Your 4 Least Favorite - Never to Return to Again Travel Spots

Based on the most favorite destination thread, I saw some responses that were head scratchers to me at least. So what are the 4 destinations you would never return to.

For me

Las Vegas, NV - the majority of the people attracted to this city are not my tribe. I’ll leave it at that.

Lisbon, Portugal - there’s no there, there.

Cork, Ireland - had high expectations, but same as Lisbon. Not much there. Better options in the small coastal towns of southern Ireland. The towns in general in Ireland pale in comparison to what’s on the continent.

Paris, France. Been there twice. Everyone tells me it will grow on you. Nope. I enjoy the smaller cities in southeast and southwest France far more.

Honorable mention. Los Angeles. It’s another city I really want to like, but it’s massive sprawl makes it hard to really enjoy. I guess if you can spend time in a smaller area, it could be enjoyable, but I’d rather drive a couple hours north to Santa Barbara.

Paris, really? Yes the smaller towns and villages especially in the south are great but can’t agree on Paris. Maybe confirmation bias but I can’t say that any place that I have visited on vacation has not been great. And business trips don’t really count.

It’s all based on our personal experiences. We got yelled at for taking pictures on the street in the Latin Quarter. We paid over $100 euro for burnt steaks. The mass transit system was on strike when we were there. The air traffic controllers struck while we sat on the runway. I could go on. So bounce those experiences off of friendly, more intimate encounters at wineries, historic sites, small villages in Provence or even Bordeaux which to me is like Paris, but better in scale.

I’ve really loved most places I’ve traveled, but what the hell, why not:

Las Vegas - Never really liked it and I feel like it has gotten worse.

Florida Panhandle - Very popular with Texans but too many people, too much rain, too humid. No thanks. Really not a big fan of Florida vacations in general.

New Orleans - Happy to go there on business travel. Not a place I’d vacation.

Disneyland/Disneyworld - I probably will end up returning, but begrudgingly. I hate crowds.

That hostel in Athens that was full of mosquitoes and a near-death guy who had hitched across Yugoslavia for three days without eating.

Paris, Illinois. And especially the Bon Ton.

Dallas.

Annandale.

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Monte Carlo
Florida
Houston
Phoenix

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Ah, this is the corollary of “there are no great wines just great bottles”.
Yes I have been fortunate that my two or three Paris visits have been great. Admittedly I’m a glass half full kind of person so when the odd language mix up leads to an unexpected dish at dinner I tend to roll with it. Funnily enough one language mix up was in Nice, the waiter seemed to think his English was better than my French and insisted we only order in English, which resulted in my getting the wrong appetiser! Notwithstanding, based on just two visits I love Nice.

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Gary, Indiana

Pisa, Italy

Hilton Head, Outer Banks, Kiawah Island–too white, suburban, and bland.

All of Florida–but especially Orlando (I do like Miami and the Keys).

Runners-up:
Kansas

Gatlinburg

Memphis

Baton Rouge

High Point, NC

Sitka, AK

Dallas

Frankfurt

Texas

Pocatello, ID

Phoenix

I’ve never been to Florida, and I don’t plan on ever going there

The Civil Rights museum alone makes the trip to Memphis worth it. But it’s definitely a gritty place that needs some help.

It’s there because it has a long history as one of the most racist places in the US.

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That’s a strange way to characterize a majority black city.

As one who’s lived in Memphis these last ten years I was just visiting Nashville with my daughter. We were discussing how little we liked Nashville compared to Memphis despite how fashionable it has become. It’s not very pretty, lacks atmosphere, and there’s little of interest to do there.

Other places I won’t return to in a hurry:

Chicago. For much the same reasons as Nashville. Add too that it’s like living in Siberia.

British motorways in general. Crowded, slow, depressing.

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I don’t think threads like this are really very helpful for a ‘community’.

They usually say more about those finding problems than the places themselves.

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Maybe you’re missing something in Chicago

But we’re not for everyone. No we’re certainly no Memphis

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Palm Springs and vicinity

Bucharest, Romania,
Sofia, Bulgaria,
Split, Croatia,
Moscow, Russia.

This is an easy one for me. It was our last night in town. We were warned about getting ripped off; but as native New Yorkers, our guard is always up.
If you guessed EZE (Buenos Aires) you were correct.

Don’t mess with New Yorkers. We were ok. The people that tried to steal from us didn’t get any valuables.

Remarkably difficult, assuming we’re to ignore places we had to go to through work etc. I’ll stick to places I’ve visited on vacation.

Cairns, Australia. Feeding off a steady flow of backpackers, I found it rather depressing, with a shallow and grubby getting drunk culture. There is appeal outside of it, but definitely not somewhere I’d recommend as a base to explore. I’d come in from Darwin, a quirky / oddball little city, but one that did have charm.

Milano, Italy. This a little harsh, as day trips can give a misleading impression. Highlight was rummaging in a cheap designer clothes outlet away from the centre, but the city felt aloof and pretentious, plus the insistent street hawkers were a near constant irritation. I’m sure a return visit would offer up something to enjoy, but with so many other places to choose from, this would be below hundreds of other places I’d be more keen to go to in Italy.

Siena, Italy. Not awful by any means, but absolutely underwhelmed vs. expectations. I love prep’ing food shops, enoteche, markets, etc. before going, but we had a remarkably bad success rate. The massive market was indeed massive, but ‘more’ didn’t feel like it equated to more variety, quite the reverse in fact. A decent sized co-operative food shop was dull as anything, and even the enoteca nazionale was dead / deserted and significantly failed to get close to expectations. I also tend to avoid the major tourist destinations, and it’s a combination of ignorant tourists and the businesses that suckle from them that grate. On the upside, the small farmers market in the old market square was everything I hoped for in terms of food quality, with every stall we visited impressing for their produce. I’d return for this, but that puts it in day trip territory.

Dorchester, England. This was decades ago, but we’d planned it in as part of a road trip with work colleagues. We’d found loads of lovely places en-route, so surely this historic town would be good? I can’t recall specifics, but nothing about it felt charming, plus the planned accommodation was shit. We had a quick look around for alternatives and soon realised it wasn’t likely to reveal anything decent, so we headed off elsewhere (lulworth cove IIRC)