The three tourist destinations that have really taken my breath away are the Grand Canyon, Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and the Taj Mahal.
It is surprisingly fun! I was not expecting to enjoy it anywhere near as much as I did.
I was in Paris in the fall and the Eiffel Tower is everything you’ve heard about, and more. As is Winged Victory. That just took my breath away. I could look at it for hours. On the other hand, Mona Lisa is just another painting.
In London, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s and the London Eye totally live up to their reputations.
It seems that the majority of these worthwhile touristy attractions are either natural formations or never built with tourists in mind. That seems about right.
I’ll add Mackinac Island. Very touristy, but also very different than anywhere else I’ve been. And I kept myself quite interested for a good two hours at Toronto’s Hockey Hall of Fame.
Are events considered “touristy” attractions? I mean, if you’re a college football fan then nothing is quite like a game day at The Horseshoe or The Big House. I don’t know if I’ll ever get back to the Boston Marathon but doing it was an amazing experience–it really did seem like the entire city came out for it.
Two recent places I’ve been to that have been very pleasant surprises:
Evergreen Air and Space Museum: http://evergreenmuseum.org/
Really cool collections of old airplanes, and much more. We spent the whole day there (there is a waterpark there for the kids. You get to slide out of a 747 for crimmy sake!) and I could have stayed longer.
Flamingo Gardens: http://www.flamingogardens.org/
I expected a real trashy dump that was intended as a time-waster before catching a flight out of Florida. Turned out it was pretty cool, and I wish we had more time there. They had panthers, a bear, bobcats, all kinds of birds and very cool river otters. Somebody put some real effort into that place.
Mt. Rushmore? I was completely underwhelmed. Looks more impressive in pictures.
No stamps on my passport, so, take my opinion with a cup of salt. But the Bellagio fountains in Vegas made me just stand there and weep.
Even after seeing them in countless photographs and videos, the California redwoods in person took my breath away.
Three others that I will add:
Leonardo’s Last Supper - we got tickets ahead of time but almost nixed going as it just seemed like it wouldn’t live up to the hype. But it did- it could be that everyone viewing it is solemn and restrained and respectful, but even my young kids thought it very cool experience.
Watching Romeo & Juliet in Verona - the real draw for us was sitting in the 2000 year old Arena. But the production was charming and we are so glad that we did this on a whim.
Buying sandals at the Poet Sandalmaker in Athens. It was an experience that I would recommend to everyone. We were in “line” with “fashionistas” from around the world, but we’ve never had more fun or memorable or useful souveneirs (And saying that we don’t ever buy souveniers is an understatement).
Two more. The Museum of Flight outside Seattle. Not as big as the Air and Space Museum, but right up there. We had an event there for our conference. A journalist for a trade mag, who has been to everything, said it was the best event he had ever been to.
The War Museum in London - the one with Churchill’s underground office.
The churches and scuola of Venice are amazing. It’s one thing to see pictures of the paintings but quite another to see the paintings themselves, especially when you discover how huge some of them are. And parts of Venice are total bling overload.
For our tenth anniversary, my wife and I had initially planned to go to Lake Tahoe, but then the horrible fires happened, and the vacation we’d already paid for was looking to be pretty miserable. So, we used my wife’s credit card points and got a hotel room in San Francisco for a few days, plus a rental car with unlimited miles. So, rather than going to Tahoe as planned, after landing in Reno we set off and drove across the Golden Gate for a couple of days.
San Francisco was awesome. We took a bus tour of the city, went to Alcatraz (best audio tour ever, as someone else said above), ate at Fisherman’s Wharf, and generally had an awesome time. Then, on the way back (here’s the bit where I actually say something relative to your post), we took an alternate route through the Muir Woods National Monument. Man, them redwoods were huge, and it was chilly, quiet, and peaceful.
On the way out of the Muir Woods, we took a different route, which accidentally led us to the Muir Beach Overlook, where I got my first massively-panoramic view of the Pacific Ocean. Gorgeous. Then, continuing along the route, we got quite lost, ending up driving along Highway One completely by accident. The drive was so damn beautiful, we couldn’t have planned it better. Going back to Tahoe was actually a disappointment.
Am I the first person to say “Yosemite”?
Took my stepson (he was about 8 at the time) and one of his friends to Glacier Point, as soon as they saw Half Dome off in the distance they just stopped and stared and said “Wow!”
As others have said, Muir Woods and the Grand Canyon.
Agreed on the various Smithsonian museums in DC. Amazing.
Regarding the Vietnam and Korean war memorials - I found them touching and the Korean War memorial is definitely spooky at night. For people who don’t find them emotional I’d recommend going to the part of the Smithsonian where they display some of the items left at the Vietnam memorial. I remember a letter from a boy to the father he never met, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who shed a tear in there.
The Golden Gate Bridge, it’s one of the few manmade “touristy” things I’ll go do with visitors here, it’s quite spectacular.
For really spectacular redwood trees go to Humboldt County. The tallest trees are there.
Some people aren’t aware that there are two types of redwood trees in California: the coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) and the giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum). The former is the tallest species of tree in the world, growing to over 370 feet (about 113 meters) in some cases, and grows mostly toward the coast. The latter is the most massive species of tree in the world (the trunk volume of the General Sherman tree is estimated at 1,486.9 cubic meters), and grows only in a limited area of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.
In my opinion, the coast redwoods are more beautiful. But if you want to feel really tiny, stand next to the General Sherman tree in Sequoia National Park.
The cheap tourist trap stuff is awful. I think it should all be knocked down and rebuilt as a green space. However, the falls itself, and the Niagara River are still magnificent. We went off-season and spent a good deal of time down by the river just watching the rapids. It was awesome.
I’ve been thinking about this, and maybe I’m just easy to please, but I’m a fan of pretty much all of them.
Outside of a handful of the most obvious tourist traps, pretty much all the sites I’ve seen have been worthwhile. Some stand out more than others, but I’ve rarely been disappoint ends.
I am basically like you but there are a few that are real letdowns. #1 for me on that list are Cape Cod in Massachusetts and the Hamptons in New York. That is a shame because I work near Cape Cod and can go there any time I want even during an extended lunch break but I never do because it is either cold and bleak in the winter or vastly overpriced and overcrowded during the summer (there is little in between - I have never seen the appeal at all to that cold water). Oddly enough, the relatively nearby Rhode Island coast and islands, especially Newport, Block Island and Maine really are great and unique but most people don’t go there.
Other than that, I know I could have a good time in any town or city in the U.S. and probably the world because I only expect the very basics and you have bring your own fun. I have had a blast in the largely unknown places in most states and many foreign countries. As as matter of fact, all of the best ones were well off the beaten trail.
I have all of that. Still didn’t work for me. Callanish did it for me much more.
You can look at pictures, but until you’ve done the drive between Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies, you haven’t really seen it.
Speaking of amazing drives, have you ever been down Highway 1?
And, the Grand Canyon, oh yeah.
I had never heard of it until I went there somewhat randomly, so i don’t think if it as an overhyped place. But I agree with this comment. I have traveled a fair bit, and to my tastes, this is the most beautiful place i have ever been. Table mountain in South Africa is a distant second.
I grew up pretty close to the Banff-Jasper highway (Icefields parkway), and you just gave me a little sad to think that maybe it’s all downhill from there! :eek:
When I went to Stonehenge, a group of modern-day Druids were allowed right up to the stones to worship, while us tourists had to keep behind the fence.
Sour grapes made me want to yell at them “Druids had nothing to do with it! They came after it was already here! They worshipped elsewhere!” 
Which of course is all besides the point, but still. 
I actually thought it was a pretty awesome site, giving a real feeling of great antiquity (despite the cavorting Druids, the fence, the other tourists, etc. ). But then, I haven’t seen other megalithic sites for comparison.