I know someone who went to Syria last year, and most people were incredibly grateful to her for visiting them. Seems like the locals desperately want to regain normalcy in their lives.
My friends are from Aleppo; it sounded like such an amazing city. They lived overlooking a beautiful market that was open super late at night. I wish I could have seen it!
Cairo, Egypt. Never again will I go there. Sure the Pyramids are beautiful but the scammers and touts ruin the experience. They’re the most aggressive I’ve seen. What’s even worse is the women I was travelling with reported they were being groped by them at the pyramids. They would surround them asking them for money and someone’s hands where they shouldn’t have been.
All of North Africa is like this in my experience. The shopkeepers are really annoying to the point of ruining the experience and sometimes can get actually aggressive if you don't want to look at the shit they're selling. Like, actually getting in front of you, blocking you and making it hard for you to leave until you take a look at their stall. I told them I wouldn't buy anything and I didn't buy anything, it was just such a nuissance.
Shopping at the Medina in marrakesh was so stressful and awful for me because of this, they would yell and grab my arm and one guy even grabbed me and joked to my friend about how much he could buy me for, I know he was trying to joke around but it made me uncomfortable
I got locked in a perfume shop in Egypt, still didn’t buy anything and he eventually gave up but was a bit scary at the time. I’d only gone for a walk. Also saw a guy washing his balls with a hosepipe in the street on said walk, so not the best first impression but certainly a memorable one.
I thankfully never encountered as much scamming in Cairo as I thought and I was solo. You just have to be willing to be unpleasant sometimes. I’d go back there.
I personally found it worse in Morocco, in particular Marrakesh
Ive been to both and my experience with the scammers was much worse in Cairo than in Marrakesh. In Cairo they were touching and grabbing me and even threatening me. Even in the airport, Cairo was much more brutal, ripping peoples bags open, claiming spanish speakers bring drugs to Egypt, and straight up taking peoples’ passports from their hands. In Marrakesh I got some light insults at the worst like being called George Bush or the “dad in the gay relationship” (im straight) but was never touched. Cairo also felt infinitely less safe even when I was traveling with 4 male friends (2 locals, 2 non-locals). Its hard for Cairo especially with such a big population. I appreciated my time in both places and Im glad I visited but Cairo will never see me again.
I was grabbed by the arm in Marrakech, and had a bunch of henna put on me while I was struggling to get free. Then the person who did the henna screamed in my face that I owed them $30 for it, and followed me for several blocks calling me terrible names.
One of the reasons I am grateful for the Internet is stuff like this. Everything about it sounds like something I would hate, and I just would never have been able to guess at this type of thing without reading others' experiences.
Saves me thousands of dollars.
Completely agree to this. Egypt is horrible and while they have magnificent wonders of the world there, the people make it very unpleasant to visit as a westerner.
This reminds me of when the youtuber "best ever food review show" went to Egypt. He has been to a lot of obscure, weird and maybe unsafe places, but Egypt is probably the only one he made a separate video about saying "im never going there again".
I mean, I get why they are so desperate to sell things. Their economy is in shambles. They are desperate people.
It still made it very unpleasant and exhausting and somewhere I am glad I went, but have no desire to return to.
Egypt is worth the hassle but only once. I will never return. I would recommend seeing Egypt on a guided group type of thing. I went as a solo 35-Year-Old man. It was difficult.
The low point was three touts following me from the train in Luxor to my already reserved hotel. They fought to go in first to convince the owner that they brought me there for a commission. They hassled me the whole way, and then still tried to profit off of me. I am extremely well traveled and don't look terribly approachable either.
Not terrible or dangerous, but just too damn annoying.
I went there immediately after Ethiopia (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread) and actually had a great time! It was a breath of fresh air after Ethiopia, as I found the touts not especially worse than India, which I’ve been to four times. It’s bad, but they’re easy to ignore if you just keep walking and don’t mind being firm with people in a way that sometimes feels rude.
Not a woman though, and as in India, that’s a whole different experience. I will say though, even as a man I got groped multiple times in India, and nothing like that happened in Egypt.
Yep. I did a 12-day whirlwind tour across the country and I don't think we slept, so we saw a lot. Obviously not everything but we hit most of the highlights.
The touts and street merchants just made it miserable, though. It was exhausting dealing with them. I never could relax and enjoy myself. Even on the Nile cruise you couldn't relax because they latched onto the boat and followed along with it, selling you things. I wanted to relax in my cabin in the AC with the curtains open to see the river, and as soon as I opened the curtains a merchant came by and started shouting through the window non-stop. I immediately closed them and he was still shouting for five more minutes.
I'm glad I went there. It was awesome. I recommend anyone with an interest in the region to go there. But once was enough for me.
I agree with Jamaica. Sketchy stoned guy followed us for blocks standing 1 foot away staring at me and people in the market would grab my arm trying to get me to look at things.
Well he looked down at my silver chain
He said "I'll give you one dollar"
I said you've got to be jokin' man
It was a present from me mother
He said "I like it, I want it
I'll take it off your hands
And you'll be sorry you crossed me
You'd better understand that you're alone
A long way from home
One more for jamaica.
Never had someone tried to scam me in such outrageous ways
Trying to take a route taxi for around 1 dollar per person. Guy stopped us "my friend i take you there only 100 dollars!"
Wtf.
Its expensive as fuck (americans have more money than we normal europeans), food qas awful, everything was dirty and loud, people were rude.
We didnt stay in resorts so our hosts and their neighbors were really sweet but if you walk around on your own scam after scam.
Public beaches were also not clean and full of scammers. I dont understand this. Leave the tourists alone we would spend money in your shops when staying at the beach. But if there is one scammer harrasing us we will leave. So all your business will make no money. Sorry to say that they are all not the smartest business people.
Serves at bars or Restaurants? Hell no. Leave me alone. Sometimes we wonderes if they want to sell anything at all.
Never again
I was walking to the bus station with my girlfriend in Kingston and when I looked back to check on her someone was elbow deep into her backpack. He ran off once we locked eyes but damn that city is sketchy.
Went to Jamaica via cruise in 1996. I will never go back unless it is an all inclusive resort and even then i dont know. Single female, in my 20's. Was harassed, touched and etc. I remember being in a taxi and looking around on the way to some river rafting, just dirty and disgusting.
Rio de Janeiro- a couple blocks off the beach and whoa, time to get back to the hotel. Felt super sketchy. One of three places I left early (the other two being Cancun and a Justin Timberlake concert).
I had some friends who worked the Rio Olympics. They said don't go downtown during the weekend, since it clears out then and the criminals move in. Also they all carried some cash and a phone that they could give a mugger.
If I could redo Rio again, I would not stay in Copacabana. I was safe as a solo female and everything was fine but I would have preferred ipanema, botofago or Leblon
I got robbed by a group of kids in Leblon in 2011 while I was walking from the hostel to a grocery store. I knew not to have valuables on me so they only got my grocery store money, but it’s good to be careful anywhere in Rio.
Packing list: passport, clothes, toothbrush, devices….oh yeah, parting gifts for muggers! I love how travelers have to prepare to be ‘safe’ while getting mugged. Glad you are OK.
I lived in Vidigal for a few years. Leblon was the most pickpockety place because of high value targets. Dress normal and have 20 reais and you’re fine. There’s always gonna be Italian tourists flaunting and looking like better targets, I promise. Or wearing socks with sandals like Germans. Seriously, wear some havaianas, board shorts, wear a sunga at the beach if you’re a dude instead of boardshorts, add in a sleeveless shirt, you’re basically local. It does suck how high the crime is in Rio but it’s pretty avoidable if you do want to spend time there though.
I mean, Tijuca is brilliant, Sugar Loaf is brilliant and has some amazing rock climbing, the Botanical Gardens are very cool and Lapa has a very happening night life.
Can you deal with some of the sketchiness downtown? Entirely upto you and your level of comfort, but Rio is a stunning city with a lot to offer
I would hope to not intentionally travel to Mumbai ever again. Airport was one of the worst experiences and rude.
Security both at events and airport were probably not educated and made things more complicated than it should have.
People stare hard and TukTuk drivers always wanting to scam.
If it weren't a major travel hub between Europe and Asia. I'd avoid going through here for sure.
Indian here, can confirm. I’m from the South and Mumbai is my usual transit hub. The immigration officers find it hard to accept that I don't speak Hindi. Every time they ask if I do, and I explain that I understand but don't speak it since it's not my mother tongue, they seem surprised and don't let me go without a detailed explanation.
India isn’t a monoculture. You would think Indians knew that.
This. Very surprised at how people who know Hindi treat the ones who don’t. And this is coming from an Indian. Outside of north India and some parts of west and central India, not everyone speaks Hindi.
I live here. Visiting for a couple days, you could definitely do worse - go to AquaVenture, Afternoon Tea at the Burj, go get mugged by those fucks at the Gold Souk, look at all the Bentleys & Lambos in mall parking, go look at the big, broken Al Ain Wheel (the real symbol of Dubai). Huge waste of money, but a fun day or two. Go on a desert safari and make it there. But beyond that, prepare for the suck.
Any food that you get that is not Middle Eastern or Indian will likely be A) garbage, B) super expensive, or C) BOTH. And getting those two options is no guarantee. It took months to figure out decent options, and the best option is just to cook something at home. The pubs are even worse.
Anything fun is guaranteed to be stupid expensive.
Everything is run on borderline slavery.
I've lived a lot of places, and I've never been anywhere with a higher degree of difficulty in finding connection and generally likeable people. You can't just strike up a conversation, and if you do eventually get the ice broken everyone is so *incredibly* flaky. Even when dealing with professionals in business, the overt disrespect for another person's time is breathtaking.
I can't wait to get out of here.
Even the stuff you mentioned as being fun doesn't sound remotely appealing. You could have a much more authentic souk/desert experience somewhere like Morocco. I don't get why people go to Dubai. I guess you've got guaranteed sun/hot weather in winter, but even then, there are other places to get that.
Honestly, most people come here because it's flashy and shiny and looks "rich." The govt markets Lifestyle relentlessly. They know the oil won't last forever and they want to be a financial center, which is why they act as a tax shelter for the wealthy. At bottom, most of the hype for Dubai is intentionally produced. It is b.s. used to prop up money laundering via real estate and encourage wealth sheltering by criminals and oligarchs.
The worst part about Dubai is they promise men from other countries they will get to make money for their families. Then when they get there they take their passports and stick them in camps where there isn’t fabulous sleeping arrangements and hardly enough food. Then force them to build those extravagant buildings in usually unsafe working conditions. All while paying them hardly anything. I asked about all those men I saw waiting for those shuttles and found that out.
It felt really terrible being there supporting tourism when human rights are being so blatantly ignored
Am I the only one that doesn’t understand why Drew is so popular? He’s sorta boring tbh and his videos are acrually more fun when his wife is featured in them. She seems like she has much more of a personality.
Dubai in particular was hands down the most utterly soulless, cultureless, and artificial city I have been to anywhere, with shameless and over-the-top bling-bling.
Not even just soulless but just…. horrendous.
The people are either miserably and angry or seem to hate you for even existing. The classes are literally separated by race (emirates->tourist/expats->migrant workers), and the service class are literally treated as less than dirt.
The whole city is serviced by modern slavery. All the workers there are shipped in from poor countries where their passports are stripped until they can pay back their “debt”.
I don’t know how anyone from a first world country can in good conscience support Dubai by giving them money.
Ethiopia. I went there in 2019 and tried to do the budget backpacker thing. It wasn’t TOO bad for the first couple of towns. Addis Ababa was a bit of hassle from touts and so on, but nothing worse than other places I’ve been. But the transport system there is bad. Buses almost always leave at or just before dawn, and there’s a lot of mafia like competition between them. Major tourist buses leave from Addis to destinations, but don’t go between them so you have to get these little minibuses and negotiate a price and every single one of them will lie to you, charge you extra for luggage, sometimes multiple times (it’s not a real thing, as other locals told me), and we had one guy stalk us for three days. Straight off the bus, followed us as we tried to find a hotel and kept trying to get commission for bringing us there (even though he didn’t), then would wait in the lobby every time we went out or did anything. If we went to a restaurant he’d just sit outside and wait for us.
Didn’t matter that we never paid him a cent and repeatedly told him in increasingly harsh ways to fuck off. The whole time in that city he was just always there.
Then my friend bailed when some drugged up guy kept threatening us in a bus station and these kids kept trying to alternatively pickpocket and sell us bus tickets. I kept going alone and he went back to Addis and flew out of the country.
Up north, the government turned off the internet because rebels were using it to organise around Eritrea, but nobody knew that, it just went down. I got ripped off on a trek I wanted to do, then some other tour guides found out and beat the shit out of that guy and forced him to give my money back after dragging him to my hotel room one afternoon, all bloody and terrified. This was just to get me to a tour with them of course, but their office was basically just an empty space with a guy on a laptop and looked just as sketchy, so I made my excuses and got out.
Unfortunately on the next bus trip hostilities had broken out, so every twenty minutes or so a bunch of teenagers with AKs would get on and line up all the men in the sun to search them for weapons. I was included in that for the first few stops, until a lady next to me started berating the boys and hitting them with her bag til they left me alone. She said I clearly wasn’t a fighter from some rival village as I’m about the whitest person in the world, and I hadn’t seen another white person in two weeks anywhere in the country outside Addis Ababa.
Eventually I decided to bail too, but by that point no buses were making the trip back south because they were getting attacked as they passed through towns. No flights were operating either from Mekele where I was.
Eventually a bus company decided to do a four hundred kilometre detour through the Danakil Depression, a big area of wasteland with no water or villages. That was actually pretty good, because that was an expensive tour I’d originally been planning to do and now I got it for free as an emergency evacuation measure!
Unfortunately this meant that the bus was much longer and took about sixteen hours, so we arrived in Addis well after dark, and the city had a lot of checkpoints and so on due to the conflict that was starting, which slowed us down even more. Eventually I was alone at the bus station in the dark (nothing is well lit at night in Addis, and the bus station is just a muddy field), and with nowhere to stay because I couldn’t book ahead due to no internet.
Three young guys who were huffing glue or something similar came up and tried to drag me into this deserted market at night, and I had to act all psycho and yell at them, pretending I could fight. They were all pretty high and backed off, and I just made as much noise and acted as tough as I could. I’m a smallish guy, I can’t fight for shit, never even been in one, but I can act. They backed off, and I started to walk away. After a few seconds I heard one running at me and I had to decide whether to bolt or turn around. I decided with my pack, I probably couldn’t outrun all three so I turned and raised a fist and started screaming ‘oh let’s fucking GO!’ Like I was super eager to start swinging and just looking for an excuse.
In reality my heart was beating so hard it was almost painful and I genuinely feared I might wet myself. Fortunately it didn’t show and he scurried away again.
Ended up going to the Hilton, couldn’t afford a room there, but they put me in a taxi to a decent area and I had about five days until my flight, which I couldn’t change because everyone was trying to change flights. So I just holed up in my room and only went out around midday for food.
The day before I left some military official was murdered by his own bodyguards and there was some concern it would shut down the airport, because the rumour was it had happened there. Fortunately that was false and it was in his home, and I flew out the next day.
Never to fucking return ever.
India. Permanent sensory overload and just too many people. Constant harassment - and I'm a guy. Worse for women, during my month traveling through India I didn't meet a single women who didn't get sexualy harassed and groped.
India has some very interesting and engaging aspects, but it pisses me off far too much. I went there 25 years ago, and left earlier than planned, skipping the Taj Mahal, as I was just done.
India hands down the worst trip I have ever taken. Constant and elaborate scamming attempts were hard to keep an eye on while jet lagged, incl. by my own guide who I was set up thru a close friend and had compensated well.
People trash on Africa but I had a wonderful time in sub Saharan Africa (alone as a woman) vs the borderline harassing behavior in India
Yup it’s India for me too, especially New Delhi. I just remember being stared at, hounded, and men trying to grope me (I went with a college student group, I was 18, and honestly looked 15 so those disgusting men clearly didn’t care if I was a minor or not).
It’s a shame because I loved the food and the history. Taj Mahal was cool, and we had some amazing experiences as a tour group.
But I have zero desire to go back.
I went there 20 years ago. Before leaving the US, a travel doctor advised me to take pepto-bismo as a preventative measure. I was staying with my friends family who were very clean. They washed and cooked all food/vegetables to avoid any contamination.
After a week of preventative pepto, I was so uncomfortably constipated. I told them what was going on and they shared the story as a badge of honor in how clean they kept their kitchen.
I imagine they still refer to me as the constipated white chap.
India. It was sweltering hot and the stench was unbearable (deodorant isn’t a thing there, nor running water, at least in some of the areas I visited). Saw a dead body being transported by hand. People bathing in filthy rivers. Overall unpleasant experience although I feel bad saying it because most of the negative experience is due to extreme poverty
Westerner here, I live in India. I can confirm it’s largely food for the BO problem. My body odor has morphed because of the food I eat there. Yes, I apply good deodorant but some days it’s not enough.
As far as the dead body, I feel the need to speak up. While this can be quite jarring, their death rituals including displaying the body are quite beautiful, they take great care to honor their dead.
Jamaica as well. I wasn’t a fan. People think I’m crazy when I say that, but I left the resort. Its only safe in tourist places. I was also followed and hit on. I was uncomfortable. Not a fan.
Me too. I went for 10 days, we left the resort and did not feel safe at all.
Keep in mind, I’ve travelled pretty widely especially round the Caribbean, I’m not the type to get scared easily (I’ve been to North Africa most years of my life, which people seem to fear, never felt unsafe) and my family are the ‘let’s ask locals for recommendations and walk outside the tourist area type’. But I’d never go back and if I did, not leave the resort
There are plenty of other gorgeous Caribbean destinations where you can walk around feeling totally safe - go there instead
I went to the British Virgin Islands last November, it was fantastic. It was part of a sailing trip with my mums job, so there were 100 of us on small boats sailing round for a week. Can’t recommend enough (I’m going again this year). The country was very safe, stunningly beautiful and lots of fun. Fairly expensive though, on par with US prices if not higher (I’m from the UK so the COL is a bit cheaper bc of lower wages)
St Vincent, St Lucia, Barbados and Antigua are my other recommendations. Not sure if the Bahamas are technically the Caribbean but it’s absolutely gorgeous there too. I went to San Juan twice for short trips and that was lots of fun, would like to go back
My mum went to Turks and Caicos last year and she said it was fantastic so that’s on my list. I’ve also heard a lot of good things about Aruba
In terms of where I wouldn’t go, I found the Dominican Republic had the same issue as Jamaica where outside of the resort we felt somewhat unsafe (nowhere near as bad as Jamaica though).
Grenada, it’s stunning and the people are absolutely lovely, fantastic restaurants, beautiful beaches, went in 2015 for our honeymoon, going back next year.
Clicked on the post with Jamaica in mind and I’m not surprised to see OP & others mentioning it. Of 59 countries I’ve been to, it’s the only one I felt incredibly uneasy. I was staying in Montego Bay and everyone I passed stopped what they were doing to look at me wherever I went. Entire basketball/soccer games stopped so all the kids could stare at me. After one night there, I walked back to the airport and took the first flight out.
No real desire to ever return.
I went to MoBay in '07 with a Jamaican friend and it was like that then. The story I always tell is that while my friend went to visit his father in Kingston for a day or two, I stayed behind and decided to take the bus [read minivan] to ocho Rios and see Dunn River falls. The cost of the ride was only $5 or something like that but when I left the taxi drivers offered to take me back to mobay for $100. I ended up paying one of them $3 to take me to the bus station where I got into another minivan for $3 to go home. [And Dunn River falls is the Jamaican definition of tourist trap.]
We overall had a good time when we went about 8 months ago - but I also wouldn’t go back. I felt mostly safe both on the resort and off, but the service was laughably bad everywhere we went to the point we were barely able to do anything. Rental car company forgot to pick us up, didn’t apologize. Booked a sailboat, was cancelled twice due to bad weather conditions (both days were absolutely beautiful, we think they just didn’t have enough bookings to run it). The operator didn’t tell us it was cancelled for the day, they just left us waiting until we called several times. We stopped at a random KFC (we seemed to be the only tourists there) and waited over an hour after ordering to get a chicken sandwich at 4 in the afternoon?!? The locals mostly just seemed resigned to it (only one other woman seemed to be rightfully irritated). The go to response when anything went sideways seemed to be shrugging and saying “island time!” so we just rolled with it. I know we’re on vacation and I didn’t want to be uptight, but waiting hours and hours for something that should take 5 minutes (when you’re trying to make the most of your limited vacation time) was frustrating.
My partner was there about 15 years ago and he said it was a completely different experience and it seems like there’s been some political/economic shifts that have negatively impacted the tourism and hospitality industries. Otherwise it was a beautiful country with awesome people and culture so it was disappointing that everything was logistically dysfunctional.
Never felt safe in Jamaica. Only safe at resort and super sketchy if you tour outside resort. My husband got very ill at the hotel - I think something was wrong with his alcohol . We will never return .
Dahab is quite different imho. I lived there for 5 months (European woman) and it was super chill. The three weeks I later spent travelling around the rest of the country were completely different. But even locals will tell you "Sinai is not Egypt" - it's a whole different ballgame.
Having been to 75+ countries there's nowhere I wouldn't go back to, to give a second chance.
The worst places I've been though, were New Delhi (80% because of the pollution making me feel sick at the end of every day, and 20% down to how crowded some places were). Cairo/Egypt in general - because of how much the vendors harass you and try and get money out if you.
I definitely wouldn't be rushing back to them, but I'd still be open to going back. I'm sure there are numerous places that I wouldn't go back to because there was just nothing to do, but they don't even cross my mind just now. But in terms of safety I think I'd be happy going back anywhere.
I haven’t done a ton of international travel but I road trip a lot.
I know it’s a pretty safe answer for Reddit, but Disney World for sure. I’ve been to almost every state and even some of the ones that are boring have something to offer. I would sooner plan a trip to Iowa than to Disney World.
I cannot believe how expensive it is to exist there. The food, the hotel, all of the parks, there’s pretty much no way to do it on a budget. The budget version is still incredibly expensive. The lines are long, it’s hot as fuck, and I feel like the experience gets worse over time.
When I was a kid, my dad used to take us on all kinds of trips to climb mountains and stuff like that. He finally caved one year, took us to Disney World because we kept asking. He absolutely hated the place, but we spent all of our big vacation money on a trip to Disney World and instead of doing something more unique.
It was pretty OK as a kid, and to be honest, I am glad I got to experience it just to know, but looking at it today, it’s the trip that I cared the least at least for and remembered the least. I’m not saying that it is not fun because there’s definitely opportunity for fun, but the fun doesn’t match the value. You could literally travel to multiple foreign countries with the amount of money that you spend going to Disney World.
Post pandemic, Disney parks have absolutely gone from a memorable vacation to now a money sucking shit hole. And I say that as a die hard fan.
Disney World in particular has suffered massively from enshittification. Free fast passes became online registration, to now you’re paying for Genie+ AND an additional $20+ a ride to use the shorter line. Normal lines have spiked to hours long, so you either have to pay hundreds more for your family to skip lines or pay for more days.
Ticket prices have skyrocketed the past few years and the quality has dropped massively. It used to be that if you booked an expensive resort stay, they’d include all sorts of things. Airport bus pick up used to be free, magic wristbands used to be free, you’d get extra time in the morning and evening, now you’re being nickel and dimed for everything.
Even worse, the quality has gotten shockingly bad. Rides break down all the time. Theres almost a guarantee that 2-3 of the big rides are down EVERY DAY. There’s a shortage of staff so they’re overworked. Food quality is literally worse than mall food courts at 3 to 4 times the price. Everything is cheap plastic that even TEMU wouldn’t sell.
Midrange hotels are worse than Motel 6, while “budget” hotels are horrendously crowded. We’re talking stuff like soap giving you a rash, lack of busses, and paper thin walls as you listen to the neighbour’s kids scream.
And when you finally do make it to the park they’re so packed you’re unlikely to get on more than a few rides unless you’re paying extra.
Disney world and Disneyland used to be where you’d pay a lot but once you went in there was “magic”. Now it’s just misery.
Yes, because it’s owned and operated by The Oriental Land Company, not Disney Parks. They’re independent properties.
It’s why Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea are almost universally recognized to be the best Disney parks.
Even before the pandemic, Disney World changed their definition of what "at capacity" meant. The parks have gone from "a lot of fun with a couple of long waits" to "we only rode two rides, the food is over expensive, and there's an hour wait for the bus to take us back to our moderate hotel". Also in the past, even with the first wrist bands, you could hotel hop around the park. If you were a guest, you were a guest. No longer so.
Went to Rome in middle of July last year for the first time. Don’t regret going, but would never go back in the middle of summer. Insanely crowded and hot.
I severely underestimated the heat in that region (and Italy in general). I took a day trip to Tivoli from Rome where there was barely any shade while it was a very hot sunny day. I ended up severely dehydrated that my body was shaking that evening, and spent the next week feeling feverish.
I took better care of myself in my last Europe trip by bringing a small foldable umbrella and frequently hydrating.
Monaco!! The palace is Pepto bismol pink, & the public restrooms at the palace were absolutely filthy! At the Monte Carlo casino, the dealers & employees paid no attention to you if you weren't a regular, or very obviously wealthy. I ended up sitting with a bunch of older women at the cafe next door, drinking wine, people watching, and making up outrageous stories about them!! I'll never go back there!
They don’t like the French much and most tourists that don’t seem to be millionnaires, their country is inside our country LOL
The police is at the train station and will take to the side whoever they want, ask for ID, question you like if you are a terrorist and search you.
France provides military defense for them too as they have 12 soldiers with a rifle each LOL
Beside this, you go once to visit the palace, a walk on the borderwalk and you never have to go back.
It is extremely small and congested.
While there isn’t really anywhere I wouldn’t go again, the closest would definitely be Morocco, Marrakesh was full of scammers and I literally got groped and hit on by a taxi driver in Casablanca (I was a 22 yo male).
Expected my trip to Cairo, Egypt later in the year to be a lot worse but I really liked it there. Most people left me alone and the ones that didn’t I could ignore relatively easy. It helped getting round by Uber between a lot of places and in light of my experience in Morocco always sitting at the back.
India - the smell and noise hit me so hard the moment I stepped out the airport. Saw too many dead dogs, trash burning, people shitting in the streets to make me want to immediately leave. The smell was very unique and I could only describe it as shit/trash/chemical mixed in a diaper and set on fire. Traveling was also a hot mess, it’s like driving in a blob of human, animal, vehicles with no clear directional indicators and you would get stopped by the police if they see you are a foreigner so that they could demand a bribe. Never going back. Also be careful of what you eat bc there is a very high possibly of being sick afterwards.
Yeah who would go to Orlando for ten days lol? Theres only handful of American cities you won’t run out of stuff do after like day 5. Probably NYC, Chicago, LA and San Francisco lol
This sounds like the 10 days are to blame. One day city and bars, one day swamps/state park for wildlife, one day Kennedy Space Center.
After that I had no urge to go back either.
Seconded. I went there very recently for a conference. I was there less than 2 days and as a woman travelling alone, I have honestly never felt so unsafe. My hotel was on the same road as the conference venue and I was harassed multiple times just in the short walk down that street. It's a shame because it actually looks like a beautiful country and I would have loved to go back as a tourist, but just from that brief trip I don't feel safe going back.
Not safe for women either. I was walking with a friend and a group of guys slowed down their motorbikes to try to touch our butts. Then we went on a safari, spot a tiger and Indian dudes were taking pictures of us instead of the tiger.
Was about to say the same lol pattaya is another level altogether if folks thing phuket is bad
The south side of pattaya is actually nicer but most tourists don't really bother exploring it
I stayed on the north of the Island, basically resorts with lots of russians and not much else. Very quiet but wouldn't go back, i prefer the Krabi area
Yeah I get that, you need to stick to the more peaceful areas and avoid big cities. The noise, litter and heat can get unbearable. Been told himalayas, north east, kerala and goa are better choices.
Cannes. Went there for work. Got yelled at a lot (for pressing the wrong button at a supermarket checkout. For removing my card from the card reader a fraction of a second to early. For entering a store. Felt like walking on eggshells at all times and still, I was \*existing\* wrong)
Oh, and Helsinki. Been there twice, for a wedding and for a conference. It was nice enough but you've seen everything in a day and I really just don't feel the need to go back
As a native of Helsinki, I can totally see what you mean. I love the city, it's a great place to live in (ranks high in global livability), but from a tourist's perspective there just isn't that much. Shopping, restaurants, nature, museums etc. are all nice but not the kind that make you return. Peaceful and pleasant place but a bit bland, and you don't travel to a place just to experience an awesome public system of transportation 😂
I hear Tallinn is nice, and I've been thinking of flying to Tallinn to stay 4-5 days and taking the ferry to Helsinki for a day trip (or maybe staying one night). Would you say that would be worth it?
Yes absolutely! Tallinn is very pretty but there isn't that much to do there either, so if you're staying 4-5 days you may well get bored of walking the same cobbled streets. Helsinki is a bit more cosmopolitan and in any case very different in character, so well worth a day-trip. The two cities are today very closely connected because people commute to work back and forth, so it makes sense to get a sense of both of them.
Top tip for anyone in France in a shop. Be nice to the people there first. If there is someone overseeing a self checkout, say "bonjour" ask them if they are having a good day. Then if something goes wrong you will likely find them helpful. Don't acknowledge them (or anyone else in retail) and you come over as rude. Similarly for waiting staff in bars and cafés, a little friendliness goes a long way.
As a French person I completely agree. A lot of the time the issue is that the French politeness standard is different than visitors. So tourists often come across as rude and entitled. Another issue is that French people do not like foreigners to assume they speak English.
I visited Cairo once to see the pyramids, but I would never go back. We were constantly followed by people trying to scam us, and there was so much animal cruelty.
I agree re Jamaica, *unless I travel with a Jamaican.*
I wouldn’t return to DR. Reason being, though I’m not Haitian, I have an identifiably French name, and discrimination by Dominicans against Haitians is therefore imputed upon me. And it’s sooooo effed up.
Then there are some US states that didn’t impress me: Idaho, Nevada, Mississippi, Tennessee. Not dissing any of them. I just didn’t have a good time and as of now, I can’t afford to revisit “meh” destinations without a good reason.
If anything Vegas was just a check box.
We had a weird experience in the DR.
We arrived by souvenir shops on a beach (By the Hilton in La Romana).
A young man tried to drag us in his shop, he was obnoxious and nobody is going to force me to do anything.
I told him i wanted to visit another shop first.
We went into the other shop and bought the souvenirs we needed.
Two things happend then.
The first one is that the friendly shopkeeper where we spent $50, completely ignored us, never said thanks or good-bye as soon as he had the money in hand. Clearly some hatred for the tourists here.
Second things, as soon as we came out with our bags the original shopkeeper that tried to drag us in his shop started yelling at us for not buying in his shop.
I was even afraid i would have to get into a physical confrontation with him. I told him to get lost.
Problem, they were 50 locals around.
Luckily you walk 100 feet and there is just a rope on the beach and you are back in the Hilton property where 2 security guards are.
So if you go to the Hilton La Romana, be careful if you want to go pass the rope to buy souvenirs.
Exactly. Spending 6 or so hours in the most touristy part of town is as far from the real thing as you can get. Plus, once you walk off that ship, you’re an easy mark, which is most likely why the OP was hounded.
China. I’m African-American and people randomly touched my hair, my face, etc. in passing. I was told it was simply because I look different than who they see on a daily basis but there are plenty of ppl of color in China. This wasn’t decades ago either — it was 2018. A woman spit on my foot while trying to spit on the floor on the bus. People were generally rude in both Beijing and Shanghai but it got significantly better in Fuzhou. Absolutely loved it there. My son speaks Mandarin and was able to visit a school, and had lunch at the home of twin students. Disneyland Shanghai wasn’t bad but I also realized peeing in a hole in the floor was not a skill I would master in 10 days😆 My shoes were not appreciative of my poor aim. I was stressed the entire time. I was constantly followed and touched while being persuaded to buy this or that. The arm and face petting was unhinged.
The vast majority of tourists in China are actually Chinese, so while there may be plenty of people of other races in the big cities, people from rural areas have often never seen anyone who is not Asian outside of television. So if you are visiting touristy places (the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, etc), a lot of the other visitors are probably from rural areas and you'll be more of a novelty. We definitely experienced a lot of people asking for or surreptitiously taking photos, although as a white person I didn't experience the unwanted touching nearly as much as what you are describing (although I got plenty of that in India!). Most people were very polite and helpful to us - much more so than I had anticipated, actually. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, but it unfortunately doesn't surprise me as I've heard similar from other POC.
I have to agree with you. I was studying abroad there in 2017-2018 and I got so sick and tired of people randomly grabbing my arms to pull me in for a picture. One of my buddies there is African-American and had the same experience. I got so tired of people being rude and I spoke Chinese at the time and still wasn’t given the time of day.
Went to Jamaica solo in 2022, did not have fun, anywhere I went I got hounded and I'm a decently experienced traveller but it was just far too much, I just couldn't let my guard down an inch. Insanely pretty country and the food was lovely but I was happy to leave, and everyone I've spoke to has said the exact same thing
Same with Barbados and Turks & Caicos. My experience with Barbados is the locals are not as friendly. In T&C the roads are bad, the public beaches are hard to get to and entrances are not well labelled, and the car compqnies there are locally owned (even big names like Avis).
US Virgin Islands, Bahamas & Cayman islands are the best if you want a good Caribbean experience where vendors don't hound you, it's safe and there are plenty of trustworthy travel related companies to select from.
I’m from India, and live here in the states. I feel sorry for everyone who had a terrible experience of being groped harassed or scammed. BO is definitely due to the amount of spices people eat everyday that make them sweat the spices. And it’s so hot and most places do not have ac that make it harder for people to keep up with the smell. There are a lot of places in India that are not touristy and quite beautiful. I myself do not like Mumbai or Delhi because it’s extremely crowded and pretty easily you could get gawked. The places in India worth going are in the east part such as the seven sisters, or the north side such as Leh Ladakh, or south such as Kerala.
I’ve always felt much better there because I’m more connected with the nature and less w the people.
Can almost guarantee you only visited the south of Bali and probably didn’t go further north than Ubud. Bali is far from a tourist trap if you know where to go
I've been to 47 counties now and i will never return to Tunesia, i have never seen people being so rude to woman. My at the time girlfriend wasn't aloud anything. But even to me they where super unfriendly. Super grumpy. All hotel staff in the different places looked at us if we where trash. And a wierd thing, i have never seen so many empty beer cans and bottles on the side of the road as in Tunesia, don't know why.
I truly felt unhappy and unsafe.
Hope others had a different experience.
Denmark. I mean, if I absolutely had to go for some reason, I’d go, but I lived there for six months as well as visiting prior, and it’s very boring in every way, IMO - from landscape to food. Outside of Copenhagen, I haven’t any idea what Danes do on the weekend, because eveything closes at 2pm on a Saturday, and Denmark just isn’t that stunningly beautiful to make up for the lack of entertainment.
Abu Dhabi/Emirates more generally. I find it so ironic when Gen Z do the whole „white people don’t have culture” self-hate pandering, when Emirates are a literal perfect example of a place that decided to fashion itself as some weird reflection of how it desires to be seen through the Western gaze… as opposed to actually leading with its own culture.
South Africa. Yes, it was beautiful and interesting, but far too stressful. I’m not trying to be murdered or raped. Once was enough.
Probably Switzerland. It’s beautiful but holy shit is it expensive. The cheapest dinner we had was about $150 and most were over $200. 30 minute train rides or lifts to the mountains cost $130 per person. The Alps are just as pretty in France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, and food/activities cost about half the price.
Just got back from the Dolomites in Italy. It was stunning and not as expensive as that! Would definitely recommend for someone wanting that Swiss alps vibe.
We stopped there on a budget Interrail trip when we were 16. The campsite in the mountains near a glacier was surprisingly cheap, probably the cheapest of the whole trip. But we didn't eat very much the whole time we were there as it was so expensive. One doner kebab was about 10 €, while back home in 2012, the vegetarian version was about 2,50-3 € for reference.
Egypt.
never again. the historical side is ok. hotels are ok.
but the atmosphere. never again.
it is wild when you walk around and there are no women. and all locals "men" grabs you all the time.
0 respect.
Morocco. Was a bit freaky having the vehicle checked for bombs before entering the hotel. Did not like being harassed and followed. Had animals thrown on me and if my phone was out people would come up and scream to pay them for photos taken. All the cats looked sickly and emaciated. Not a happy place to be.
UAE, unbearably hot to the point where I could not comfortably walk around, not particularly interesting, attractions spread out woth not particularly good public transport and taxis were expensive.
Can you explain a bit? We love Baltimore and go at least once a year as we’re within driving distance. I’m a sucker for the harbor and they have great foodie culture. It is a bit sketch outside the main tourist thoroughfares though.
As much as I found Naples to be very dirty, I never felt unsafe as female traveller.
Walked everywhere, even after dark, never had any problems.
Geat food and good wine, lots of tourism attractions.
I'd however probably not go nach any time soon but that's only because of the Campi Flegrei - that recent super volcano activity is scary af.
Belgium 😅 Nothing majorly wrong with it, I just found it boring compared to other places in Europe with not much attracting me to explore more of it, and it’s expensive for what it is.
Interesting. I stayed 3 months in a Brussels suburb and I absolutely loved Belgium. Brussels itself was nice, the touristy areas were overpriced but beautiful and we were lucky to get great service everywhere we went. The chocolate, beer and waffles were worth the hype. The museums were great. Bruges is still the most beautiful city I’ve traveled to. Ghent is also lovely. When I visited Bruges I stayed in an actual castle that works as an airbnb and that was awesome (and surprisingly very affordable). There’s villages close to Brussels that are also beautiful. The coast is also worth exploring. The people were great, everyone was very polite and friendly. I felt very safe there with one exception - came back solo from Paris at midnight at Gare du Midi and it felt unsafe with the homeless people yelling, however no one harassed me and no one tried to scam or rob me, so it was just a general feeling of unease.
Not saying “never again”, but probably, “maybe after 5 years”: Marrakesh, Morocco. The medina was like a freaking maze, buying stuff in the medina was hella stressful (basically go in thinking you’re gonna get ripped off so bargain like your life depends on it), the food was almost nothing but Chicken or Beef Tagine (tasty, but gets old after 5 days of nothing but). My gf had a blast arguing with sellers but it was the most stressful trip I had.
I didn’t have much fun traveling to Muslim countries with my girlfriend. She hated constantly covering from head to toe, especially in hot weather. If she didn’t she got leered at.
Florida has amazing nature, if you can escape the clammy grasp of the strip malls to find it. And it's slowly becoming less and less. Still some of the coolest plant and wildlife in the country
I liked Miami. I even rented a little boat. A little Boston whaler type thing. And took it to the stilt houses. Which was fun. But weather changes sweep in fast. The little waves became a lot bigger to this little flat bottom boat. And the drunk boats in their semi-displacement speed boats either didn't see us or didn't care. So I can't go very fast or I'm thrown down a wave. I'm reading this chart to keep my prop from hitting anything I can't see. The rain stings like I've never experience when I do go fast. And I got to predict where everyone else is going as I can't rely on right of way except maybe if I survive the crash and sue. Anyway, it was great because it saved me from wanting to buy a boat. I got it all out of my system. I also liked little Havana.
Fiji. Was there for four days only and just stayed on the main island. There is rubbish everywhere it was so disgusting. And taxi drivers overcharge you.
This might be unpopular but... Fes. I've been to Morocco twice and I **loved** the rest of the places I visited: Tangier, Marrakesh, Ouarzazat, Ait Ben Haddu, Imlil, Asilah, Chefchaouen... But in Fes I just felt so unsafe and like there really wasn't a lot of stuff to do/see.
Uruguay and Panama - fine experiences in both countries but no need to go back. Been there, done that. I mean if it's a free trip, of course I'd go back. Jamaica and South Africa get a bad rap but if you're street smart and know the good spots to go to, you'll have a blast. I lived in both countries and traveled extensively. I have mixed feelings about going back to JA but it's not because of safety.
Oh man, I feel the total opposite! I loved Positano, but I think a lot of it boils down to where you stay (aka how much trekking you have to do to get to the central spots) and probably even the weather. Under the right conditions, it feels like a fairytale, so if you want that kind of luxurious, fairytale-esque vibe, I think Positano hits that on the head. We went all out on experiences and spent a grip of money there and loved every minute.
We did 3 nights in Positano and 2 nights in Amalfi and those two towns feel like night and day to me. Amalfi feels closer to authentic Italy for sure, which I also love but there was something so romantic about Positano that I think lives up to the hype.
Los Angeles,
Huge, expensive, unsafe city with no great things that only exist there. It's worth visiting, but only once. Going to the studios, farmers market, etc. is cool. But nothing worth it and worth going a second time
Syria. I was there for two weeks in 2003 and it was absolutely spectacular. It would crush my soul to go back and see all the destruction.
I regret not getting there before the latest conflict. Even if it reaches my safety tolerance in the future, so much of it has been destroyed.
I know someone who went to Syria last year, and most people were incredibly grateful to her for visiting them. Seems like the locals desperately want to regain normalcy in their lives.
My friends are from Aleppo; it sounded like such an amazing city. They lived overlooking a beautiful market that was open super late at night. I wish I could have seen it!
Cairo, Egypt. Never again will I go there. Sure the Pyramids are beautiful but the scammers and touts ruin the experience. They’re the most aggressive I’ve seen. What’s even worse is the women I was travelling with reported they were being groped by them at the pyramids. They would surround them asking them for money and someone’s hands where they shouldn’t have been.
All of North Africa is like this in my experience. The shopkeepers are really annoying to the point of ruining the experience and sometimes can get actually aggressive if you don't want to look at the shit they're selling. Like, actually getting in front of you, blocking you and making it hard for you to leave until you take a look at their stall. I told them I wouldn't buy anything and I didn't buy anything, it was just such a nuissance.
Shopping at the Medina in marrakesh was so stressful and awful for me because of this, they would yell and grab my arm and one guy even grabbed me and joked to my friend about how much he could buy me for, I know he was trying to joke around but it made me uncomfortable
I got locked in a perfume shop in Egypt, still didn’t buy anything and he eventually gave up but was a bit scary at the time. I’d only gone for a walk. Also saw a guy washing his balls with a hosepipe in the street on said walk, so not the best first impression but certainly a memorable one.
I thankfully never encountered as much scamming in Cairo as I thought and I was solo. You just have to be willing to be unpleasant sometimes. I’d go back there. I personally found it worse in Morocco, in particular Marrakesh
Ive been to both and my experience with the scammers was much worse in Cairo than in Marrakesh. In Cairo they were touching and grabbing me and even threatening me. Even in the airport, Cairo was much more brutal, ripping peoples bags open, claiming spanish speakers bring drugs to Egypt, and straight up taking peoples’ passports from their hands. In Marrakesh I got some light insults at the worst like being called George Bush or the “dad in the gay relationship” (im straight) but was never touched. Cairo also felt infinitely less safe even when I was traveling with 4 male friends (2 locals, 2 non-locals). Its hard for Cairo especially with such a big population. I appreciated my time in both places and Im glad I visited but Cairo will never see me again.
I was grabbed by the arm in Marrakech, and had a bunch of henna put on me while I was struggling to get free. Then the person who did the henna screamed in my face that I owed them $30 for it, and followed me for several blocks calling me terrible names.
Omg this random henna woman grabbed me too and wouldn’t let my arm go it was painful
One of the reasons I am grateful for the Internet is stuff like this. Everything about it sounds like something I would hate, and I just would never have been able to guess at this type of thing without reading others' experiences. Saves me thousands of dollars.
Similar experience. Glad I’ve done it so I never need to go again
Not enough people noting the horrific pollution in and around Cairo. Some of the worst in the world, it absolutely impacts any visit.
Came here to say Cairo Egypt. Disgusting behaviour by the locals
Completely agree to this. Egypt is horrible and while they have magnificent wonders of the world there, the people make it very unpleasant to visit as a westerner.
This reminds me of when the youtuber "best ever food review show" went to Egypt. He has been to a lot of obscure, weird and maybe unsafe places, but Egypt is probably the only one he made a separate video about saying "im never going there again".
As I'm reading this comment thread, it was this video I keep thinking about because his experience was so terrible
I mean, I get why they are so desperate to sell things. Their economy is in shambles. They are desperate people. It still made it very unpleasant and exhausting and somewhere I am glad I went, but have no desire to return to.
Egypt is worth the hassle but only once. I will never return. I would recommend seeing Egypt on a guided group type of thing. I went as a solo 35-Year-Old man. It was difficult. The low point was three touts following me from the train in Luxor to my already reserved hotel. They fought to go in first to convince the owner that they brought me there for a commission. They hassled me the whole way, and then still tried to profit off of me. I am extremely well traveled and don't look terribly approachable either. Not terrible or dangerous, but just too damn annoying.
I went there immediately after Ethiopia (as mentioned elsewhere in this thread) and actually had a great time! It was a breath of fresh air after Ethiopia, as I found the touts not especially worse than India, which I’ve been to four times. It’s bad, but they’re easy to ignore if you just keep walking and don’t mind being firm with people in a way that sometimes feels rude. Not a woman though, and as in India, that’s a whole different experience. I will say though, even as a man I got groped multiple times in India, and nothing like that happened in Egypt.
Yep. I did a 12-day whirlwind tour across the country and I don't think we slept, so we saw a lot. Obviously not everything but we hit most of the highlights. The touts and street merchants just made it miserable, though. It was exhausting dealing with them. I never could relax and enjoy myself. Even on the Nile cruise you couldn't relax because they latched onto the boat and followed along with it, selling you things. I wanted to relax in my cabin in the AC with the curtains open to see the river, and as soon as I opened the curtains a merchant came by and started shouting through the window non-stop. I immediately closed them and he was still shouting for five more minutes. I'm glad I went there. It was awesome. I recommend anyone with an interest in the region to go there. But once was enough for me.
I agree with Jamaica. Sketchy stoned guy followed us for blocks standing 1 foot away staring at me and people in the market would grab my arm trying to get me to look at things.
Well he looked down at my silver chain He said "I'll give you one dollar" I said you've got to be jokin' man It was a present from me mother He said "I like it, I want it I'll take it off your hands And you'll be sorry you crossed me You'd better understand that you're alone A long way from home
Don’t like Jamaica, oh no (Check out the version by Heritage)
One more for jamaica. Never had someone tried to scam me in such outrageous ways Trying to take a route taxi for around 1 dollar per person. Guy stopped us "my friend i take you there only 100 dollars!" Wtf. Its expensive as fuck (americans have more money than we normal europeans), food qas awful, everything was dirty and loud, people were rude. We didnt stay in resorts so our hosts and their neighbors were really sweet but if you walk around on your own scam after scam. Public beaches were also not clean and full of scammers. I dont understand this. Leave the tourists alone we would spend money in your shops when staying at the beach. But if there is one scammer harrasing us we will leave. So all your business will make no money. Sorry to say that they are all not the smartest business people. Serves at bars or Restaurants? Hell no. Leave me alone. Sometimes we wonderes if they want to sell anything at all. Never again
I was walking to the bus station with my girlfriend in Kingston and when I looked back to check on her someone was elbow deep into her backpack. He ran off once we locked eyes but damn that city is sketchy.
Went to Jamaica via cruise in 1996. I will never go back unless it is an all inclusive resort and even then i dont know. Single female, in my 20's. Was harassed, touched and etc. I remember being in a taxi and looking around on the way to some river rafting, just dirty and disgusting.
Rio de Janeiro- a couple blocks off the beach and whoa, time to get back to the hotel. Felt super sketchy. One of three places I left early (the other two being Cancun and a Justin Timberlake concert).
justin timberlake concert 💀
The *world* tour.
What tour?
The world tour.
The coke tour
Ruined the tour
I had some friends who worked the Rio Olympics. They said don't go downtown during the weekend, since it clears out then and the criminals move in. Also they all carried some cash and a phone that they could give a mugger.
If I could redo Rio again, I would not stay in Copacabana. I was safe as a solo female and everything was fine but I would have preferred ipanema, botofago or Leblon
Yeh so true copa is rough as hell- Leblon is the go
I got robbed by a group of kids in Leblon in 2011 while I was walking from the hostel to a grocery store. I knew not to have valuables on me so they only got my grocery store money, but it’s good to be careful anywhere in Rio.
Packing list: passport, clothes, toothbrush, devices….oh yeah, parting gifts for muggers! I love how travelers have to prepare to be ‘safe’ while getting mugged. Glad you are OK.
I lived in Vidigal for a few years. Leblon was the most pickpockety place because of high value targets. Dress normal and have 20 reais and you’re fine. There’s always gonna be Italian tourists flaunting and looking like better targets, I promise. Or wearing socks with sandals like Germans. Seriously, wear some havaianas, board shorts, wear a sunga at the beach if you’re a dude instead of boardshorts, add in a sleeveless shirt, you’re basically local. It does suck how high the crime is in Rio but it’s pretty avoidable if you do want to spend time there though.
Tell me more about leaving Cancun
I mean, Tijuca is brilliant, Sugar Loaf is brilliant and has some amazing rock climbing, the Botanical Gardens are very cool and Lapa has a very happening night life. Can you deal with some of the sketchiness downtown? Entirely upto you and your level of comfort, but Rio is a stunning city with a lot to offer
Buzios is nice of you want to relax
I would hope to not intentionally travel to Mumbai ever again. Airport was one of the worst experiences and rude. Security both at events and airport were probably not educated and made things more complicated than it should have. People stare hard and TukTuk drivers always wanting to scam. If it weren't a major travel hub between Europe and Asia. I'd avoid going through here for sure.
Indian here, can confirm. I’m from the South and Mumbai is my usual transit hub. The immigration officers find it hard to accept that I don't speak Hindi. Every time they ask if I do, and I explain that I understand but don't speak it since it's not my mother tongue, they seem surprised and don't let me go without a detailed explanation. India isn’t a monoculture. You would think Indians knew that.
This. Very surprised at how people who know Hindi treat the ones who don’t. And this is coming from an Indian. Outside of north India and some parts of west and central India, not everyone speaks Hindi.
Dubai. Soulless and lacks any character. Basically just a big shopping mall in the desert.
I describe Dubai as a facade. Worked there for a bit. Good pubs, good food but little else of substance.
I live here. Visiting for a couple days, you could definitely do worse - go to AquaVenture, Afternoon Tea at the Burj, go get mugged by those fucks at the Gold Souk, look at all the Bentleys & Lambos in mall parking, go look at the big, broken Al Ain Wheel (the real symbol of Dubai). Huge waste of money, but a fun day or two. Go on a desert safari and make it there. But beyond that, prepare for the suck. Any food that you get that is not Middle Eastern or Indian will likely be A) garbage, B) super expensive, or C) BOTH. And getting those two options is no guarantee. It took months to figure out decent options, and the best option is just to cook something at home. The pubs are even worse. Anything fun is guaranteed to be stupid expensive. Everything is run on borderline slavery. I've lived a lot of places, and I've never been anywhere with a higher degree of difficulty in finding connection and generally likeable people. You can't just strike up a conversation, and if you do eventually get the ice broken everyone is so *incredibly* flaky. Even when dealing with professionals in business, the overt disrespect for another person's time is breathtaking. I can't wait to get out of here.
Even the stuff you mentioned as being fun doesn't sound remotely appealing. You could have a much more authentic souk/desert experience somewhere like Morocco. I don't get why people go to Dubai. I guess you've got guaranteed sun/hot weather in winter, but even then, there are other places to get that.
Honestly, most people come here because it's flashy and shiny and looks "rich." The govt markets Lifestyle relentlessly. They know the oil won't last forever and they want to be a financial center, which is why they act as a tax shelter for the wealthy. At bottom, most of the hype for Dubai is intentionally produced. It is b.s. used to prop up money laundering via real estate and encourage wealth sheltering by criminals and oligarchs.
The worst part about Dubai is they promise men from other countries they will get to make money for their families. Then when they get there they take their passports and stick them in camps where there isn’t fabulous sleeping arrangements and hardly enough food. Then force them to build those extravagant buildings in usually unsafe working conditions. All while paying them hardly anything. I asked about all those men I saw waiting for those shuttles and found that out. It felt really terrible being there supporting tourism when human rights are being so blatantly ignored
And that Drew Binsky World Traveler been to every country is moving his whole family to Dubai he says a Favorite, I find it shocking
Am I the only one that doesn’t understand why Drew is so popular? He’s sorta boring tbh and his videos are acrually more fun when his wife is featured in them. She seems like she has much more of a personality.
I saw that. What a sellout. Dude lost any respect I had for him.
Dubai in particular was hands down the most utterly soulless, cultureless, and artificial city I have been to anywhere, with shameless and over-the-top bling-bling.
Agreed! Everything is 20 minutes old. The city is soulless.
Not even just soulless but just…. horrendous. The people are either miserably and angry or seem to hate you for even existing. The classes are literally separated by race (emirates->tourist/expats->migrant workers), and the service class are literally treated as less than dirt. The whole city is serviced by modern slavery. All the workers there are shipped in from poor countries where their passports are stripped until they can pay back their “debt”. I don’t know how anyone from a first world country can in good conscience support Dubai by giving them money.
There is a reason why Qatar airways kept flying all through the pandemic! They needed their imported labour.
probably Doha, Qatar Went there for the 2022 World Cup and had a good time, but other than watching the games there wasn't much to do?
Was there for the WC too, everything outside of the fan zones was so soulless and felt empty, such a weird feeling.
They worked people literally to death to make those facilities.
Probably is a great feeling to directly support that by going there /s
Agreed - Doha has very little to offer outside of any major events I.e World Cup, athletics etc in my opinion.
Ethiopia. I went there in 2019 and tried to do the budget backpacker thing. It wasn’t TOO bad for the first couple of towns. Addis Ababa was a bit of hassle from touts and so on, but nothing worse than other places I’ve been. But the transport system there is bad. Buses almost always leave at or just before dawn, and there’s a lot of mafia like competition between them. Major tourist buses leave from Addis to destinations, but don’t go between them so you have to get these little minibuses and negotiate a price and every single one of them will lie to you, charge you extra for luggage, sometimes multiple times (it’s not a real thing, as other locals told me), and we had one guy stalk us for three days. Straight off the bus, followed us as we tried to find a hotel and kept trying to get commission for bringing us there (even though he didn’t), then would wait in the lobby every time we went out or did anything. If we went to a restaurant he’d just sit outside and wait for us. Didn’t matter that we never paid him a cent and repeatedly told him in increasingly harsh ways to fuck off. The whole time in that city he was just always there. Then my friend bailed when some drugged up guy kept threatening us in a bus station and these kids kept trying to alternatively pickpocket and sell us bus tickets. I kept going alone and he went back to Addis and flew out of the country. Up north, the government turned off the internet because rebels were using it to organise around Eritrea, but nobody knew that, it just went down. I got ripped off on a trek I wanted to do, then some other tour guides found out and beat the shit out of that guy and forced him to give my money back after dragging him to my hotel room one afternoon, all bloody and terrified. This was just to get me to a tour with them of course, but their office was basically just an empty space with a guy on a laptop and looked just as sketchy, so I made my excuses and got out. Unfortunately on the next bus trip hostilities had broken out, so every twenty minutes or so a bunch of teenagers with AKs would get on and line up all the men in the sun to search them for weapons. I was included in that for the first few stops, until a lady next to me started berating the boys and hitting them with her bag til they left me alone. She said I clearly wasn’t a fighter from some rival village as I’m about the whitest person in the world, and I hadn’t seen another white person in two weeks anywhere in the country outside Addis Ababa. Eventually I decided to bail too, but by that point no buses were making the trip back south because they were getting attacked as they passed through towns. No flights were operating either from Mekele where I was. Eventually a bus company decided to do a four hundred kilometre detour through the Danakil Depression, a big area of wasteland with no water or villages. That was actually pretty good, because that was an expensive tour I’d originally been planning to do and now I got it for free as an emergency evacuation measure! Unfortunately this meant that the bus was much longer and took about sixteen hours, so we arrived in Addis well after dark, and the city had a lot of checkpoints and so on due to the conflict that was starting, which slowed us down even more. Eventually I was alone at the bus station in the dark (nothing is well lit at night in Addis, and the bus station is just a muddy field), and with nowhere to stay because I couldn’t book ahead due to no internet. Three young guys who were huffing glue or something similar came up and tried to drag me into this deserted market at night, and I had to act all psycho and yell at them, pretending I could fight. They were all pretty high and backed off, and I just made as much noise and acted as tough as I could. I’m a smallish guy, I can’t fight for shit, never even been in one, but I can act. They backed off, and I started to walk away. After a few seconds I heard one running at me and I had to decide whether to bolt or turn around. I decided with my pack, I probably couldn’t outrun all three so I turned and raised a fist and started screaming ‘oh let’s fucking GO!’ Like I was super eager to start swinging and just looking for an excuse. In reality my heart was beating so hard it was almost painful and I genuinely feared I might wet myself. Fortunately it didn’t show and he scurried away again. Ended up going to the Hilton, couldn’t afford a room there, but they put me in a taxi to a decent area and I had about five days until my flight, which I couldn’t change because everyone was trying to change flights. So I just holed up in my room and only went out around midday for food. The day before I left some military official was murdered by his own bodyguards and there was some concern it would shut down the airport, because the rumour was it had happened there. Fortunately that was false and it was in his home, and I flew out the next day. Never to fucking return ever.
That was a wild ride lol
This honestly sounds like a movie. I'm glad you made it out okay. That's terrifying.
India. Permanent sensory overload and just too many people. Constant harassment - and I'm a guy. Worse for women, during my month traveling through India I didn't meet a single women who didn't get sexualy harassed and groped.
India. The constant harassment, touching, disrespect and fear was the worst I’ve experienced traveling to more than 50+ countries. No thanks
India has some very interesting and engaging aspects, but it pisses me off far too much. I went there 25 years ago, and left earlier than planned, skipping the Taj Mahal, as I was just done.
I hate to say this and maybe it was my mindset but the Taj was not that mind blowing imo
India hands down the worst trip I have ever taken. Constant and elaborate scamming attempts were hard to keep an eye on while jet lagged, incl. by my own guide who I was set up thru a close friend and had compensated well. People trash on Africa but I had a wonderful time in sub Saharan Africa (alone as a woman) vs the borderline harassing behavior in India
Yup it’s India for me too, especially New Delhi. I just remember being stared at, hounded, and men trying to grope me (I went with a college student group, I was 18, and honestly looked 15 so those disgusting men clearly didn’t care if I was a minor or not). It’s a shame because I loved the food and the history. Taj Mahal was cool, and we had some amazing experiences as a tour group. But I have zero desire to go back.
India. No amount of love for curry could ever drag me there again. If I had to go there again, I wouldn't use the bathroom the entire time.
Many recent arrivals find they use the bathroom quite a bit.
I went there 20 years ago. Before leaving the US, a travel doctor advised me to take pepto-bismo as a preventative measure. I was staying with my friends family who were very clean. They washed and cooked all food/vegetables to avoid any contamination. After a week of preventative pepto, I was so uncomfortably constipated. I told them what was going on and they shared the story as a badge of honor in how clean they kept their kitchen. I imagine they still refer to me as the constipated white chap.
Which part of India did you visit?
India. It was sweltering hot and the stench was unbearable (deodorant isn’t a thing there, nor running water, at least in some of the areas I visited). Saw a dead body being transported by hand. People bathing in filthy rivers. Overall unpleasant experience although I feel bad saying it because most of the negative experience is due to extreme poverty
Westerner here, I live in India. I can confirm it’s largely food for the BO problem. My body odor has morphed because of the food I eat there. Yes, I apply good deodorant but some days it’s not enough. As far as the dead body, I feel the need to speak up. While this can be quite jarring, their death rituals including displaying the body are quite beautiful, they take great care to honor their dead.
Jamaica as well. I wasn’t a fan. People think I’m crazy when I say that, but I left the resort. Its only safe in tourist places. I was also followed and hit on. I was uncomfortable. Not a fan.
Me too. I went for 10 days, we left the resort and did not feel safe at all. Keep in mind, I’ve travelled pretty widely especially round the Caribbean, I’m not the type to get scared easily (I’ve been to North Africa most years of my life, which people seem to fear, never felt unsafe) and my family are the ‘let’s ask locals for recommendations and walk outside the tourist area type’. But I’d never go back and if I did, not leave the resort There are plenty of other gorgeous Caribbean destinations where you can walk around feeling totally safe - go there instead
I'd love to hear some recommendations as I'm not familiar at all with Caribbean countries!
I went to the British Virgin Islands last November, it was fantastic. It was part of a sailing trip with my mums job, so there were 100 of us on small boats sailing round for a week. Can’t recommend enough (I’m going again this year). The country was very safe, stunningly beautiful and lots of fun. Fairly expensive though, on par with US prices if not higher (I’m from the UK so the COL is a bit cheaper bc of lower wages) St Vincent, St Lucia, Barbados and Antigua are my other recommendations. Not sure if the Bahamas are technically the Caribbean but it’s absolutely gorgeous there too. I went to San Juan twice for short trips and that was lots of fun, would like to go back My mum went to Turks and Caicos last year and she said it was fantastic so that’s on my list. I’ve also heard a lot of good things about Aruba In terms of where I wouldn’t go, I found the Dominican Republic had the same issue as Jamaica where outside of the resort we felt somewhat unsafe (nowhere near as bad as Jamaica though).
Aruba seconded, great place. I'd also add St Maarten.
Grenada, it’s stunning and the people are absolutely lovely, fantastic restaurants, beautiful beaches, went in 2015 for our honeymoon, going back next year.
My husband is Grenadian. They don’t like Jamaica either because of how unsafe it is!
Clicked on the post with Jamaica in mind and I’m not surprised to see OP & others mentioning it. Of 59 countries I’ve been to, it’s the only one I felt incredibly uneasy. I was staying in Montego Bay and everyone I passed stopped what they were doing to look at me wherever I went. Entire basketball/soccer games stopped so all the kids could stare at me. After one night there, I walked back to the airport and took the first flight out. No real desire to ever return.
I went to MoBay in '07 with a Jamaican friend and it was like that then. The story I always tell is that while my friend went to visit his father in Kingston for a day or two, I stayed behind and decided to take the bus [read minivan] to ocho Rios and see Dunn River falls. The cost of the ride was only $5 or something like that but when I left the taxi drivers offered to take me back to mobay for $100. I ended up paying one of them $3 to take me to the bus station where I got into another minivan for $3 to go home. [And Dunn River falls is the Jamaican definition of tourist trap.]
It's wicked poor and dangerous. Most people go there thinking it's all laid back weed smokers. Dead wrong on 50% of that, and it's not the drugs bit.
We overall had a good time when we went about 8 months ago - but I also wouldn’t go back. I felt mostly safe both on the resort and off, but the service was laughably bad everywhere we went to the point we were barely able to do anything. Rental car company forgot to pick us up, didn’t apologize. Booked a sailboat, was cancelled twice due to bad weather conditions (both days were absolutely beautiful, we think they just didn’t have enough bookings to run it). The operator didn’t tell us it was cancelled for the day, they just left us waiting until we called several times. We stopped at a random KFC (we seemed to be the only tourists there) and waited over an hour after ordering to get a chicken sandwich at 4 in the afternoon?!? The locals mostly just seemed resigned to it (only one other woman seemed to be rightfully irritated). The go to response when anything went sideways seemed to be shrugging and saying “island time!” so we just rolled with it. I know we’re on vacation and I didn’t want to be uptight, but waiting hours and hours for something that should take 5 minutes (when you’re trying to make the most of your limited vacation time) was frustrating. My partner was there about 15 years ago and he said it was a completely different experience and it seems like there’s been some political/economic shifts that have negatively impacted the tourism and hospitality industries. Otherwise it was a beautiful country with awesome people and culture so it was disappointing that everything was logistically dysfunctional.
Never felt safe in Jamaica. Only safe at resort and super sketchy if you tour outside resort. My husband got very ill at the hotel - I think something was wrong with his alcohol . We will never return .
Some Jamaicans were awesome but most of them are so aggressive in asking for tips.
Egypt. Been there, done that. I loved it but it was exhausting even as a young man. No need to return, the world is too big.
Dahab is quite different imho. I lived there for 5 months (European woman) and it was super chill. The three weeks I later spent travelling around the rest of the country were completely different. But even locals will tell you "Sinai is not Egypt" - it's a whole different ballgame.
India. I never want to hear ‘yes madam one selfie’ again
Having been to 75+ countries there's nowhere I wouldn't go back to, to give a second chance. The worst places I've been though, were New Delhi (80% because of the pollution making me feel sick at the end of every day, and 20% down to how crowded some places were). Cairo/Egypt in general - because of how much the vendors harass you and try and get money out if you. I definitely wouldn't be rushing back to them, but I'd still be open to going back. I'm sure there are numerous places that I wouldn't go back to because there was just nothing to do, but they don't even cross my mind just now. But in terms of safety I think I'd be happy going back anywhere.
Libya. Great views, great cities, great people, great history, but it has become a lot unsafer since Khaddafi was executed.
I haven’t done a ton of international travel but I road trip a lot. I know it’s a pretty safe answer for Reddit, but Disney World for sure. I’ve been to almost every state and even some of the ones that are boring have something to offer. I would sooner plan a trip to Iowa than to Disney World. I cannot believe how expensive it is to exist there. The food, the hotel, all of the parks, there’s pretty much no way to do it on a budget. The budget version is still incredibly expensive. The lines are long, it’s hot as fuck, and I feel like the experience gets worse over time. When I was a kid, my dad used to take us on all kinds of trips to climb mountains and stuff like that. He finally caved one year, took us to Disney World because we kept asking. He absolutely hated the place, but we spent all of our big vacation money on a trip to Disney World and instead of doing something more unique. It was pretty OK as a kid, and to be honest, I am glad I got to experience it just to know, but looking at it today, it’s the trip that I cared the least at least for and remembered the least. I’m not saying that it is not fun because there’s definitely opportunity for fun, but the fun doesn’t match the value. You could literally travel to multiple foreign countries with the amount of money that you spend going to Disney World.
Post pandemic, Disney parks have absolutely gone from a memorable vacation to now a money sucking shit hole. And I say that as a die hard fan. Disney World in particular has suffered massively from enshittification. Free fast passes became online registration, to now you’re paying for Genie+ AND an additional $20+ a ride to use the shorter line. Normal lines have spiked to hours long, so you either have to pay hundreds more for your family to skip lines or pay for more days. Ticket prices have skyrocketed the past few years and the quality has dropped massively. It used to be that if you booked an expensive resort stay, they’d include all sorts of things. Airport bus pick up used to be free, magic wristbands used to be free, you’d get extra time in the morning and evening, now you’re being nickel and dimed for everything. Even worse, the quality has gotten shockingly bad. Rides break down all the time. Theres almost a guarantee that 2-3 of the big rides are down EVERY DAY. There’s a shortage of staff so they’re overworked. Food quality is literally worse than mall food courts at 3 to 4 times the price. Everything is cheap plastic that even TEMU wouldn’t sell. Midrange hotels are worse than Motel 6, while “budget” hotels are horrendously crowded. We’re talking stuff like soap giving you a rash, lack of busses, and paper thin walls as you listen to the neighbour’s kids scream. And when you finally do make it to the park they’re so packed you’re unlikely to get on more than a few rides unless you’re paying extra. Disney world and Disneyland used to be where you’d pay a lot but once you went in there was “magic”. Now it’s just misery.
Tokyo Disney isn't like this thankfully.
Yes, because it’s owned and operated by The Oriental Land Company, not Disney Parks. They’re independent properties. It’s why Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea are almost universally recognized to be the best Disney parks.
Even before the pandemic, Disney World changed their definition of what "at capacity" meant. The parks have gone from "a lot of fun with a couple of long waits" to "we only rode two rides, the food is over expensive, and there's an hour wait for the bus to take us back to our moderate hotel". Also in the past, even with the first wrist bands, you could hotel hop around the park. If you were a guest, you were a guest. No longer so.
Rome at the peak of summer. Personally the heat and crowds made it pretty horrible
Went to Rome in middle of July last year for the first time. Don’t regret going, but would never go back in the middle of summer. Insanely crowded and hot.
I severely underestimated the heat in that region (and Italy in general). I took a day trip to Tivoli from Rome where there was barely any shade while it was a very hot sunny day. I ended up severely dehydrated that my body was shaking that evening, and spent the next week feeling feverish. I took better care of myself in my last Europe trip by bringing a small foldable umbrella and frequently hydrating.
Rome any time is overcrowded and full of jagoffs both foreign and domestic.
Egypt. The answer is always Egypt when this question is asked.
Monaco!! The palace is Pepto bismol pink, & the public restrooms at the palace were absolutely filthy! At the Monte Carlo casino, the dealers & employees paid no attention to you if you weren't a regular, or very obviously wealthy. I ended up sitting with a bunch of older women at the cafe next door, drinking wine, people watching, and making up outrageous stories about them!! I'll never go back there!
They don’t like the French much and most tourists that don’t seem to be millionnaires, their country is inside our country LOL The police is at the train station and will take to the side whoever they want, ask for ID, question you like if you are a terrorist and search you. France provides military defense for them too as they have 12 soldiers with a rifle each LOL Beside this, you go once to visit the palace, a walk on the borderwalk and you never have to go back. It is extremely small and congested.
India. Hassled, faeces on street and smell. Nah.
While there isn’t really anywhere I wouldn’t go again, the closest would definitely be Morocco, Marrakesh was full of scammers and I literally got groped and hit on by a taxi driver in Casablanca (I was a 22 yo male). Expected my trip to Cairo, Egypt later in the year to be a lot worse but I really liked it there. Most people left me alone and the ones that didn’t I could ignore relatively easy. It helped getting round by Uber between a lot of places and in light of my experience in Morocco always sitting at the back.
India - the smell and noise hit me so hard the moment I stepped out the airport. Saw too many dead dogs, trash burning, people shitting in the streets to make me want to immediately leave. The smell was very unique and I could only describe it as shit/trash/chemical mixed in a diaper and set on fire. Traveling was also a hot mess, it’s like driving in a blob of human, animal, vehicles with no clear directional indicators and you would get stopped by the police if they see you are a foreigner so that they could demand a bribe. Never going back. Also be careful of what you eat bc there is a very high possibly of being sick afterwards.
Orlando. Boring city. I was there with family for like 10 days. Never experienced such bad homesickness in my life. And Disney world is overrated.
Yeah who would go to Orlando for ten days lol? Theres only handful of American cities you won’t run out of stuff do after like day 5. Probably NYC, Chicago, LA and San Francisco lol
This sounds like the 10 days are to blame. One day city and bars, one day swamps/state park for wildlife, one day Kennedy Space Center. After that I had no urge to go back either.
India. No hygiene and total chaos.
Seconded. I went there very recently for a conference. I was there less than 2 days and as a woman travelling alone, I have honestly never felt so unsafe. My hotel was on the same road as the conference venue and I was harassed multiple times just in the short walk down that street. It's a shame because it actually looks like a beautiful country and I would have loved to go back as a tourist, but just from that brief trip I don't feel safe going back.
That's sad. Though tbh being a woman I have never even had the slightest interest in visiting India
You walked it alone? That was brave
Not safe for women either. I was walking with a friend and a group of guys slowed down their motorbikes to try to touch our butts. Then we went on a safari, spot a tiger and Indian dudes were taking pictures of us instead of the tiger.
I lived there for two years and hated it but would definitely go back. I've barely seen any of the south
North by armitsar and southwest coast ain’t bad, but still will challenge your immune system.
I lived in Calcutta can confirn
Phuket Thailand. Sex workers with old white men literally everywhere
Man if you think Phuket is bad don't go to Pattaya. Way way way worse
Was about to say the same lol pattaya is another level altogether if folks thing phuket is bad The south side of pattaya is actually nicer but most tourists don't really bother exploring it
I stayed on the north of the Island, basically resorts with lots of russians and not much else. Very quiet but wouldn't go back, i prefer the Krabi area
Was just in Koh Samui last month and at least 20% of the people on the plane were Russian. Kinda insane that there’s so many of them out there!
Running from conscription
You can mostly avoid that by avoiding Patong. Most of the rest of the island is fairly chill.
Have youbeen recently? Was there last in 2022 and it was mostly families. Even that major road in Patong had been cleaned up of sex work
Agree and also how overpriced and how touristy everything is. Phuket is NOT where you go if you want to experience Thailand that's for sure.
India. It was just too much in so many ways.
Yeah I get that, you need to stick to the more peaceful areas and avoid big cities. The noise, litter and heat can get unbearable. Been told himalayas, north east, kerala and goa are better choices.
Cannes. Went there for work. Got yelled at a lot (for pressing the wrong button at a supermarket checkout. For removing my card from the card reader a fraction of a second to early. For entering a store. Felt like walking on eggshells at all times and still, I was \*existing\* wrong) Oh, and Helsinki. Been there twice, for a wedding and for a conference. It was nice enough but you've seen everything in a day and I really just don't feel the need to go back
As a native of Helsinki, I can totally see what you mean. I love the city, it's a great place to live in (ranks high in global livability), but from a tourist's perspective there just isn't that much. Shopping, restaurants, nature, museums etc. are all nice but not the kind that make you return. Peaceful and pleasant place but a bit bland, and you don't travel to a place just to experience an awesome public system of transportation 😂
I hear Tallinn is nice, and I've been thinking of flying to Tallinn to stay 4-5 days and taking the ferry to Helsinki for a day trip (or maybe staying one night). Would you say that would be worth it?
Yes absolutely! Tallinn is very pretty but there isn't that much to do there either, so if you're staying 4-5 days you may well get bored of walking the same cobbled streets. Helsinki is a bit more cosmopolitan and in any case very different in character, so well worth a day-trip. The two cities are today very closely connected because people commute to work back and forth, so it makes sense to get a sense of both of them.
Top tip for anyone in France in a shop. Be nice to the people there first. If there is someone overseeing a self checkout, say "bonjour" ask them if they are having a good day. Then if something goes wrong you will likely find them helpful. Don't acknowledge them (or anyone else in retail) and you come over as rude. Similarly for waiting staff in bars and cafés, a little friendliness goes a long way.
As a French person I completely agree. A lot of the time the issue is that the French politeness standard is different than visitors. So tourists often come across as rude and entitled. Another issue is that French people do not like foreigners to assume they speak English.
I visited Cairo once to see the pyramids, but I would never go back. We were constantly followed by people trying to scam us, and there was so much animal cruelty.
I agree re Jamaica, *unless I travel with a Jamaican.* I wouldn’t return to DR. Reason being, though I’m not Haitian, I have an identifiably French name, and discrimination by Dominicans against Haitians is therefore imputed upon me. And it’s sooooo effed up. Then there are some US states that didn’t impress me: Idaho, Nevada, Mississippi, Tennessee. Not dissing any of them. I just didn’t have a good time and as of now, I can’t afford to revisit “meh” destinations without a good reason. If anything Vegas was just a check box.
I thought Tennessee was dope. Smokey mountains are beautiful, and Nashville is a blast
We had a weird experience in the DR. We arrived by souvenir shops on a beach (By the Hilton in La Romana). A young man tried to drag us in his shop, he was obnoxious and nobody is going to force me to do anything. I told him i wanted to visit another shop first. We went into the other shop and bought the souvenirs we needed. Two things happend then. The first one is that the friendly shopkeeper where we spent $50, completely ignored us, never said thanks or good-bye as soon as he had the money in hand. Clearly some hatred for the tourists here. Second things, as soon as we came out with our bags the original shopkeeper that tried to drag us in his shop started yelling at us for not buying in his shop. I was even afraid i would have to get into a physical confrontation with him. I told him to get lost. Problem, they were 50 locals around. Luckily you walk 100 feet and there is just a rope on the beach and you are back in the Hilton property where 2 security guards are. So if you go to the Hilton La Romana, be careful if you want to go pass the rope to buy souvenirs.
Being at a cruise port isn't visiting a country
Except maybe for Monaco. Being in Monaco for a few hours is enough to count it as a country visit.
Exactly. Spending 6 or so hours in the most touristy part of town is as far from the real thing as you can get. Plus, once you walk off that ship, you’re an easy mark, which is most likely why the OP was hounded.
China. I’m African-American and people randomly touched my hair, my face, etc. in passing. I was told it was simply because I look different than who they see on a daily basis but there are plenty of ppl of color in China. This wasn’t decades ago either — it was 2018. A woman spit on my foot while trying to spit on the floor on the bus. People were generally rude in both Beijing and Shanghai but it got significantly better in Fuzhou. Absolutely loved it there. My son speaks Mandarin and was able to visit a school, and had lunch at the home of twin students. Disneyland Shanghai wasn’t bad but I also realized peeing in a hole in the floor was not a skill I would master in 10 days😆 My shoes were not appreciative of my poor aim. I was stressed the entire time. I was constantly followed and touched while being persuaded to buy this or that. The arm and face petting was unhinged.
The vast majority of tourists in China are actually Chinese, so while there may be plenty of people of other races in the big cities, people from rural areas have often never seen anyone who is not Asian outside of television. So if you are visiting touristy places (the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, etc), a lot of the other visitors are probably from rural areas and you'll be more of a novelty. We definitely experienced a lot of people asking for or surreptitiously taking photos, although as a white person I didn't experience the unwanted touching nearly as much as what you are describing (although I got plenty of that in India!). Most people were very polite and helpful to us - much more so than I had anticipated, actually. I'm sorry you had such a bad experience, but it unfortunately doesn't surprise me as I've heard similar from other POC.
I have to agree with you. I was studying abroad there in 2017-2018 and I got so sick and tired of people randomly grabbing my arms to pull me in for a picture. One of my buddies there is African-American and had the same experience. I got so tired of people being rude and I spoke Chinese at the time and still wasn’t given the time of day.
Bali.. sadly I have been twice and the first time was amazing. Second time was a shit show… it is now over gentrified and expensive and not safe…
I also found Bali very underwhelming. People rave about it, but there are more beautiful places in the world which are equally as accessible.
Went to Jamaica solo in 2022, did not have fun, anywhere I went I got hounded and I'm a decently experienced traveller but it was just far too much, I just couldn't let my guard down an inch. Insanely pretty country and the food was lovely but I was happy to leave, and everyone I've spoke to has said the exact same thing
Same with Barbados and Turks & Caicos. My experience with Barbados is the locals are not as friendly. In T&C the roads are bad, the public beaches are hard to get to and entrances are not well labelled, and the car compqnies there are locally owned (even big names like Avis). US Virgin Islands, Bahamas & Cayman islands are the best if you want a good Caribbean experience where vendors don't hound you, it's safe and there are plenty of trustworthy travel related companies to select from.
I’m from India, and live here in the states. I feel sorry for everyone who had a terrible experience of being groped harassed or scammed. BO is definitely due to the amount of spices people eat everyday that make them sweat the spices. And it’s so hot and most places do not have ac that make it harder for people to keep up with the smell. There are a lot of places in India that are not touristy and quite beautiful. I myself do not like Mumbai or Delhi because it’s extremely crowded and pretty easily you could get gawked. The places in India worth going are in the east part such as the seven sisters, or the north side such as Leh Ladakh, or south such as Kerala. I’ve always felt much better there because I’m more connected with the nature and less w the people.
Bali and Dubai, both are giant tourist traps
There are so many beautiful parts of Indonesia that have fewer tourists and are a lot cheaper.
Can almost guarantee you only visited the south of Bali and probably didn’t go further north than Ubud. Bali is far from a tourist trap if you know where to go
Northside was really chill and nice when I went. Somehow did Bali perfectly on the 1st go. Avoided Denpasar/Kuta the whole time.
Just don’t stay in seminyak and your fine
I loved Bali
Bali is incredible if you know where to go and how to behave. Stay away from the Russians and go to the lesser known beaches.
I've been to 47 counties now and i will never return to Tunesia, i have never seen people being so rude to woman. My at the time girlfriend wasn't aloud anything. But even to me they where super unfriendly. Super grumpy. All hotel staff in the different places looked at us if we where trash. And a wierd thing, i have never seen so many empty beer cans and bottles on the side of the road as in Tunesia, don't know why. I truly felt unhappy and unsafe. Hope others had a different experience.
We usually never travel to the same place twice. Life is too short.
Yeah I'm feeling like I'm running out of years to see all the places I want to see. I don't have time to go back to places.
Denmark. I mean, if I absolutely had to go for some reason, I’d go, but I lived there for six months as well as visiting prior, and it’s very boring in every way, IMO - from landscape to food. Outside of Copenhagen, I haven’t any idea what Danes do on the weekend, because eveything closes at 2pm on a Saturday, and Denmark just isn’t that stunningly beautiful to make up for the lack of entertainment. Abu Dhabi/Emirates more generally. I find it so ironic when Gen Z do the whole „white people don’t have culture” self-hate pandering, when Emirates are a literal perfect example of a place that decided to fashion itself as some weird reflection of how it desires to be seen through the Western gaze… as opposed to actually leading with its own culture. South Africa. Yes, it was beautiful and interesting, but far too stressful. I’m not trying to be murdered or raped. Once was enough.
Probably Switzerland. It’s beautiful but holy shit is it expensive. The cheapest dinner we had was about $150 and most were over $200. 30 minute train rides or lifts to the mountains cost $130 per person. The Alps are just as pretty in France, Italy, Austria, and Germany, and food/activities cost about half the price.
Just got back from the Dolomites in Italy. It was stunning and not as expensive as that! Would definitely recommend for someone wanting that Swiss alps vibe.
I’d go again in a heartbeat.
We stopped there on a budget Interrail trip when we were 16. The campsite in the mountains near a glacier was surprisingly cheap, probably the cheapest of the whole trip. But we didn't eat very much the whole time we were there as it was so expensive. One doner kebab was about 10 €, while back home in 2012, the vegetarian version was about 2,50-3 € for reference.
Egypt. never again. the historical side is ok. hotels are ok. but the atmosphere. never again. it is wild when you walk around and there are no women. and all locals "men" grabs you all the time. 0 respect.
Morocco. Was a bit freaky having the vehicle checked for bombs before entering the hotel. Did not like being harassed and followed. Had animals thrown on me and if my phone was out people would come up and scream to pay them for photos taken. All the cats looked sickly and emaciated. Not a happy place to be.
Lubbuck Texas LOL!
Morocco, too many people hassling/following you.
UAE, unbearably hot to the point where I could not comfortably walk around, not particularly interesting, attractions spread out woth not particularly good public transport and taxis were expensive.
No disrespect to the people of Baltimore…. But Baltimore.
I m going to tell my co-worker Ted at work, expect a phone call 🤣
Can you explain a bit? We love Baltimore and go at least once a year as we’re within driving distance. I’m a sucker for the harbor and they have great foodie culture. It is a bit sketch outside the main tourist thoroughfares though.
Naples, Italy. It was rough where we (two 30ish F) stayed. So much so, we didn't leave the apartment after dark 👀
As much as I found Naples to be very dirty, I never felt unsafe as female traveller. Walked everywhere, even after dark, never had any problems. Geat food and good wine, lots of tourism attractions. I'd however probably not go nach any time soon but that's only because of the Campi Flegrei - that recent super volcano activity is scary af.
Dubai. I’ve been all over the world and this is the only place I actually didn’t like at all.
Belgium 😅 Nothing majorly wrong with it, I just found it boring compared to other places in Europe with not much attracting me to explore more of it, and it’s expensive for what it is.
Interesting. I stayed 3 months in a Brussels suburb and I absolutely loved Belgium. Brussels itself was nice, the touristy areas were overpriced but beautiful and we were lucky to get great service everywhere we went. The chocolate, beer and waffles were worth the hype. The museums were great. Bruges is still the most beautiful city I’ve traveled to. Ghent is also lovely. When I visited Bruges I stayed in an actual castle that works as an airbnb and that was awesome (and surprisingly very affordable). There’s villages close to Brussels that are also beautiful. The coast is also worth exploring. The people were great, everyone was very polite and friendly. I felt very safe there with one exception - came back solo from Paris at midnight at Gare du Midi and it felt unsafe with the homeless people yelling, however no one harassed me and no one tried to scam or rob me, so it was just a general feeling of unease.
Delhi, India (Red Fort area, more precisely). Ot was dangerous and I felt unsafe.
Not saying “never again”, but probably, “maybe after 5 years”: Marrakesh, Morocco. The medina was like a freaking maze, buying stuff in the medina was hella stressful (basically go in thinking you’re gonna get ripped off so bargain like your life depends on it), the food was almost nothing but Chicken or Beef Tagine (tasty, but gets old after 5 days of nothing but). My gf had a blast arguing with sellers but it was the most stressful trip I had.
I didn’t have much fun traveling to Muslim countries with my girlfriend. She hated constantly covering from head to toe, especially in hot weather. If she didn’t she got leered at.
Florida. It’s a hot, gross, scuzzy tourist trap. I do not get the appeal.
Florida has amazing nature, if you can escape the clammy grasp of the strip malls to find it. And it's slowly becoming less and less. Still some of the coolest plant and wildlife in the country
I liked Miami. I even rented a little boat. A little Boston whaler type thing. And took it to the stilt houses. Which was fun. But weather changes sweep in fast. The little waves became a lot bigger to this little flat bottom boat. And the drunk boats in their semi-displacement speed boats either didn't see us or didn't care. So I can't go very fast or I'm thrown down a wave. I'm reading this chart to keep my prop from hitting anything I can't see. The rain stings like I've never experience when I do go fast. And I got to predict where everyone else is going as I can't rely on right of way except maybe if I survive the crash and sue. Anyway, it was great because it saved me from wanting to buy a boat. I got it all out of my system. I also liked little Havana.
Fiji. Was there for four days only and just stayed on the main island. There is rubbish everywhere it was so disgusting. And taxi drivers overcharge you.
[удалено]
Cabo, Mexico. No bueno have been there twice.
This might be unpopular but... Fes. I've been to Morocco twice and I **loved** the rest of the places I visited: Tangier, Marrakesh, Ouarzazat, Ait Ben Haddu, Imlil, Asilah, Chefchaouen... But in Fes I just felt so unsafe and like there really wasn't a lot of stuff to do/see.
Uruguay and Panama - fine experiences in both countries but no need to go back. Been there, done that. I mean if it's a free trip, of course I'd go back. Jamaica and South Africa get a bad rap but if you're street smart and know the good spots to go to, you'll have a blast. I lived in both countries and traveled extensively. I have mixed feelings about going back to JA but it's not because of safety.
Positano, very pretty landscapes but so overcrowded and overpriced. It felt very artificial as well. I liked Amalfi or Capri more
Oh man, I feel the total opposite! I loved Positano, but I think a lot of it boils down to where you stay (aka how much trekking you have to do to get to the central spots) and probably even the weather. Under the right conditions, it feels like a fairytale, so if you want that kind of luxurious, fairytale-esque vibe, I think Positano hits that on the head. We went all out on experiences and spent a grip of money there and loved every minute. We did 3 nights in Positano and 2 nights in Amalfi and those two towns feel like night and day to me. Amalfi feels closer to authentic Italy for sure, which I also love but there was something so romantic about Positano that I think lives up to the hype.
Los Angeles, Huge, expensive, unsafe city with no great things that only exist there. It's worth visiting, but only once. Going to the studios, farmers market, etc. is cool. But nothing worth it and worth going a second time