Indianapolis. I went to a conference there once. Boring city, not enough accomodations near the convention center, bad accomodations farther out, and the main social event was a trip to the racetrack. Big whoop.
Wow. I’m not saying Fontana dosn’t suck, but I’m assuming you’ve never been to Fresno or Bakersfield? Upper circles of pits of hell, both of ‘em. Indio also sucks.
But do you actually wish you’d never visited? Jerusalem has a lot to recommend itself. The people are nuts, yeah (after living there for a few months, I could almost feel myself getting progressively crazier), but it’s still extremely interesting.
I was tempted to answer Tel Aviv to this thread, but even though I found it ugly and suffocatingly hot and humid, I am not sad I visited. I went shopping at Nahalat Binyamin one Friday morning and bought some cute tchotchkes for family and friends, and this one lady complimented me on my Hebrew, which absolutely made my day. So I’m glad I visited, although at one point I had to hide in Steimatzky for half an hour to get out of the heat.
I agree 90% with the people posting about Canberra being quite bland. I do like the War Memorial though. And the lake is quite nice.
Unfortunately for Aussie school kids, the government subsidises school trips which tour Parliament House, which in effect means every school ski/snow trip (from Qld anyway) involves a visit to Canberra and Parliament House.
Boston. I went there one weekend and it rained the whole time.
Who do they think they are anyway? They should have corrected the weather before I got there.
Fort Sumner, New Mexico. They say that Billy The Kid was killed there. I claim he committed suicide from ennui.
Taft, California. Spent 3 months close by and only went into town once and that was to catch a bus to Bakersfield. How desperate can you get?
Paris? Sure, Parisians are not particularly friendly. Many great big city people are somewhat aloof. But I could live in Paris.
People in London and in fact England in general were quite accomodating in spite of the jokes about Oversexed, Overpaid and Over Here. When you asked directions you would get detailed instructions about going so many “turnings” and sometimes they would even walk the hard parts with you and leave you with a cheery, “You cahn’t miss it Yaeenk.”
Well if I never visit Columbus, Ohio again I won’t mind at all. Talk about white bread boring.
Seattle was a nice place, but, geez, what’s with all the swastikas and racist crap?
This official tourist site for Canberra has pictures of all of the main attractions e.g. Parliament House, Australian War Memorial, High Court of Australia, National Musuem of Australia, Old Parliament House
Huh?
Somewhere I wished I’d never been after my first visit, but subsequently redeemed itself, is Berlin.
First visit, 1998, on an Inter-Rail trip with a girlfriend with whom I had a fast imploding relationship. We arrived on an overnight train from (I think) Copenhagen), and arrived early on Sunday morning, after passing seemingly interminable building sites, at Zoo station. It was cold, wet, and everything was shut. We trudged past the bombed out ruins of the Gedächtniskirke – historic, sure, but not guaranteed to lift your spirits – and eventually found a tourist office that was due to open in 20 minutes in a soulless complex called the Europa-Center. Waited outside until it opened and were greeted by a man who, if he hadn’t won the Rudest Man In Germany contest that year, sure gave the winner a run for his money. In a Teutonic nutshell, he told us that this was Sunday, everything was shut, and he held us personally responsible for the ruinous state of the church across the way.
We returned to the station rapidly, and just as we got there the departure board flicked up a train to Prague. We never looked back.
I have been back to Berlin since, alone, and found it fascinating. Walking the route of the Berlin Wall is pretty incredible in itself - I love the way they have marked it with a line of bricks set into the road.
Oh, and an honourable mention goes to Leicester. Saturday night in Leicester town centre appears to the casual observer to be a training camp for riot police, street sweepers and paramedics.
New Delhi. (Sorry, Indian dopers). Dirty dirty dirty, with the worst air pollution I’ve ever seen, hundreds of people all up in my face, hassling me and tugging at me all the time in the most irritating fashion every time I set foot in the street, and dreadful poverty round every corner. A shame, as I loved the other parts of India I visited.
Same goes for Tangier, Morocco - except for the pollution. Ok, I’ve only been there for the better part of a day, but I wouldn’t have stayed any longer for a thousand bucks (they might not last long there, anyway).
Atlanta — What. A. Dump.
As some my know, I spent almost 6 years driving a semi. I’ve been to the majority of the major cities in the lower 48. My opinions on some.
Miami: Nice place to visit. The drivers have to die.
Philly: Love the historic places I was able to visit by cab. (Couldn’t unhitch the trailer cuz the tractor wouldn’t fit through the streets and the trailer wouldn’t have been there when I got back) The stuff I saw was great, but the city still allows companies to allow warehouses to bring 53’ trailer rigs in to load on 1-way streets downtown. This means loading by hand 22 tons of cargo. Plus they booed Santa Claus.
Chicago: Bears fans. 
New York: I’d love to visit. I have too short a temper. I’d last about 36 hours. Though I’ve been to Jersey City with 6 loads and liked the time I had there.
Syracuse: From what I saw of it (heading from Rochester to Binghampton) looks like the next entry.
East Stroudsburgh, PA.: as with the above, the downtown area made me glad I was carrying my gun. Blight would be a compliment.
Dallas: Now this is a nice city in general, but like Miami I’d prefer to drive the streets at 2 am. And if it’s raining, I’ll just stay in for the night. Forget about a half-inch of snow.
Twin Cities: Again, traffic. What the fuck are you people thinking?!? It’s a good place to visit, but with the population there are 2 lanes on both 494 and 694??? Good planning to force residents into taking the mass-transit bait.
Atlanta: Yup, more traffic. Now you Georgians have come up with a pretty good Interstate plan, but how the hell can you get 6 lanes of traffic on an Interstate to be in seemingly perpetual gridlock? (To temper that, I’ll concede you have really hot women!)
And how anyone missed this. The biggest shithole (at least in the USA)
(Trumpet fanfare)
Gary, Indiana: 'Nuff said.
Houston, Texas.
It’s about the same today.
I’m from Buffalo, and the amount of times I’ve been to Rochester, about 100 km away, can be counted on less than ten fingers. It’s a city with all the dismal weather, industrial decay and grit of Buffalo, but none of the positive attributes: decent nightlife, plentiful and accessible high culture, and vibrant residential neighborhoods.
Rochester’s only leg up on Buffalo is that it’s somewhat more white-collar, and median household incomes in the region are a bit higher than in blue-collar Buffalo. However, that doesn’t make up for the fact that it’s boring, boring, boring. There’s good reason why the place is nicknamed “Rottenchester” and “Dullchester.”
Defending Rochester, there are uglier American cities, but they usually don’t et lumped in with Rochester because they’re economicaly healthy. Houston, Nashville, Atlanta, Memphis and Oklahoma City are plagued by clutter from high-rise signs and billboards, but few consider them ugly, because they’re booming compared to Rochester and Buffalo.
I just railed against some cities based in part on driving them, and I forget to mention Houston. :smack:
Cork. meh.
Biloxi, MS. Even the casino at the Beau Rivage was unexciting.