Well, not all of 'em but a good many are really just touristy landmarks. Plenty of New Orleanians probably go to the French Market with or without visitors.
On the other hand, in a thread of mine on Athens, Georgia, tomndebb pointed out that there’s a double barreled cannon in front of the court house. There is. It was everything I imagined it would be, too.
Back in the day, when Old Faithful first became a major tourist attraction, they could pretty much predict within a couple of minutes when it would erupt. Hence the name “Old Faithful” and it was this that distinguished it from the other geysers. They used to have rangers give a little presentation just before the eruption.
Unfortunately, due to earthquakes and other disturbances in recent years, the eruptions are not quite as frequent or predictable, so you just have to sit and wait until it decides to go off. That takes a lot of the fun out of it.
Buckingham Palace. An unremarkable building of no real importance, situated in a rather anonymous part of West London. Nobody goes there except tourists.
I kind of agree re the Grand Canyon. It is a marvel, and I can admire it via Google Earth etc… but the one time I actually went there, it felt like I drove hundreds of miles up a single lane road, just to look over the edge of a cliff. It was an anticlimax. Should have popped the $100 for that helicopter ride, I suppose.
I don’t know if they still do this, but they used to give tours of the staircase. I used to live in Harrisburg, about 3 hours away. I got delayed on the drive down, and got to the Monument with about five minutes to spare. I figured the tour would be full, but I asked anyway. I was the only one there for it. The line for the elevator was probably about 45 minutes. The park ranger found another family that didn’t want to wait, so they joined us. We took the elevator up, had a few minutes to check out the view (hard to do; the windows are tiny and people crowd around), and then came down the stairs.
When the Washington Monument was being built, there was a lot of private fundraising for construction. Some of that was in the form of commemorative stones. Some group (I think all the states, at the time, participated) would buy a stone and have something carved on the face of it. The stones were placed so you can see them on the stairs. It’s one of the most overlooked attractions in D.C. (if they even still do it), but I thought it was cool.
The Bunker Hill monument in Boston was pretty lame. It’s a minature version of the Washington monument and after climbing a gazillion stairs you get to a tiny room. The views out the tiny windows were pretty cool but I gagged from the smell. I’m a guy that can tolerate a lot, but in the mid summer heat it smelled like a school locker room gone bad 10 times over.
On the other hand, Niagara Falls is impressive as hell. Worth seeing and up to the hype no matter what was said upthread.
Excellent, because according to my itinerary we’re going to be hiking “through parts of the wall which are broken and remain in their original state and where you will not run into many tourists”. Should be cool. (Figuratively, of course. Literally it will unfortunately probably be all too hot.)
The La Brea Tar Pits; I grew up picturing vast marshlands that you could barely find a safe path through. The small lot in the middle of the city was a huge letdown.
Actually, just about every landmark in and around LA was a disappointment.
Speaking of Los Angeles, I never understood why people cared so much about the Hollywood sign. When I lived in Hollywood, there were tourists taking pictures all day long out there.
I can never figure out where that damn thing is. I only ever see it when I’m not looking for it, but whenever my friends and I have our hearts set on seeing it, we miss it.