In response to the current threads… places I would go out of my way to avoid visiting:
Japan/China/Hong Kong, etc. I hate crowds.
Turkey. My daughter-in-law is off to Istanbul in a few weeks. When she asked for travel tips, I told her, stay out of the Turkish prisons. Sorry, no desire to visit since I saw Midnight Express.
The Grand Canyon a/k/a A Big Hole In The Ground. Yeah, I get it, a ***really beautiful ***Big Hole In The Ground. Sorry, not traveling 2000 miles to see a ***really beautiful ***Big Hole In The Ground.
The Rocky Mountains. Well, we have mountains around here too (New England). Mt. Washington is 6,000 feet high. I can easily picture it being 3 or 4 times that high. Again, saving the 4000-mile round trip.
Any island in the Caribbean. Not a fan of ocean beaches. I like the lakes here in New England.
Good lord, the list is infinite. Step one, put a pin in my house and draw a circle with a radius of thirty miles. Everything outside of the circle is on the list. Then add most of the places inside the circle too.
Og, this sounds so much like me. With the exception of Las Vegas (which I admit is fantastic vacation for me), I pretty much can’t stand the thought of going to any of the main tourist destinations. The idea of flying across the globe to look at something just seems asinine to me.
If I’m traveling for fun then I’m either driving or taking a train (although I might consider a cruise ship). I’m going to do this on a leisurely schedule that gives me time to explore the things I want to do. And if I have to fight major crowds and long lines to do it, more than likely, it’s not worth it.
Although I always approve of staying home, you are wrong about the Rockies if you think they resemble New England mountains writ large. They do not. It’s like saying the Moon and Earth are really similar because they both have gravity, one just has more.
Speaking for myself, I only have two places I would like to go. One is Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, which when I briefly lived there in 1975, seemed like the most beautiful place I’d ever been; I’d like to go back and revisit those magical places. I’d also like to go pony-trekking in Iceland for a week or two, before I’m too old.
I wouldn’t travel 2000 miles just to see the Grand Canyon. But if you are anywhere close, go to it. I thought the same thing - “Big hole, big whoop”. But it’s pretty awesome.
I’ve been to China three times. Each time I have experienced crowding beyond anything I’ve experienced in 30 years in the US. Add to that the lack of queuing culture, and it’s a nightmare for people who don’t like to be pushed and shoved, and having to push and shove to get anywhere.
And I have been to Disneyworld on Christmas Day and the national mall on July 4th. On EACH visit to China I experienced crowds thicker and scarier than both of those.
I mean you can go out into the countryside and have more space. But that’s like saying go to xxx and stay out of the touristy bits.
I was coming in to make this exact comment. I used to pretty dismissive of the big hole in the ground and had seen plenty of photos. But one day when I was passing through the area I finally stopped by on a lark and had about as close to a religious experience as I’ve had in my miserable, cynical, godless life :D. It’s one of those things that just doesn’t have the same impact in media as it does in real life.
I totally do not want to go to Italy – never have been there in my 71 years. I envisage it as crammed full to overflowing with wretched great art and architecture and ruins from millennia ago: call me a Philistine, but a little of that stuff goes a very long way with me – nature’s beauties are what turn me on; including wildlife. I get the picture that Italy is in the main, very wildlife-poor: they shoot most of their birds, down to the smallest. And it’s hot there – I don’t enjoy the heat. And it’s full of hyper-extrovert, hyper-sociable inhabitants, hell-bent on interacting with you to the max, the whole time – narrating their whole life-histories and demanding that you reciprocate in kind. My personality is the polar opposite of that – it’s a scene which I feel would rapidly drive me mad.
I have at the back of my mind, the remote contingency that in the unlikely event of my visiting Italy: I might, greatly to my surprise, found that I loved it – but am not holding my breath, re that.
China has the most number of World Heritage sites in the world (tied with Italy). There’s an amazing amount of natural beauty all around China and a significant number of them are less crowded than comparable Western locations since they largely cater to domestic tourists and most Chinese people only travel during one of the few national holidays (which tend not to overlap with Western national holidays).
Cruising is def top of my list. 90% of your time is spent getting there and only 10% being there? It’s just not my cup of tea.
Disney, Epcot level theme parks are also not what I’d enjoy. I’d much rather go to a local cheesy county fair, to be honest.
Vegas. Not for me, baby. The lights look pretty enough, but I don’t drink or like drunk folks, and find gambling quite boring.
Killing fields, former penal colonies, gas chambers, sites of slaughters, or great battles, etc, hold nothing I wish to see or feel to visit.
I’m a very avid traveller, but these things hold no appeal for me. Fortunately the world is wide and there’s something for everybody. Including your own front porch if you’re a non traveller!
I get that everyone has their “Scene” and I also completely understand your aversion to heat and crowds, which in Italy is in fact an issue at many times and places, but the above is a cartoonish, mawkish, unnuanced and frankly silly stereotype that seems straight out of 20 year-old Olive Garden commercials.
Italians are some of the more reserved people on Earth, (at least with strangers who do not speak Italian) most of whom will happily ignore you with polite indifference unless you start an interaction with them.
(also, all German men don’t sit around all day drinking bier and wearing leiderhosen and funny little hats with a feather in the band, discussing the best way to take over France)_
Exactly. Not to mention the food! Obviously if you are crowd-phobic you would avoid the big coastal cities (though even then really just a handful of places in those cities). But that’s no reason to write off the rest of the place unless you’re writing off travel as a whole.
ETA: I also hate crowds, have lived in and been all over China, and only wanted to tear my hair out at a train station in Guangzhou.
I was with the OP until #5. The beaches of the Caribbean are where my soul resides. I’ve passed up numerous European trips (Germany, England, France, Iceland) choosing instead to spend the time on a beach.
As said – would be willing to find out, at first hand, that this notion of mine was totally wrong. My description did certainly fit, rather well, an Italian guy who for a while, had a room in the same house as me in London. I came to dread being buttonholed by this fellow.
I haven’t been everywhere yet, but it’s on my list!
However, a few things that have probably dropped off:
• Visiting all 50 US states
• Further trips to the Caribbean
• Further trips to the Middle East
• The Annapurna Circuit
• Transatlantic ocean voyage
• Overlanding and backpacking tours
• The Scottish Isles
I can pick up a travel magazine and want to visit everyplace in it I haven’t yet visited. The list above are trips I’ve thought about, and probably will think about again, but my bucket list is already so long that these are ones that I’ll probably never get around to.
The Grand Canyon may be a trip I never get around to, but I’m not quite ready to write it off yet.
You remind me of my SIL, who won’t go to Italy because it’s ‘full of groping men’. (It’s not).
OK, I’ll play.
New Zealand and Australia. This puts me at odds with basically everyone I know, who all see these places as some kind of Utopia. But in my mind, they’re just variations on the UK culturally, with bigger mountains or hotter beaches. Too far to go for not enough cultural reward.
