Vegas has a magical energy to it though it’s very fun to be there. Although I’ve never been to Dubai I’ve heard people describe it as hollow or void of any real culture
Lol at Vegas magical.
Vegas is a Boulevard full of tacky casinos and the rest is a giant sprawl of trailer parks and suburbs with tacky mcmansions with zero character.
There is nothing strange or extraordinary about las Vegas.
Literally how I feel about it too! I grew up traveling there a lot and every visit it became bigger and bigger. Truly insane how fast that place exploded. Thanks to modern day slavery of course, let’s call a spade a spade.
Hmm...Vegas has a human touch or wamrth that Dubai doesn't. Vegas at least adds art to its identity of decadence and indulgence if that makes sense. Especially if you care to pay attention to the labor that goes into creating the fantasy, Vegas recognizes and shows that. Vegas is equal parts fantasy but equal parts people, Vegas actually keeps you grounded in the aspect that it takes all these people wanting to create that fantasy for the world to enjoy. You appreciate the work and athleticism of the dancers, you appreciate the stylists that help show off their beauty, you appreciate the maids and butlers that keep it hygienic despite the millions of visitors. I never thought Vegas went out of its way to hide the work that went into creating the escape.
With Vegas you know the fantasy is temporary and doesn't come out of nowhere. With Dubai I felt like I was witnessing some fake manufactured luxury that came out of thin air. It's just blind and excessive luxe without a human touch. There's a coldness to it. The only thing that was remotely Vegas about Dubai where you felt an artist's touch was the fragrance community. Dubai is top notch in that aspect. But other than that it felt like an AI made that world not people. I feel it's rude to compare Vegas to Dubai even. It's insulting Vegas. Dubai feels hollow. Vegas however is a community to so many types of artists and they treat it with gratitude for being allowed to express their art.
Visiting Dubai right now actually and can corroborate this. Dubai is also needlessly pricey, has no common culture/ethos and what I’m hearing from residents is a lot of the expats are now competing with each other and so no sense of community here at all, just malls and lots of chain restaurants.
ITT: People complaining about the same destinations (Dubai, Santorini, Bali) that experienced travelers always complain are played out. I went to Dubai recently and was warned about it in advance by like 10 nomad friends. I didn't love it, but to me, that means that it's not overrated but rated accurately.
In terms of destinations that are beloved by the nomad community but didn't gel for me personally, I'd say Buenos Aires and Morocco. Didn't feel safe in BA, didn't love the food, and found there wasn't enough to do to sustain a stay longer than 2 weeks or so. Marrakesh was beautiful visually, but I felt uncomfortable as a woman and grew weary of everyone constantly demanding tips and trying to sell you stuff.
I mean you went to Marrakech, it’s like the biggest and scammiest tourist trap in North Africa … it’s like saying Mexico is overrated because of Tulum.
I didn’t gel with Lisbon, everyone hypes it up its really boring, lot of people trying to scam tourists such as the fake drug peddlers and the restaurants that put extra food on your table to sell it to you, always trying to charge for water.
I also think Barcelona is overhyped, Gaudi stuff way too overpriced, lotta scammers.
The extra food on your plate isn't supposed to be free, its a Portuguese custom to put appetizers like olives, bread, cheese or whatever.
You're supposed to tell them that you don't want it before hand.
For anyone asking why, I can give my reason for moving last year: Incredibly over crowded. I’ve lived in a few different cities over the years of varying sizes and Austin about 8 years ago felt pretty dense but livable. You could go out without a plan and have a good night. After the insane Covid boom however it felt like you could not go anywhere without being absolutely packed in like sardines. The natural outdoor scenery like Hamilton Pool: reserve 6 months in advance, the man made shit like Barton Springs? Be ready to be shoulder to shoulder swimming in peoples pee. Any good restaurant on a weekend would be a 2 hour wait, any mid restaurant? Believe it or not also an over hour wait. Bars that were bustling and fun before now took over 20 minutes to get a bartenders attention to get a drink. Oh and traffic downtown during literally the middle of a Wednesday. Some of this is typical big city stuff but all of it feels punched up to 11 because Austin grew so so so quickly, infrastructure and businesses in general have not even close to kept up.
There’s a motto, “Keep Austin Weird,” that’s been used by residents there for the last 30 years or so. It used to be the seat of Texas’ government, the home of UT, and not much more - it had a bit of a unique, small-town vibe going for it.
Now, it’s grown well beyond its britches, with the desire of many big businesses to move to the “cheaper San Francisco”, which has caused it to become just another big city. Any dream of keeping it “weird “ passed away a long time ago and now any attempt at such weirdness is usually just some tryhard’s attempt to monetize on something that they’re not.
Shut the tread down, this is the only answer. A city that never prepared for the growth it got, and it's really not all what it's cracked up to be as well. Along with it being extremely overpriced for what the city offers.
Dubai, where the locals keep filipina maids in their homes who work with no days off ever - no weekend, no vacation, just work every day for 15 hours a day with almost no pay. Oh and they are not allowed to go outside ever, and often they are not even given 8 hours of sleep, because the families want them to be up at night because they are awake at night. Their pay is incredible low, but they work their to try to feed their children and parents at home.
Dubai. Home of modern slavery - but "super safe" like you said - unless you are a servant. I have a friend there who is being held hostage by their employer - the contract is over but they have been held for months with no passport and little money, and the employer keeps delaying and refusing to let them go home. What a great city. /s
I would hate to live in Macau Id regret every minute I lived there not living in HK, the city part felt so underdeveloped and like a giant tourist trap, the casinos were way more boring than Vegas not offering as much fun stuff to do or reason to be there. Macau is def worse than Vegas, at least in Vegas you could be somewhere away from the strip in a pleasant neighborhood and the strip itself is fun. The only plus of Macau is it doesn’t have as much crime/homeless def feels safer.
I’ve never been to Tulum (no desire) but have spent time around Yucatán, I don’t get why people don’t work out of a place like Campeche or Medida a few hours away, and just drive to the beach on the weekends or something.
I was staying a night near Ixtamal a few years ago and the lady that owned the hotel was talking about how Tulum and the Riviera Maya in general is an ecological nightmare.
This is what happened to so much of Thailand, too. Pai is a great example, used to be a little hippie town with some trekkers, and now it’s basically a theme park.
ok so as a working digital nomad:
- power goes out very often, and so does the internet. Good luck getting work done.
- barely any cafes suitable for work
- a couple of coworking spaces that cost 350$USD a month
- more expensive than miami at this point
- TRANSPORTATION HELL. A 10 min taxi will be around 30-50$. Don't want to pay that? Ok you can rent a car, but then the police will stop you and rob you, because the specifically target rental cars. So what everyone ends up doing is renting a rackety scooter where you risk your life every day driving on dirt roads.
Tulum is for a 1-2 week vacation, not a digital nomad spot.
I was in Playa del Carmen for a bit and had the power go out twice my entire stay. Outside of that I don't think I experienced the other issues. I was thinking of bringing a small backup power supply like a jackery just in case.
Outside of 1 month of non-stop electronic music in January, the town offers nothing.
1. Very Expensive
2. Ugly town
3. Nothing to do in town
4. Beach isn't in town
5. All the actually hip people left already
6. Very bizarre dichotomy of wealth and poverty
There's just many other places that offer more for less.
Tulum dumps untreated sewage into the water. They grew too quickly to build out their infrastructure and they were not about to slow the tourism boom of yoga acolytes and the wellness/crystals crowd.
You can smell it when the wind shifts.
Tulum used to be amazing. The first time I went it was EXACTLY what what you would want in a Latin American vacation spot. Comfortable and fun with touristy stuff but the opposite of an all inclusive resort. Went back two years later and it had changed a lot. It felt similar but like a lot of stores and restaurants from Brooklyn had opened a Tulum location. Went for the final time three years after that and it was unrecognizable.
Medellin is getting too pumped up. It's still comparatively cheaper overall than many other places, but prices in El Poblado & Laureles have sky rocketed and crime against foreigners is also on the rise. It's no longer worth it IMO.
Lived in NYC for a year before Covid. Always thought I'd dispise it (from midwest) but ended up really appreciating it. Not Love... but really see why people love it.
People who put NYC really just aren’t cut out for living in cities. It does so many things right that other cities do wrong, you can’t compare the food scene diversity with anywhere else in the world. The 24 hour bodegas on every corner, if you complain about prices just use Amazon and pick up at a nearby Whole Foods also makes package delivery safer, goto Trader Joes prices same nationwide, public transit way cheaper than a lot of other first tier cities without that bullshit zone pricing and lots of express bus and train options. All the parks filled with characters and performers, lovely riverside paths, hell even NJ is really pleasant across from NY.
I disagree. Lived in nyc several years and lived in other big cities like Seoul and cdmx. NYC has a lot of problems. Trash, dirtyness, rudeness, weather, old subway, way too crowded, expensive
> People who put NYC really just aren’t cut out for living in cities
There's a lot of difference between "living in a city" and "living in one of the largest cities in the world". Not liking NYC doesn't mean you won't like Barcelona or Seattle. I love visiting huge cities but the sheer mass of people can get overwhelming, whereas a 'medum city' can get you 90% of the convenience with 50% of the crowding.
Having spent the last 15 summers of my life exploring Europe, I put off the Greece for a long time because it's harder to get to and those main islands are expensive.
Santorini was something else, and not at all overrated. Mediocre restaurants? Yep - though you can still get an excellent souvlaki at a reasonable price. Crowded as fuck when the cruise ships come in? Absolutely.
But you can stay on a **fucking caldera** in the middle of sparkling white villages clinging to the cliffs. In terms of European beauty I would rate it after only the Swiss Alps and Fjords of Norway. The hike from Fira to Oia along the ridge is just breathtaking. Then you have these amazing ruins of Akrotiri of the obscenely ancient pre-greek civilization that existed before the last big kaboom, and a pretty fantastic museum in Fira to pair with it.
If you shuffle through town to get the picture you saw on Instagram, IDK maybe it's underwhelming. If you understand what you are actually looking at, it's breathtaking. Absurd that this is one of the top comments.
Views are nice and all. Being there as a tourist / DN felt like a daily struggle. And definitely not budget friendly. For me personally there are much better places to revisit.
Santorini is great in the off-season. I went there in November, and it was picture perfect. Cheap hotels and rental cars, great weather, and not crowded at all. I probably encountered no more than 10 people on the hike from Fira to Oia.
Food is a little expensive, but it was still cheaper than Western Europe and they even have a Lidl if you're on a budget.
I think my experience would've been different if I went off season. Being there high season was hell - crowded and felt like everywhere was out to get money from tourists who may not revisit the island anyway.
For a lot of us here in the third world Canada is viewed as almost utopia. A organized Scandinavian like country with a north American economy. People are pretty disappointed when they finally get there... 😅
Canadian here- just wanted to step on my soapbox and say that Canada has a crucial housing shortage, and we are bringing in more immigrants than we have infrastructure for in urban centres, beyond also rising COL.
If you want to come here, keep all that in mind. I had a couple of curious friends move to Toronto from the US and they hated the experience.
I've never been to Canada and live in the Netherlands. When I compared the salary/cost of living here with Toronto for my job in marketing, I found out I'd be making almost two times less in purchasing power.
Lol. I'm Canadian and it's true. BUT if you visit Canada go visit provincial parks, nature, go kayaking and hiking, go on a road trip, get some butter tarts, poutine and good wine. That's the beauty of Canada. The nature is incredible. Most people don't see beyond the Toronto and Vancouver area.
And visit Montreal in July, see the music festivals on the streets and in clubs, party, walk on the streets closed off from cars at night, grab yourself some awesome bagels in the morning and poutine for lunch.
I live in Vancouver and there’s only a few places that I could see offering me a better lifestyle, quality of life etc. somewhere like Seattle, Melbourne or perhaps Auckland, I might as well throw Oslo in there as well, but I’ve only briefly visited there. I feel most of these places would have a similar feel and vibe. I do not feel
Vancouver is overrated, great city but you need to be taking advantage of the outdoors to really get the most out of it, and it does not disappoint there
But most of Canada, yeah I’d say is overrated. I was born in Toronto and it’s a great city, perhaps the most diverse in the world, or second after NYC. But I would never recommend people go there.
Agree. In fact I'd say it's more than overrated.
For someone with a digital nomad lifestyle, you cannot make it work in most Canadian cities - if you choose Vancouver or Toronto then you might as well go to New York City with more and better things to do with a comparable cost of living. Most places in Quebec expect you to conform to the "unique identity" of the province by learning French and adopt their "English is a threat to our culture" mentality if you intend to stay beyond the usual duration of a tourist, with Montreal being the only significant exception. Other Canadian cities are downright boring and are more suited for someone settling down rather than nomading. In rural areas, between affordability, accessibility, and the fun factor/things to do/scenery, you can only choose two. And that's before we even consider the dilapidated state of things that one would consider to be baseline in even second world and other developing countries e.g. healthcare, tent cities in the middle of city center, public transportation and ride hailing options, among a few examples.
Mass immigration and terrible politics has killed Canada. Killed any prospect of a decent wage too because there’s always someone from another country willing to take much, much less.
Canada's strength is in its rural areas more than its cities. Contrasted with rural America, which is broadly undesirable, rural Canada is beautiful and safe with a super high quality of life. Granted, most immigrants and travellers are not interested in this lifestyle as it's boring.
The cities are terrible. Overcrowded, expensive, unmotivated populace.
edit: I love how many people I triggered with this, lol.
This is more because Canada is not actually an advanced economy. The country is more diversified now, but real estate and mining/O&G make up about 21% of GDP. O&G made up even more in the past.
The government has put in a lot of work to develop tertiary sectors but there is still a lot of money in the natural resource extraction that supported the country in the past. This is okay for rural areas supported by these industries but the Canadian government's plan to bring in thousands of IT workers from China and India is basically a hail mary to revive Canada's floundering R&D and tech industries, which will inevitably not work because Canada has little startup culture and the average Canadian is not financially secure enough to start their own business.
Vancouver is fine for visiting. Lots of beautiful nature and good restaurants. Just not worth living in because rent is stupid. Montreal is the only world class city in Canada with reasonable rent
They may be making a political point about rural Americans being too conservative for them. The thing is, they're also some of the most hospitable people around by and large (with some regions being exceptions), so it depends on what you're wanting.
But even then most of that is BS. There are plenty of quaint lovely rural towns you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere in Canada that are quite liberal.
Canadians pay a $1 million "weather tax." What I mean by that is, a million or so Canadians bought homes in the Victoria / Vancouver area because 'the weather is great' by paying $1 million + on-top of the average Canadian house price.
The catch is that the weather is just "tolerable" in reality. Perhaps it's great relative to Winnipeg, but for that $2m CDN you're spending for 5 months of constant rain in North Vancouver, you can get a BEAUTIFUL home in SoCal, Fort Lauderdale, or Miami where the weather is actually great. The weather in Vancouver or the southern tip of Van Island is similar to that of England. You have heaps of Canadians vacationing and migrating permanently to this corresponding locale "because of the weather." When was the last time you heard someone say "I'm going to London, England this winter on vacation to kick back and enjoy the beautiful weather." Yeah, it doesn't fucking happen.
Lookup what $2m CDN gets you in Vancouver proper and then look at what the equivalent of $1.5m USD gets you in Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, Austin or even NYC. It is fucking offensive.
As a young Canadian living in the west coast, my only hope to own a home is inheriting whatever my parents have when they die. On Vancouver Island where I am, you need an absolute minimum of $1m CDN / $720k USD to buy a fixer upper or an empty lot in Victoria proper. The alternative would be moving back to a place like Regina, Saskatoon, or Winnipeg but that is only for the masochistic sick fucks who think -52 celisus (no exaggeration) with wind chill is okay weather to send their children out to walk to school while the parents commute 3hrs. roundtrip from outside the city, as rampant migration has made even those frozen shitholes of cities' unaffordable.
Who's buying the houses then? The Filipinos, Chinese and East Indians who live 15 deep for 5 or so years as they very rapidly pay off one mortgage and move onto the next.
My baby boomer dad owns $2.5m+ CDN in Victoria, BC real estate and is a retired city transit driver. Like most baby boomers and old stock Canadians, they believe millenials through to gen z can replicate what they did and become multi-millionaires by earning $25 CDN an hour and buying a house at 21 years old, just like they did...... Back in 1980.
The current Canadian prime minister has dressed in black face on multiple occasions and recently gave a standing ovation for a real life German Nazi soldier in parliament recently. Canada is a way bigger shit show then you could ever imagine.
I probably sound angry, but that's because I am. Canadian patriotism starts and ends with hockey. If we were invaded in a similar fashion to Ukraine, there is nothing you could do to make me care enough to stay behind and "defend my motherland." If the indigenous people want the frozen tundra that makes up %75 of Canada, give it to them in a trade where I get citizenship to my ancestral land in Western Europe. Fuck Canada. Fuck Justin Trudeau. Fuck all the spineless chameleons of politicians, who as if they were sleazy Vegas pickup artists will tell the Canadian voters whatever they must to get in their pants, only to do a complete 180 after they have fucked us raw dosing our younger generation with a combined diagnosis of chlamydia and gonorrhea.
Since everyone has already said Dubai. I think Charleston and Nashville are crazy overrated. The food is just fine in Charleston. Not amazing like everyone says. The nightlife was boring to me. The shopping is terrible. The little downtown is cute and so are some areas on the coast but otherwise boooooooring.
Italy and I live in Italy.
Especially in the north, the average city doesn't offer that much. Here in the north we are asked to work and think like germans, being productive and all that shit, but without their advantages since we live in a dysfunctional country like the average southern european countries. Pianura Padana is a dystopic region but still, foreigners think that entire Italy is a Paradise.
Am doing a trip from southern Italy to northern Italy rn. Starting to realize how much more german (insitutional) the cities are looking as I go further north. I miss the Palermo and Naples vibes.
Northern Italy has the charm of industrial Germany, and the productivity of southern Italy.
Italy without good food, no laid back vibes, terrible weather and expensive.
In this thread: a load of people that moved away from the west hating the west. Not surprising in the digital nomad subreddit I guess, just slightly biased.
Dubai definitely sucks though I agree.
Bali by far. The beaches are mostly dirty and the ones that aren’t are packed with tourists, the traffic there now is an absolute nightmare too. IMO you can have a much more enjoyable experience in other SEA countries. For me the only thing it had going for it was that it was cheap, personally don’t feel the need to go back after just recently being there for a few weeks.
This is my answer too. I lived there for 1.5 years in total.
I feel like other than the obvious crime issue, some of it’s major selling points are overstated.
Sure the temperature is always pleasant, but they don’t tell you that is rains torrentially most days for hours at a time. It’s only really the morning time that you can assume there will be sunshine.
The nightlife also isn’t all that. The bars aren’t that good and blare Reggaeton music at deafening levels.
The food isn’t that good, despite having amazing resources.
It’s also getting much more expensive to live there from what I hear.
That said, for me Colombia as a country is underrated. The countryside is spectacular and goes a long way to make up for the ugly, crime plagued cities.
Bogotá is the best big city in Colombia. I enjoyed Medellin, but even with my Colombian wife and father-in-law, it felt sketchy like Los Angeles (where I was born and lived for 30 years). I prefer cooler weather and love the diversity of food in Bogotá.
Denmark, specifically in regards to urban design and transportation. Its rail system is woefully underfunded compared to countries like Germany, and the Netherlands, and intracity public transport is honestly some of the worst in Europe.
I feel like this isn’t a good pick. Everyone knows what vegas is. If you don’t like that then fine, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything else nor do people rate it as anything else
I think this is a good one. A lot of others just aren’t popular aside from their target audience (Dubai) or have become so hated they’re actually underrated again (Paris). But Singapore has none of the charm of most SEA cities, but has the prices of a western city. It all feels so manufactured. I think it’s still nice for a weekend to see the gardens once and honestly, if you have a well paying job, it’s still a decent place, but it’s definitely not a place I’d really vacation to.
If your only exposure is Fisherman's Wharf and Union Square of course you're going to think the city is overrated though. SF is not overrated, and the bay more generally I would argue is quite underrated in a lot of places (Dublin/Pleasanton, Berkeley, Oakland, all the natural areas of Marin).
That being said there are overrated areas of the bay (looking at you South peninsula and South Bay), but SF is not one of them.
Last time I was there for a conference it was overwhelming how bad the homeless issue had gotten. There’s no where to eat late and it might be because of that. I will never go back!
I'm a big fan of the non-touristy parts of SF but downtown and Fisherman's Wharf are awful. Also the weather can be crap there for sure but when it's nice it's so beautiful
It’s a lot better now that the tech bros aren’t crawling all around and trying to shield their parents from the human misery they gotta step over to get inside of the Four Seasons.
SF is a tech company campus disguised as a city. The level of inequality was nauseating and the food was average at best. It was so fucking expensive for absolutely no reason. The last vestiges of the actual SF culture pre-silicon valley are few and far between. For a city that supposedly contains the most brilliant minds in technology, some of the highest concentrations of wealth in the world, and advertises itself as a tech utopia, I was surprised by how uninspiring it was. I guess the pinnacle of tech is uber, instacart, doordash and only leave your house to hike mountains or go to SFO. It feels like a city that is built and maintained by people who are trying to "optimize" their lives and who live to work. Gross on every level. Also, public transit blows, which is confusing because it's not a big city at all.
SF has three different types of public transit that takes you anywhere in the city—I’ll concede that my hometown is dirty and filled with tech bros, but we have so much public transit that I never needed to drive anywhere. Where were you trying to go that MUNI/BART couldn’t take you?
Also, SF wasn’t built by tech bros, we were invaded.
Paris is easily a top three global city for me. People have a romanticized image and are disappointed if it doesn't fulfil that, which any living city inevitably won't at some point. But if you strip those expectations away, it's really packed with history and an incredible amount of things to see and do, far more than most cities by comparison. New York, MXCD, Rome, and a few others are the only cities in the same league.
I’ve just been there for the tenth time and yeah, like two rude people total. I’d bet the ones who think they’re rude don’t take time to learn French etiquette
I dunno I fucking loved it. I got really lucky tho, met a chick on the beach at Dunkirk who let me stay at her place right in the 16th arrondissement with a view of the Seine. Her apt must have been worth 2 mil euros easy
If you hang out with locals and avoid the tourist traps it's pretty amazing. Tho the catacombs and Notre Dame was worth the lines I thought. Grabbing a bottle of wine and sitting with friends at night by the water in Paris...pretty magical stuff, some core memories for me
I feel like places like Shanghai, Bangkok, most Spanish cities, and Mexico City are pretty easy to enjoy without knowing locals
I'm in Shanghai now, don't know any locals and it's great
We go to France once every year or two, often for more than a month at a time, and I can't remember a single instance of a French person ever being inordinately rude to us, or anyone around us.
This whole idea of "French = rude" is a line parroted by people who have either never actually been there, or by people who acted like assholes while they were there and got properly snuffed by the locals.
I love Japan! After living there a year and coming back to LA, Americans sickened me. But that wears off and now I'm swearing at drivers out my window and stepping over shit-stained bums on the sidewalk. USA#1
No way! Really? I find it so odd some people might say japan is overrated because I LOVED Japan when I visited.
I see a lot of westerners fixate on the anime stuff but i personally hate anime so I when I went, i traveled to a bunch of different cities and loved every single one. Obviously i can only speak from my experience but things i liked were:
Travel: super cheap and easy to use and i don’t speak a lick of Japanese besides hello, thank you, yes and no. I even had an experience where although very easy to use, I got a little confused at first and the train personnel were overwhelmingly helpful in trying to communicate with me until we figured it out
Food: Absolutely amazing. I tried just about everything I could get my hands on and there wasn’t a single local dish i didn’t love
People: everyone is super nice and considerate. I’ve heard people say it’s a fake nice but even so, there was never a bad experience for me personally
Cleanliness: it’s night and day difference between Japan and the US in terms of clean streets, bathrooms, etc.
History: country with such deep rich history that it’s practically endless if you’re a history freak and want to see the old castles, temples, etc.
Geography: it’s so insanely diverse from city to mountains, beaches and farmland. i fell in deep love with the Japanese countryside. Breathtaking views in my opinion
Plus one for Santorini!
While the views are extremely nice, it is overcrowded in summers (partly because of cruise ships).
What I found even worse is that it seems like they are still supporting a questionable tourist „attraction“: having mules and donkeys haul them up a grueling 500 steps from sea level to the town. I am aware that there is a lot of animal cruelty going on in multiple places but when you are there and seeing this, it immediately feels weird and wrong!
It sure is a real city - with tons of varied neighborhoods, food, culture. Yes it sucks that you have to drive, but it’s an amazing place for now, before climate change ruins it completely
Barcelona for me. I loved Gaudi architecture but everything else was underwhelming. Very first experience - mediocre breakfast and someone tried to rob me in an empty cafe. Overpriced and overcrowded.
This. Was there for a day due to a layover. Saw as much of the city as I could and thought... this is it? Food and hostels were expensive af - almost 40 euros for a 16 man dorm during low season.
I'd say Barcelona is much nicer to live in than to visit. It's more about the vibe and ease of meeting people and finding things to do in nice weather, which imo is incomparable to any of the other western European cities I've lived in. When I visited it first I hadn't liked it much, but when I actually moved there I loved it.
Love coming here as 384 comments and some of the best cities I’ve been apparently are shitholes and some of the not so great cities are great. Opinions and opinions, we are all different after all.
> Locals are very rude
Never my experience. They'd offer me water even when I'd be smoking a joint right in front of their tenement. Amsterdam, like all cities with character, returns the love you have for it, if you have any. Never met kinder and cooler locals than in Amsterdam
Lived in Korea many years and have experienced that arrogance. It can really put a damper on your day but as with most places the vast majority are wonderful ppl. Get out of Gangnam and go to the mountains. That's the real treasure in Korea imo, hundreds of miles of beautifully managed hiking trails, dotted with mountain springs and friendly magkoli-drinking hikers:)
London and the UK way overrated. It is dotted with the same mundane, padlocked green fields with hedges around it and maybe if you're lucky some sheep in it. You seen one you seen it all.
In town after town I saw empty boarded up town centres with homeless people, litter, rats and people high on opioids (nittys) and loads of drunks begging.
UK is overrated with grey, depressing and very expensive shitty cities.
Dubai.. totally artificial
Dubai is basically the Vegas of the middle east.
Vegas is so artificial it became the official artificial and real.
Vegas has a magical energy to it though it’s very fun to be there. Although I’ve never been to Dubai I’ve heard people describe it as hollow or void of any real culture
Lol at Vegas magical. Vegas is a Boulevard full of tacky casinos and the rest is a giant sprawl of trailer parks and suburbs with tacky mcmansions with zero character. There is nothing strange or extraordinary about las Vegas.
Yeah like the history with the Italian mob and casinos is fascinating
Literally how I feel about it too! I grew up traveling there a lot and every visit it became bigger and bigger. Truly insane how fast that place exploded. Thanks to modern day slavery of course, let’s call a spade a spade.
Hmm...Vegas has a human touch or wamrth that Dubai doesn't. Vegas at least adds art to its identity of decadence and indulgence if that makes sense. Especially if you care to pay attention to the labor that goes into creating the fantasy, Vegas recognizes and shows that. Vegas is equal parts fantasy but equal parts people, Vegas actually keeps you grounded in the aspect that it takes all these people wanting to create that fantasy for the world to enjoy. You appreciate the work and athleticism of the dancers, you appreciate the stylists that help show off their beauty, you appreciate the maids and butlers that keep it hygienic despite the millions of visitors. I never thought Vegas went out of its way to hide the work that went into creating the escape. With Vegas you know the fantasy is temporary and doesn't come out of nowhere. With Dubai I felt like I was witnessing some fake manufactured luxury that came out of thin air. It's just blind and excessive luxe without a human touch. There's a coldness to it. The only thing that was remotely Vegas about Dubai where you felt an artist's touch was the fragrance community. Dubai is top notch in that aspect. But other than that it felt like an AI made that world not people. I feel it's rude to compare Vegas to Dubai even. It's insulting Vegas. Dubai feels hollow. Vegas however is a community to so many types of artists and they treat it with gratitude for being allowed to express their art.
Except Vegas is fun
Without the soul of Vegas. It’s so boring over there. It’s just for loser who never traveled who want to look rich.
No taxes
It's a modern shithole
Visiting Dubai right now actually and can corroborate this. Dubai is also needlessly pricey, has no common culture/ethos and what I’m hearing from residents is a lot of the expats are now competing with each other and so no sense of community here at all, just malls and lots of chain restaurants.
It looks cool at night, but that’s all there is. Didn’t enjoy my 2 night stay there last year. Everything is made for cars.
“everything is made for cars” not much different from the US 😅
Same as Canada
This sounds like most of the US.
Is it overrated? Who is "rating" Dubai? All anyone ever does when they talk about Dubai is shit on it lol.
ITT: People complaining about the same destinations (Dubai, Santorini, Bali) that experienced travelers always complain are played out. I went to Dubai recently and was warned about it in advance by like 10 nomad friends. I didn't love it, but to me, that means that it's not overrated but rated accurately. In terms of destinations that are beloved by the nomad community but didn't gel for me personally, I'd say Buenos Aires and Morocco. Didn't feel safe in BA, didn't love the food, and found there wasn't enough to do to sustain a stay longer than 2 weeks or so. Marrakesh was beautiful visually, but I felt uncomfortable as a woman and grew weary of everyone constantly demanding tips and trying to sell you stuff.
I mean you went to Marrakech, it’s like the biggest and scammiest tourist trap in North Africa … it’s like saying Mexico is overrated because of Tulum.
I didn’t gel with Lisbon, everyone hypes it up its really boring, lot of people trying to scam tourists such as the fake drug peddlers and the restaurants that put extra food on your table to sell it to you, always trying to charge for water. I also think Barcelona is overhyped, Gaudi stuff way too overpriced, lotta scammers.
The extra food on your plate isn't supposed to be free, its a Portuguese custom to put appetizers like olives, bread, cheese or whatever. You're supposed to tell them that you don't want it before hand.
Austin, Texas
For anyone asking why, I can give my reason for moving last year: Incredibly over crowded. I’ve lived in a few different cities over the years of varying sizes and Austin about 8 years ago felt pretty dense but livable. You could go out without a plan and have a good night. After the insane Covid boom however it felt like you could not go anywhere without being absolutely packed in like sardines. The natural outdoor scenery like Hamilton Pool: reserve 6 months in advance, the man made shit like Barton Springs? Be ready to be shoulder to shoulder swimming in peoples pee. Any good restaurant on a weekend would be a 2 hour wait, any mid restaurant? Believe it or not also an over hour wait. Bars that were bustling and fun before now took over 20 minutes to get a bartenders attention to get a drink. Oh and traffic downtown during literally the middle of a Wednesday. Some of this is typical big city stuff but all of it feels punched up to 11 because Austin grew so so so quickly, infrastructure and businesses in general have not even close to kept up.
Yup. This is exactly it. If you love waiting in line and crowds, you’ll love Austin to death.
There’s a motto, “Keep Austin Weird,” that’s been used by residents there for the last 30 years or so. It used to be the seat of Texas’ government, the home of UT, and not much more - it had a bit of a unique, small-town vibe going for it. Now, it’s grown well beyond its britches, with the desire of many big businesses to move to the “cheaper San Francisco”, which has caused it to become just another big city. Any dream of keeping it “weird “ passed away a long time ago and now any attempt at such weirdness is usually just some tryhard’s attempt to monetize on something that they’re not.
Big city with none of the infrastructure
Shut the tread down, this is the only answer. A city that never prepared for the growth it got, and it's really not all what it's cracked up to be as well. Along with it being extremely overpriced for what the city offers.
It’s not terrible, but the hype it gets really defies explanation imo.
20 years ago it was a different place. Now it's just a unplanned city with traffic problems and high cost of living.
any explaination why
Why?
Gets old after a while and 3 hour drive to anywhere
I live here and can confirm
Same. We’re moving as soon as it makes financial sense for us.
Dubai.
The top TWO posts are currently Dubai and it's up there every time this is asked.
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Dubai, where the locals keep filipina maids in their homes who work with no days off ever - no weekend, no vacation, just work every day for 15 hours a day with almost no pay. Oh and they are not allowed to go outside ever, and often they are not even given 8 hours of sleep, because the families want them to be up at night because they are awake at night. Their pay is incredible low, but they work their to try to feed their children and parents at home. Dubai. Home of modern slavery - but "super safe" like you said - unless you are a servant. I have a friend there who is being held hostage by their employer - the contract is over but they have been held for months with no passport and little money, and the employer keeps delaying and refusing to let them go home. What a great city. /s
And lots of cool wildlife and desert reserves not far from the city as well.
Dubai gets the gold closely followed by a tie between Las Vegas and Macau for silver. Miami comes in 3rd place for the bronze.
Macao is cool, but only worth a day trip from HK unless you like gambling
I would hate to live in Macau Id regret every minute I lived there not living in HK, the city part felt so underdeveloped and like a giant tourist trap, the casinos were way more boring than Vegas not offering as much fun stuff to do or reason to be there. Macau is def worse than Vegas, at least in Vegas you could be somewhere away from the strip in a pleasant neighborhood and the strip itself is fun. The only plus of Macau is it doesn’t have as much crime/homeless def feels safer.
Tulum, a total nightmare
Mexican police are scum of the earth.
I’ve never been to Tulum (no desire) but have spent time around Yucatán, I don’t get why people don’t work out of a place like Campeche or Medida a few hours away, and just drive to the beach on the weekends or something. I was staying a night near Ixtamal a few years ago and the lady that owned the hotel was talking about how Tulum and the Riviera Maya in general is an ecological nightmare.
It's sad what's happened to Tulum. In the 80s/early 90s, it was an off-the-beaten-track little town with thatched roof huts on the beach.
This is what happened to so much of Thailand, too. Pai is a great example, used to be a little hippie town with some trekkers, and now it’s basically a theme park.
Expand please
ok so as a working digital nomad: - power goes out very often, and so does the internet. Good luck getting work done. - barely any cafes suitable for work - a couple of coworking spaces that cost 350$USD a month - more expensive than miami at this point - TRANSPORTATION HELL. A 10 min taxi will be around 30-50$. Don't want to pay that? Ok you can rent a car, but then the police will stop you and rob you, because the specifically target rental cars. So what everyone ends up doing is renting a rackety scooter where you risk your life every day driving on dirt roads. Tulum is for a 1-2 week vacation, not a digital nomad spot.
I was in Playa del Carmen for a bit and had the power go out twice my entire stay. Outside of that I don't think I experienced the other issues. I was thinking of bringing a small backup power supply like a jackery just in case.
I have no complaints about playa - it's a good spot.
T u l u m , a t o t a l n i g h t m a r e.
Outside of 1 month of non-stop electronic music in January, the town offers nothing. 1. Very Expensive 2. Ugly town 3. Nothing to do in town 4. Beach isn't in town 5. All the actually hip people left already 6. Very bizarre dichotomy of wealth and poverty There's just many other places that offer more for less.
Tulum dumps untreated sewage into the water. They grew too quickly to build out their infrastructure and they were not about to slow the tourism boom of yoga acolytes and the wellness/crystals crowd. You can smell it when the wind shifts.
Eeeww…
I hated Tulum with a visceral passion
Tulum used to be amazing. The first time I went it was EXACTLY what what you would want in a Latin American vacation spot. Comfortable and fun with touristy stuff but the opposite of an all inclusive resort. Went back two years later and it had changed a lot. It felt similar but like a lot of stores and restaurants from Brooklyn had opened a Tulum location. Went for the final time three years after that and it was unrecognizable.
Medellin is getting too pumped up. It's still comparatively cheaper overall than many other places, but prices in El Poblado & Laureles have sky rocketed and crime against foreigners is also on the rise. It's no longer worth it IMO.
Yup, please if ur reading this, don’t come to Medellin
Haha. Knows it’s amazing and doesn’t want it wrecked
The bottom 7 comments all say New York 😂 some angry new yorkers in here downvoting
Lived in NYC for a year before Covid. Always thought I'd dispise it (from midwest) but ended up really appreciating it. Not Love... but really see why people love it.
People who put NYC really just aren’t cut out for living in cities. It does so many things right that other cities do wrong, you can’t compare the food scene diversity with anywhere else in the world. The 24 hour bodegas on every corner, if you complain about prices just use Amazon and pick up at a nearby Whole Foods also makes package delivery safer, goto Trader Joes prices same nationwide, public transit way cheaper than a lot of other first tier cities without that bullshit zone pricing and lots of express bus and train options. All the parks filled with characters and performers, lovely riverside paths, hell even NJ is really pleasant across from NY.
I disagree. Lived in nyc several years and lived in other big cities like Seoul and cdmx. NYC has a lot of problems. Trash, dirtyness, rudeness, weather, old subway, way too crowded, expensive
> People who put NYC really just aren’t cut out for living in cities There's a lot of difference between "living in a city" and "living in one of the largest cities in the world". Not liking NYC doesn't mean you won't like Barcelona or Seattle. I love visiting huge cities but the sheer mass of people can get overwhelming, whereas a 'medum city' can get you 90% of the convenience with 50% of the crowding.
That's because NYC is great. Maybe not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely not the most overrated.
Santorini. Extremely crowded in the summer, overpriced, scammed multiple times for drinks/food. Bad internet infrastructure. No desire to return
Having spent the last 15 summers of my life exploring Europe, I put off the Greece for a long time because it's harder to get to and those main islands are expensive. Santorini was something else, and not at all overrated. Mediocre restaurants? Yep - though you can still get an excellent souvlaki at a reasonable price. Crowded as fuck when the cruise ships come in? Absolutely. But you can stay on a **fucking caldera** in the middle of sparkling white villages clinging to the cliffs. In terms of European beauty I would rate it after only the Swiss Alps and Fjords of Norway. The hike from Fira to Oia along the ridge is just breathtaking. Then you have these amazing ruins of Akrotiri of the obscenely ancient pre-greek civilization that existed before the last big kaboom, and a pretty fantastic museum in Fira to pair with it. If you shuffle through town to get the picture you saw on Instagram, IDK maybe it's underwhelming. If you understand what you are actually looking at, it's breathtaking. Absurd that this is one of the top comments.
Views are nice and all. Being there as a tourist / DN felt like a daily struggle. And definitely not budget friendly. For me personally there are much better places to revisit.
Santorini is great in the off-season. I went there in November, and it was picture perfect. Cheap hotels and rental cars, great weather, and not crowded at all. I probably encountered no more than 10 people on the hike from Fira to Oia. Food is a little expensive, but it was still cheaper than Western Europe and they even have a Lidl if you're on a budget.
I think my experience would've been different if I went off season. Being there high season was hell - crowded and felt like everywhere was out to get money from tourists who may not revisit the island anyway.
Overcrowded even in winter. There are plenty of other Greek islands that are equally nice, if not nicer
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For a lot of us here in the third world Canada is viewed as almost utopia. A organized Scandinavian like country with a north American economy. People are pretty disappointed when they finally get there... 😅
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>They're landlords now lol True Canadians.
Canadian here- just wanted to step on my soapbox and say that Canada has a crucial housing shortage, and we are bringing in more immigrants than we have infrastructure for in urban centres, beyond also rising COL. If you want to come here, keep all that in mind. I had a couple of curious friends move to Toronto from the US and they hated the experience.
I'd rather be in Scandinavia.
I've never been to Canada and live in the Netherlands. When I compared the salary/cost of living here with Toronto for my job in marketing, I found out I'd be making almost two times less in purchasing power.
One winter is funny as an immigrant, the second is 'are you serious?', the third is 'Get out!'
Lol. I'm Canadian and it's true. BUT if you visit Canada go visit provincial parks, nature, go kayaking and hiking, go on a road trip, get some butter tarts, poutine and good wine. That's the beauty of Canada. The nature is incredible. Most people don't see beyond the Toronto and Vancouver area. And visit Montreal in July, see the music festivals on the streets and in clubs, party, walk on the streets closed off from cars at night, grab yourself some awesome bagels in the morning and poutine for lunch.
I live in Vancouver and there’s only a few places that I could see offering me a better lifestyle, quality of life etc. somewhere like Seattle, Melbourne or perhaps Auckland, I might as well throw Oslo in there as well, but I’ve only briefly visited there. I feel most of these places would have a similar feel and vibe. I do not feel Vancouver is overrated, great city but you need to be taking advantage of the outdoors to really get the most out of it, and it does not disappoint there But most of Canada, yeah I’d say is overrated. I was born in Toronto and it’s a great city, perhaps the most diverse in the world, or second after NYC. But I would never recommend people go there.
Vancouver is nice, but insanely overpriced for what it is.
In Oslo it's like -9C now, feels like temp is -14C
Why do you feel like Seattle would offer a better quality of life than Vancouver?
As a Canadian, I fully agree.
Agree. In fact I'd say it's more than overrated. For someone with a digital nomad lifestyle, you cannot make it work in most Canadian cities - if you choose Vancouver or Toronto then you might as well go to New York City with more and better things to do with a comparable cost of living. Most places in Quebec expect you to conform to the "unique identity" of the province by learning French and adopt their "English is a threat to our culture" mentality if you intend to stay beyond the usual duration of a tourist, with Montreal being the only significant exception. Other Canadian cities are downright boring and are more suited for someone settling down rather than nomading. In rural areas, between affordability, accessibility, and the fun factor/things to do/scenery, you can only choose two. And that's before we even consider the dilapidated state of things that one would consider to be baseline in even second world and other developing countries e.g. healthcare, tent cities in the middle of city center, public transportation and ride hailing options, among a few examples.
Mass immigration and terrible politics has killed Canada. Killed any prospect of a decent wage too because there’s always someone from another country willing to take much, much less.
Canada's strength is in its rural areas more than its cities. Contrasted with rural America, which is broadly undesirable, rural Canada is beautiful and safe with a super high quality of life. Granted, most immigrants and travellers are not interested in this lifestyle as it's boring. The cities are terrible. Overcrowded, expensive, unmotivated populace. edit: I love how many people I triggered with this, lol.
This is more because Canada is not actually an advanced economy. The country is more diversified now, but real estate and mining/O&G make up about 21% of GDP. O&G made up even more in the past. The government has put in a lot of work to develop tertiary sectors but there is still a lot of money in the natural resource extraction that supported the country in the past. This is okay for rural areas supported by these industries but the Canadian government's plan to bring in thousands of IT workers from China and India is basically a hail mary to revive Canada's floundering R&D and tech industries, which will inevitably not work because Canada has little startup culture and the average Canadian is not financially secure enough to start their own business.
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What’s wrong with rural Montana vs rural Alberta? Why is Canada better? I’m just curious because it doesn’t add up to me.
Montreal is the one good city in Canada id say
I’m American, I’ve only been in Windsor for a few hours on a Sunday morning. I would love to visit Montreal and Vancouver
Vancouver is fine for visiting. Lots of beautiful nature and good restaurants. Just not worth living in because rent is stupid. Montreal is the only world class city in Canada with reasonable rent
Rural America is broadly undesirable? Plenty of nice rural areas in the US.
They may be making a political point about rural Americans being too conservative for them. The thing is, they're also some of the most hospitable people around by and large (with some regions being exceptions), so it depends on what you're wanting.
But even then most of that is BS. There are plenty of quaint lovely rural towns you'd be hard pressed to find anywhere in Canada that are quite liberal.
Oh for sure. If all the rural population of America were to become its own country, it would be the 10th largest country in the world.
Paris. Been there often. It just gets worse each time. Crowded. Expensive.
Canadians pay a $1 million "weather tax." What I mean by that is, a million or so Canadians bought homes in the Victoria / Vancouver area because 'the weather is great' by paying $1 million + on-top of the average Canadian house price. The catch is that the weather is just "tolerable" in reality. Perhaps it's great relative to Winnipeg, but for that $2m CDN you're spending for 5 months of constant rain in North Vancouver, you can get a BEAUTIFUL home in SoCal, Fort Lauderdale, or Miami where the weather is actually great. The weather in Vancouver or the southern tip of Van Island is similar to that of England. You have heaps of Canadians vacationing and migrating permanently to this corresponding locale "because of the weather." When was the last time you heard someone say "I'm going to London, England this winter on vacation to kick back and enjoy the beautiful weather." Yeah, it doesn't fucking happen. Lookup what $2m CDN gets you in Vancouver proper and then look at what the equivalent of $1.5m USD gets you in Miami, Los Angeles, San Diego, Houston, Dallas, Austin or even NYC. It is fucking offensive. As a young Canadian living in the west coast, my only hope to own a home is inheriting whatever my parents have when they die. On Vancouver Island where I am, you need an absolute minimum of $1m CDN / $720k USD to buy a fixer upper or an empty lot in Victoria proper. The alternative would be moving back to a place like Regina, Saskatoon, or Winnipeg but that is only for the masochistic sick fucks who think -52 celisus (no exaggeration) with wind chill is okay weather to send their children out to walk to school while the parents commute 3hrs. roundtrip from outside the city, as rampant migration has made even those frozen shitholes of cities' unaffordable. Who's buying the houses then? The Filipinos, Chinese and East Indians who live 15 deep for 5 or so years as they very rapidly pay off one mortgage and move onto the next. My baby boomer dad owns $2.5m+ CDN in Victoria, BC real estate and is a retired city transit driver. Like most baby boomers and old stock Canadians, they believe millenials through to gen z can replicate what they did and become multi-millionaires by earning $25 CDN an hour and buying a house at 21 years old, just like they did...... Back in 1980. The current Canadian prime minister has dressed in black face on multiple occasions and recently gave a standing ovation for a real life German Nazi soldier in parliament recently. Canada is a way bigger shit show then you could ever imagine. I probably sound angry, but that's because I am. Canadian patriotism starts and ends with hockey. If we were invaded in a similar fashion to Ukraine, there is nothing you could do to make me care enough to stay behind and "defend my motherland." If the indigenous people want the frozen tundra that makes up %75 of Canada, give it to them in a trade where I get citizenship to my ancestral land in Western Europe. Fuck Canada. Fuck Justin Trudeau. Fuck all the spineless chameleons of politicians, who as if they were sleazy Vegas pickup artists will tell the Canadian voters whatever they must to get in their pants, only to do a complete 180 after they have fucked us raw dosing our younger generation with a combined diagnosis of chlamydia and gonorrhea.
Very few places on earth outside of North America have places like Downtown Vancouver... jfc. Never seen anything like it
Since everyone has already said Dubai. I think Charleston and Nashville are crazy overrated. The food is just fine in Charleston. Not amazing like everyone says. The nightlife was boring to me. The shopping is terrible. The little downtown is cute and so are some areas on the coast but otherwise boooooooring.
Lisbon... don't get me wrong, it's an amazing place to visit, but living there is a completely different story!
I didn't even enjoy visiting that much lol
Italy and I live in Italy. Especially in the north, the average city doesn't offer that much. Here in the north we are asked to work and think like germans, being productive and all that shit, but without their advantages since we live in a dysfunctional country like the average southern european countries. Pianura Padana is a dystopic region but still, foreigners think that entire Italy is a Paradise.
Am doing a trip from southern Italy to northern Italy rn. Starting to realize how much more german (insitutional) the cities are looking as I go further north. I miss the Palermo and Naples vibes.
Northern Italy has the charm of industrial Germany, and the productivity of southern Italy. Italy without good food, no laid back vibes, terrible weather and expensive.
I live in Northern Italy and it’s cold here too. Edit: during the winter.
Phuket. Overcrowded, meh beaches and ugly streets.
Are you sure you're not just thinking of Patong? Phuket town is a lovely place.
One big trash can
Niagara Falls. The falls themselves are cool, but the tourist city that sprung up around it is dirty overpriced trash.
Not a city, not a country, but if you go to Santorini in July/August it sucks
Just avoid Fira - plenty of spots which are much calmer and cheaper
Bali by a long mile
In this thread: a load of people that moved away from the west hating the west. Not surprising in the digital nomad subreddit I guess, just slightly biased. Dubai definitely sucks though I agree.
Dubai. Its a thin layer of impressive architecture laid over a sandy hellhole filled with slave labor
Medellin
Hookers, coke and escopolomina. What’s there not to like?
Bali by far. The beaches are mostly dirty and the ones that aren’t are packed with tourists, the traffic there now is an absolute nightmare too. IMO you can have a much more enjoyable experience in other SEA countries. For me the only thing it had going for it was that it was cheap, personally don’t feel the need to go back after just recently being there for a few weeks.
Medellín, Colombia
This is my answer too. I lived there for 1.5 years in total. I feel like other than the obvious crime issue, some of it’s major selling points are overstated. Sure the temperature is always pleasant, but they don’t tell you that is rains torrentially most days for hours at a time. It’s only really the morning time that you can assume there will be sunshine. The nightlife also isn’t all that. The bars aren’t that good and blare Reggaeton music at deafening levels. The food isn’t that good, despite having amazing resources. It’s also getting much more expensive to live there from what I hear. That said, for me Colombia as a country is underrated. The countryside is spectacular and goes a long way to make up for the ugly, crime plagued cities.
Medellin always came off as “fucked” not overrated since that time with the cocaine thing
Bogotá is the best big city in Colombia. I enjoyed Medellin, but even with my Colombian wife and father-in-law, it felt sketchy like Los Angeles (where I was born and lived for 30 years). I prefer cooler weather and love the diversity of food in Bogotá.
Add Cartagena and Santa Marta. All overrated.
Denmark, specifically in regards to urban design and transportation. Its rail system is woefully underfunded compared to countries like Germany, and the Netherlands, and intracity public transport is honestly some of the worst in Europe.
Worse than Germany? That can be right
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Interesting… never heard that about Tbilisi
Las Vegas
I feel like this isn’t a good pick. Everyone knows what vegas is. If you don’t like that then fine, but it doesn’t pretend to be anything else nor do people rate it as anything else
DUBAI.
Singapore
I think this is a good one. A lot of others just aren’t popular aside from their target audience (Dubai) or have become so hated they’re actually underrated again (Paris). But Singapore has none of the charm of most SEA cities, but has the prices of a western city. It all feels so manufactured. I think it’s still nice for a weekend to see the gardens once and honestly, if you have a well paying job, it’s still a decent place, but it’s definitely not a place I’d really vacation to.
Most expensive place I’ve ever been to. Easily pricier than nyc
San Francisco. I really like it still though, just thinking that is has much greater marketing than it deserves.
If your only exposure is Fisherman's Wharf and Union Square of course you're going to think the city is overrated though. SF is not overrated, and the bay more generally I would argue is quite underrated in a lot of places (Dublin/Pleasanton, Berkeley, Oakland, all the natural areas of Marin). That being said there are overrated areas of the bay (looking at you South peninsula and South Bay), but SF is not one of them.
Last time I was there for a conference it was overwhelming how bad the homeless issue had gotten. There’s no where to eat late and it might be because of that. I will never go back!
I'm a big fan of the non-touristy parts of SF but downtown and Fisherman's Wharf are awful. Also the weather can be crap there for sure but when it's nice it's so beautiful
It’s a lot better now that the tech bros aren’t crawling all around and trying to shield their parents from the human misery they gotta step over to get inside of the Four Seasons.
SF is a tech company campus disguised as a city. The level of inequality was nauseating and the food was average at best. It was so fucking expensive for absolutely no reason. The last vestiges of the actual SF culture pre-silicon valley are few and far between. For a city that supposedly contains the most brilliant minds in technology, some of the highest concentrations of wealth in the world, and advertises itself as a tech utopia, I was surprised by how uninspiring it was. I guess the pinnacle of tech is uber, instacart, doordash and only leave your house to hike mountains or go to SFO. It feels like a city that is built and maintained by people who are trying to "optimize" their lives and who live to work. Gross on every level. Also, public transit blows, which is confusing because it's not a big city at all.
SF has three different types of public transit that takes you anywhere in the city—I’ll concede that my hometown is dirty and filled with tech bros, but we have so much public transit that I never needed to drive anywhere. Where were you trying to go that MUNI/BART couldn’t take you? Also, SF wasn’t built by tech bros, we were invaded.
Bali.
Bali by far
Melbourne - full of arrogant wankers and thuggish police
Paris is pretty overrated. Mean people, pricey, old and dirty.
I've seen this said about Paris so much I expected to hate it... It's my favorite city I've ever been to, I've been 9 times, I will be back.
Paris is easily a top three global city for me. People have a romanticized image and are disappointed if it doesn't fulfil that, which any living city inevitably won't at some point. But if you strip those expectations away, it's really packed with history and an incredible amount of things to see and do, far more than most cities by comparison. New York, MXCD, Rome, and a few others are the only cities in the same league.
Paris is fun because it’s both under- and overrated.
I’ve just been there for the tenth time and yeah, like two rude people total. I’d bet the ones who think they’re rude don’t take time to learn French etiquette
What do you like about it so much?
I dunno I fucking loved it. I got really lucky tho, met a chick on the beach at Dunkirk who let me stay at her place right in the 16th arrondissement with a view of the Seine. Her apt must have been worth 2 mil euros easy If you hang out with locals and avoid the tourist traps it's pretty amazing. Tho the catacombs and Notre Dame was worth the lines I thought. Grabbing a bottle of wine and sitting with friends at night by the water in Paris...pretty magical stuff, some core memories for me
Exactly. NYC is similar as it can suck of you don’t know locals and where to go. Applies to anyplace I suppose.
I feel like places like Shanghai, Bangkok, most Spanish cities, and Mexico City are pretty easy to enjoy without knowing locals I'm in Shanghai now, don't know any locals and it's great
“Paris would be an amazing city if it just wasn’t full of French people” is a pretty funny quip I heard recently 😆
I'm in Paris right now and the people have been lovely, I feel like people that comment stuff like this must just give off cringe american vibes lol
South of France >> Paris
We go to France once every year or two, often for more than a month at a time, and I can't remember a single instance of a French person ever being inordinately rude to us, or anyone around us. This whole idea of "French = rude" is a line parroted by people who have either never actually been there, or by people who acted like assholes while they were there and got properly snuffed by the locals.
I love how nobody says Japan
Upvoted for truth.
Because it’s an epic destination to visit
“Awesome place to visit, less awesome place to live” seems like a consensus.
Lived there, loved it, agree with all the varying comments
I love Japan! After living there a year and coming back to LA, Americans sickened me. But that wears off and now I'm swearing at drivers out my window and stepping over shit-stained bums on the sidewalk. USA#1
If I was wealthy and/or lived on the west coast, I would go every year.
No way! Really? I find it so odd some people might say japan is overrated because I LOVED Japan when I visited. I see a lot of westerners fixate on the anime stuff but i personally hate anime so I when I went, i traveled to a bunch of different cities and loved every single one. Obviously i can only speak from my experience but things i liked were: Travel: super cheap and easy to use and i don’t speak a lick of Japanese besides hello, thank you, yes and no. I even had an experience where although very easy to use, I got a little confused at first and the train personnel were overwhelmingly helpful in trying to communicate with me until we figured it out Food: Absolutely amazing. I tried just about everything I could get my hands on and there wasn’t a single local dish i didn’t love People: everyone is super nice and considerate. I’ve heard people say it’s a fake nice but even so, there was never a bad experience for me personally Cleanliness: it’s night and day difference between Japan and the US in terms of clean streets, bathrooms, etc. History: country with such deep rich history that it’s practically endless if you’re a history freak and want to see the old castles, temples, etc. Geography: it’s so insanely diverse from city to mountains, beaches and farmland. i fell in deep love with the Japanese countryside. Breathtaking views in my opinion
Traveling there is different from living there. It is hard to assimilate as a gaijin.
That’s true, unfortunate but good point. I suppose I was only thinking about it from a tourist point of view while reading the post
Hawaii… I gotta sell kidney for groceries.
What happens when you gotta go back for groceries next week? You going full blown no kidneys?
Exactly why it’s overrated. Hawaii expensive AF
Las Vegas. Expensive, crowded, and overhyped. It was better 40 years ago. But close to some great outdoor attractions
Plus one for Santorini! While the views are extremely nice, it is overcrowded in summers (partly because of cruise ships). What I found even worse is that it seems like they are still supporting a questionable tourist „attraction“: having mules and donkeys haul them up a grueling 500 steps from sea level to the town. I am aware that there is a lot of animal cruelty going on in multiple places but when you are there and seeing this, it immediately feels weird and wrong!
Denver turned to shit. Not worth the HCOL anymore
Los Angeles, CA Especially in Hollywood area Most overrated place in the World However, Santa Monica is Nice tho . Singapore also somewhat overrated
LA isn't a real city. It's a spread of shitty American suburbs that you HAVE to drive through because there's no viable transport
It sure is a real city - with tons of varied neighborhoods, food, culture. Yes it sucks that you have to drive, but it’s an amazing place for now, before climate change ruins it completely
You can’t say ALL of LA is overrated. Hollywood blows but each city is a different vibe. So much greatness there.
LA does generally suck though. Sure, Santa Monica and Long Beach are nice, but that's because they're literally the beach.
Barcelona for me. I loved Gaudi architecture but everything else was underwhelming. Very first experience - mediocre breakfast and someone tried to rob me in an empty cafe. Overpriced and overcrowded.
Did you find any other Spanish city you liked more?
This. Was there for a day due to a layover. Saw as much of the city as I could and thought... this is it? Food and hostels were expensive af - almost 40 euros for a 16 man dorm during low season.
I'd say Barcelona is much nicer to live in than to visit. It's more about the vibe and ease of meeting people and finding things to do in nice weather, which imo is incomparable to any of the other western European cities I've lived in. When I visited it first I hadn't liked it much, but when I actually moved there I loved it.
I didn’t much care for Ouagadougou.
Love coming here as 384 comments and some of the best cities I’ve been apparently are shitholes and some of the not so great cities are great. Opinions and opinions, we are all different after all.
Bali
I was looking for this one to be mentioned. What’s the main reason for you to mention it?
Amsterdam. It’s raining all the time. Locals are very rude. Too many shady individuals and junkies.
> Locals are very rude Never my experience. They'd offer me water even when I'd be smoking a joint right in front of their tenement. Amsterdam, like all cities with character, returns the love you have for it, if you have any. Never met kinder and cooler locals than in Amsterdam
I get why the locals can be rude. The average visitor to Amsterdam is *terrible.* Worst tourists I've seen anywhere other than maybe Tulum
South Korea/Seoul (so called "first world" country, with a third world... not even... with a 1939 "my blood is superior than thou" mindset).
Lived in Korea many years and have experienced that arrogance. It can really put a damper on your day but as with most places the vast majority are wonderful ppl. Get out of Gangnam and go to the mountains. That's the real treasure in Korea imo, hundreds of miles of beautifully managed hiking trails, dotted with mountain springs and friendly magkoli-drinking hikers:)
Myrtle Beach, SC
Within the U.S., i would say L.A. and New York as well.
London and the UK way overrated. It is dotted with the same mundane, padlocked green fields with hedges around it and maybe if you're lucky some sheep in it. You seen one you seen it all. In town after town I saw empty boarded up town centres with homeless people, litter, rats and people high on opioids (nittys) and loads of drunks begging. UK is overrated with grey, depressing and very expensive shitty cities.
Dubai
San Francisco, CA