Crossing the Golden Gate on a bicycle. I rented a bicycle on Fisherman’s Wharf and rode over the Golden Gate Bridge (humbled by the twenty-somethings who paused to ask if I was all right as I sat gasping for breath on the way up). I was quite happy to take the ferry from Sausalito coming back.
Alcatraz. I went to Alcatraz and did the walking tour. That one was far more interesting to me than I expected. I found all of the little details to be so intriguing, and the fact that you wander about on your own, lead by a handheld recorded tour guide gadget, at your own pace. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much with family, because then I wouldn’t have been able to linger wherever I wanted.
It was especially neat being on the “set” of the prison movies I remembered from childhood, sitting on the steps where Clint Eastwood discussed the informal inmate rank established by which step they sat on. Walking in the chilly exercise yard. Looking out at the same bay and city that thousands of prisoners had seen every day of their lives.
About the Grand Canyon… I remember standing at the rim as a child in 1978, with my mother shouting for me to get back, and thinking a surprisingly non-kidlike thought: “Remember this moment. No picture can possibly express the beauty of this place. Never forget how it looks in person.”
And so I took my own kids there in 2006, and felt that same sensation as I passed the baton to the next generation.
Versailles is awesome as well. Any house that house enough for carriage races down the main hallways is a good design to me. You can also add the “chateaus” in the Loire Valley of France. It was just a bunch of rich people trying to build the largest and most elaborate castle-like properties they could afford to beat everyone else but the results are impressive and Disney artists couldn’t design them any better. Newport, Rhode Island had the same phenomenon during the more recent Gilded Age and while those houses are certainly impressive in their own right, they are just quaint shacks compared to many of the estates in the Loire Valley.
Venice, Italy is worth it too as long as you stay away from peak tourist season. It is overly touristy but it is a unique place as well. It is a very compact city built on top of hundreds of tiny islands that is built like a labyrinth and it is almost impossible not to get hopelessly lost just walking around (and that is usually a good thing because that means you get away from the crowds and find something cool and unexpected). Real Venetian food (hint: not at San Marco square) is really good and very interesting as well.
A friend of mine honeymooned in NYC and Vegas. They were bored with Vegas after a few hours (not being familiar with any individual entertainers, or able to understand any shows involving speech, didn’t help); the Dam they liked mostly as “they made [list of movies] there!”
Then again, for him the highlight of a visit to Philadelphia was being able to run up and down “the stairs in Rocky”, while I enjoyed going inside the museum and looking at the art To each his own.
I really liked la ciudad encantada, the fairy forest, haunted forest or enchanted forest (link in Spanish; warning: English version translated by someone who can’t even ask for the bathroom in English). But it’s one of those things most people have never heard of, even if it happens to be a big tourist attraction among those who bother research the Cuenca area. Also a big fan of el monasterio de piedra, another location that’s popular with the locals but most foreigners won’t have heard of at all.
Prague was definitely worth visiting, we enjoyed the whole trip. We went to a castle that looked like it could scare the shit out of a tank division, but I can’t remember its name.
Ones that live up to the hype for me: Namib Desert & Fish River Canyon in Namibia
Eiffel Tower
Versailles
The Louvre as an overall experience
Paris in general
St Mark’s Square in Venice (but depends when you go there, I hear)
British Museum
Tate Modern
The Globe
St Paul’s, esp the dome.
Caernarvon Castle
Tallinn Old Town in Estonia
Cape Town
Something in Nagoya - The Toyota (Toyoda) automatic kniting factory/museum along with the history of Toyota cars. Expected to spend maybe 45 minutes; could have spent most of a day. Bullet trains; subways and trains throughout Tokyo; incredible experience.
Not to mention, it’s really amazingly beautiful, and it’s like a kaleidoscope: you can walk 10 feet along the rim, and you see all sorts of different stuff than you were just looking at.
Lord knows the Grand Canyon gets a shitload of hype, but there’s no way the hype can match the reality of that sucker. It’s amazing.
This too. “Yep, it looks just like its picture. OK, now what?”
Grand Canyon, especially the mule ride to the bottom
Arches National Park
Bryce National Park
Antelope Canyon
Cliff Dwellers’ Ruins
Golden Gate Bridge
Top of Empire State Buiilding
Haleaka Crater on Maui
The Road to Hana
Kilauea eruptions
British Museum
Westminster Abbey
Tower Bridge
Eiffel Tower
Musée d’Orsay
Winged Victory in the Louvre
Notre Dame de Paris
Sagrada Familia
French Riviera
Vatican/St. Peter’s
Sistine Chapel
Coloseum & Roman Forum
Pompeii Ruins
Venice Canals
Duomo in Florence
Michelangelo’s David & Pieta
Ann Frank House
Van Gogh Museum
On a slightly different note: Every resident of the United States should drive across the country, coast to coast, at least once in their lifetime, if only to see just how damned BIG it is!
Seconding these two and I will add:
The National Mall in Washington, DC.
St Augustine, Florida
South Beach, Miami, FL
Charleston, SC
The drive down Highway 1 from San Francisco to Carmel, CA
World Trade Center Memorial, NY, NY
Statue of Liberty, NY, NY
Christ of the Deep, Coral Reef State Park, Florida Keys
Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, FL
National Naval Air & Space Museum, Pensacola, FL
Costa Rica, in general
The giant redwood trees in California are spectacular. They are like the Grand Canyon in that pictures just can’t capture their magnificence. They have to be experienced first hand.
I don’t think visiting the Alamo would be all that great if you don’t know the history. And not just That Battle. The Alamo church & part “the Long Barracks” are all that survive of the mission compound. All the San Antonio missions are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site; Mission San Jose is mostly intact. So they’ll be attracting tourists interested in That Sort of Thing.
The San Antonio River Walk is quite commercial & can get crowded–but it’s still a charming thing to find in the middle of a big Texas city.
Remember the hugeness of Niagara Falls as a kid. And being impressed at the Lincoln Memorial in DC. A childhood drive along the lake in Chicago left me with some memorable images. Years later, all of New York City made me feel like a hayseed, looking up–the Chrysler Building is amazing.
I can’t believe it was so long before some said the Vatican. I have a hard time imagining that there is anywhere else on the planet with such a concentration of beauty, art, and history in one location. St. Peters is just amazing when you spend some time in it.
Heh, interesting coincidence. May I ask out of idle curiousity what the occasion was?
All’s well that ends well as far as Ramses I is concerned - but I can’t help but see the funny side to this, in a sort of “Ozymandius” way.
On his sickbed, the great Pharaoh Ramses I asked his priests what he could expect in his afterlife; after reading the stars, consulting the sacred tomes, and much meditation, the priests answered: “We see your withered corpse in a faraway land, hanging in a fun-fair, for children to gawp at for a cheap thrill as a sad distraction from a scene of great natural beauty …”.
The next day, Ramses I had a new set of priests, who told a more pleasing tale.
To each his own.