the most heavily visited. There’s a chance I might be traveling to Florence, Italy at some point this year or next. I’m not really interested in seeing a million different artistic interpretations of the Madonna, but I did a little research and found out about the Galileo Museum, which is MUCH more up my alley.
Yes, this. In addition, Chicago might be a great place to live, but it’s not a great tourist attraction, unless for some reason you’re specifically interested in Chicago history. It’s cold, and the landscape is as flat as a pancake.
I’ve been to Milan easily 20 times or more, and loved it - plus, you have Lake Como nearby. Then again, I usually like bigger cities, so Milan was perfect for me.
The Grand Canyon would be on my list.
Sure, for a few minutes it is quite glorious…but it is one hell of a schlep to get there for a few minutes of “wow” and then a whole lot of “…now what?”
I suppose it would be different if you took a river raft ride, or a mule/donkey trip down into the canyon, but just standing on the rim looking down? Boring after you get those few snapshots and play the obligatory game of “step back darling, step back just a bit further…” as you have your spouse pose.
Mt. Rushmore - talk about a very, very brief thrill. Geez is that a yawner. Makes Grand Canyon look exciting in comparison.
The Eiffel Tower…I had to be dragged there, hated every minute, creepy and dangerous elevator up a bucket of rivets - all the while standing next to a bunch of tourists crammed together. The ONLY nice thing about being on the Eiffel Tower is that you can finally look out at Paris and NOT see the damned Eiffel Tower in the distance. This was best sumarized by an American couple I overheard on the elevator going down the Eiffel Tower - the guy looked at his wife/girlfriend and said, “So, we never have to do this again, right?” She smiled and said, “Right. We never have to do this again.”
Phuket in Thailand is at the top of my list. I don’t like the beach and I’m not a fan of wading or swimming in the ocean. I got so many mosquito bites that I couldn’t sleep one night. The local “town” is full of creepy drunk Germans and Australians looking to hook up with local girls. We went for an elephant ride one day - I’ll not be repeating that experience. On the plus side, we had some really awesome noodles at a little shack off the beach. I’d say the beaches of Bali were similar for me, but I really enjoyed the interior of the island. I loved a lot of other places in Thailand - Bangkok is amazing, Ayodhya is interesting, Kanchanaburi has an unforgettable museum, and I never even made it to Chaing Mai - but I don’t understand the attraction of Phuket.
For some reason, this made me giggle. 
North Phuket is different, the beach is part of a national park and it is much quieter. I agree though that the city and bearh around it are is just a big sleazy shithole.
OK, not to spoil the joke, but what people don’t understand about Seattle is that it only rains constantly in the winter. From May to September we have only an average amount of rain. From September to May it’s constant drizzle, alternating with overcast. Oh, and the lovely term the weather-people have here, “scattered sunbreaks”. Like, it’s useful here to distinguish between a day that’s gonna be constantly overcast, and a day that’s gonna be almost constantly overcast.
But that’s just in wintertime.
Getting back to tourism, yeah, Seattle has a couple of Museums and an Aquarium. So does everywhere. Those don’t strike me as a reason to visit a city, unless those museums hold world-class pieces. The Louvre is a reason to visit Paris, the Uffuzi is a reason to visit Florence, the Smithsonian is a reason to visit Washington, the British Museum is a reason to visit London, the 507 museums in Rome are reasons to visit Rome. The EMP is not a reason to visit Seattle.
Both San Francisco and Chicago are terrific places for visitors if you are into musems.
S.F:
Exploratorium
Academy of Science
DeYoung
Legion of Honor
Museum of Modern Art
Chicago:
Field
Shedd
Art Institute
Science and Industry
I am into museums so I am baffled by anyone who could say that either of those cities could have nothing for visitors. (Let alone New York City!)
I visited Seattle in January one year, and I was relieved by how decent (comparitively) the weather was there having just come from Upstate NY. Fifty degrees and drizzle? Oh god, twist my arm, I MUCH preferred 10 degrees and snow and 20 mph winds :rolleyes:
The only thing that sort of freaked me out at first was the fact that it was pitch dark outside until almost 8:00 in the morning, but I think that has more to do with where Seattle is located in the Pacific time zone than anything else (i.e. near the western edge).
What kind of stuff do you like to do on vacation? I lived in Chicago for three years and I thought it was endlessly entertaining. I have a hard time imagining anyone being bored there, unless maybe you’re super into outdoorsy activities, and it’s the winter. (There’s a lot of outdoorsy stuff to do when it’s warm.)
I loved Milan, one of the best places in Italy I’ve been to. The Museum of Technology is one of the coolest museums I’ve ever seen and was my favorite moment from all of Italy. Yes, it’s far better than that chapel ceiling thingy or that ancient monster truck arena in that other city.
Is that the DaVinci Museum? I went there, and everything was only in Italian. 
I can read Italian pretty well, because of its similarity to Spanish, but it just seemed weird that they didn’t have multilingual placards. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I didn’t have to puzzle through everything.
Oh noe, oh woe… sorry, every time I’ve gone to a museum in the US with someone who didn’t read English I’ve had to translate the placards. I guess I can say I feel your pain, but I can’t say you’ve got the right to complain.
New York, I love architecture and walking and apart from a couple of notable exceptions it doesn’t deliver. It is such a pain to try and stroll anywhere without being stopped every few minutes for lights. And the canyons of skyscrapers feel very monotonous after a while. I appreciate there are excellent restaurants and cultural diversions but I can get those in London without the downsides just mentioned.
I’m actually in CT. on business as we speak and have the option of stopping into the weekend on the company dollar to visit NY…I’ll pass.
And Cairo and the pyramids. I was so underwhelmed. They are big I suppose but standing at the base I found it difficult to get a sense of scale. The city itself is a nightmare to get through with very few interesting features on the way.
Now Istanbul is a different matter. I was knocked out by that place and can’t wait to go back.
Yeah, I take your point. I like to swim/sail in tropical oceans or visit ancient world heritage areas when I vacation. 
So Chicago isn’t really for me. And there are many many worse cities for tourism. But someone upthread mentioned Chicago as a great tourist attraction. I can see that if you’re really into Chicago but otherwise, nah. Can’t see how it’s even a contender. But, I repeat, I could certainly live there.