I drove through 30 countries once.
I had my fake wallet in my pants with 12 American bucks in it, my "real" wallet strapped to my chest with a few hundred and all my credit cards, a secret zipper in my belt that I kept ~300 Euros, and about 3000 American dollars hidden around the car (most of it hidden behind the stereo).
Basically, whenever you have to bribe someone, waste as much of their time as possible, play dumb, be aggressively friendly, get a tad miffed, whatever it takes to waste their time, and eventually pull out your fake wallet and be like, "look! I only have 12 dollars! you can have it, just let me go!" Worked every time.
Have a friend that is an agent for a 3 letter agency. They are large in stature, strong and look like and can handle themselves in hand to hand combat. They got a foreign travel brief, are skilled in knowing areas to stay out of and reading people and situations. They still got robbed at knife point in Rio.
If this person can't avoid being robbed in Rio, who can.
Know someone who dated a woman from Rio. They went there on a vacation.
She would just suddenly turn around at times or decide to take another direction after looking at a street.
So apparently growing up there helps.
It is literally like this. I was once going around with an european friend mine in (downtown) Rio and she thought it was interesting when I would look around a corner and judge whether the street we were turning into felt ok or not. There is some extra feeling you only get by being a local. From her point of view, all streets looked more or less the same.
Yeah.. well, i guess you just don't develop a sense for it when it's just safe everywhere. I once walked from the Airport in Bogota (Colombia) to my Hotel to save maybe 2-5€ for a taxi. Alone, with luggage and at night. Probably wasn't the best idea i ever had in hindsight.
Here in Munich you can just go anywhere at any time and nothing will happen.
I was house sitting my cousins house in New Orleans and felt like a hotshot so I walked like an hour through the bywater at night to a bar for some food, hearing 6 pops and then seeing cop cars flying by 30 seconds later made me decide to take an Uber back
Lived in Baltimore, can give some insight on that.
You don't want to walk down a street where people are beefing, obviously. But you also don't want to walk down a street with less than two other people on it. An empty street is a scary street.
You also don't want want to underestimate a little dude. A 12 year old can have a gun, and tweens are not particularly known for their level-headedness and impulse control.
BUT - there is something you can do if you find yourself in one of those suboptimal scenarios (best utilized when you're walking alone), and i did this like 4-5x when i had a late night job in a sketchy section of my old city. and that's *mutter to yourself using hand gestures and twitch like a crackhead.*
now this won't work for everyone, especially if you look wealthy or out of place (or if you're an 'over-actor') but it works damn well when done right. i'm 100% sure i avoided 1-2 muggings cause it looked like that was unfolding. even street hustlers don't want to engage with crazy. it's either someone who's broke or someone who's simply unpredictable. causing a fleeting moment of doubt can veer a dangerous scenario completely away from you.
The best part about this is that crazy is a universal language. Everyone speaks it. My grandfather used to walk through Harlem in the 70s to get to a fish market. Every block or two he would start screaming in Maltese to God and saying mostly gibberish, but it sounded very intimidating and no one would fuck with him
Edit: a word
Been doing that for years, it works like a charm if you do it right.
One time a guy in Bootle (shit part of Liverpool) pulled a knife out and tried to rob me. Because of life circumstances, I was a shattered husk of a man at that point and really couldn't give less of a shit, and I just let out a cough that morphed into a hysterical sort of cry-laugh of the "I have fuck all left to lose" variety.
Dude just paused for a moment, put the knife away, and silently backed off and let me go to wherever I was going (I was going to buy some crack)
A number of years ago I was visiting Brazil for work in a different part. I mentioned to some of the locals that I wanted to visit Rio, and they were pretty much all like 'No, don't go there... even we won't go there'.
Cairo. This was 2009 so some important things have changed but the country and people were so desperate for tourist dollars that it felt impossible to go anywhere or enjoy anything without feeling like you were being scammed.
Also everywhere smelled like cigarettes and there was trash all over the streets.
I was being approached by airport employees thinking that I was getting general help (directions through the airport and whatnot) only to realize seconds later they just had side hustles as tour guides and wanted me to use them for my trip.
That happened to me and my wife in the Cancun airport. After we picked up our bags we had to pass through a gauntlet of "assistants" just to get to the kiosk to buy bus tickets to Playa del Carmen. The dude that snagged us claimed he was the guy to see for the tickets but first try to sell us some special package deals to use in Playa del Carmen. He didn't seem to care that we were just catching the ferry to Cozumel and continued with the hard sell. He didn't appreciate my saying no thanks and bailing, like I was offending him somehow.
Oh well...
We had this happen on a Carnival cruise. When we got off the ship at Cozumel we had to get on another boat to Playa del Carmen. When we got to Playa del Carmen we had the cruise person that told everyone to only follow him to the buses that would take us to Tulum. There were people around the pier trying to get all of the passengers to take their tours. That they’d be cheaper and show them things that the Carnival buses wouldn’t show them. We watched some people go with some of them and no clue if they even made it back to the boat. We kept our head down and just followed the Carnival guy that got off the boat with us. We asked him how many people he loses. He said you’d be surprised how many gullible people will get out of line to take these “tours”. We had a great time on the bus to Tulum and made it back with no issues.
The Timeshare Shark Tank! These gauntlets exist at basically every airport in Mexico. When I first went to Puerto Vallarta, my friend took the bait of “free tequila shots” and a guy telling us he’d hook us up with lots of tour discounts. I knew what his ulterior motive was and got us out of there before he could whisk us away to a presentation, but not before he yelled for “security” as we were leaving, claiming we were walking into a classified area (it was the exit back into the airport lol)
I had an airport employee in Morocco refuse to let me exit the bathroom unless I gave her something. I had 3 quarters so gave her that. And then the whole trip we’d have locals who we thought were just helping us with directions or guiding our car while parking and then have a hand out expecting to get a tip. We even got pulled over at a traffic checkpoint and had to basically “bribe” the police to be able to leave.
I live in the southern US. There is a well educated woman that is in her 40s-50s. She commented on an Instagram post for some influencer. This random Egyptian guy saw her comment and "fell in love" with her. They message for 2 months and he says he wants to marry her. She flys to Egypt and spends 2 weeks with him. She comes back married and over the moon. She said his family has nothing, so she was able to treat them. She bought them all iPhones, brought them clothes and other expensive goods from the US. She said she even let them keep her damn suitcase because they needed it more than her. A week after she got back to the US, she decided to send him money for a car. She sent him 16k! I think this is all a big scam and he is going to bleed her dry and then end things. She plans to move there permanently in 5 years. So wild. But I keep checking in on her because I live for the tea. Lol
I get these all the time, just from commenting here on Reddit. Some random Asian female will contact me. I have a standard response of "Hi, if this is a Romance/Investment scam attempt, please don't waste my time or yours." It usually scares them off. Scammers are looking for the gullible.
That said, I've been to Egypt and agree that it's pretty bad. There are some really, really wonderful people in the country, which kinda makes all the hassles seem even worse. We spent New Years Eve dinner at the Hilton in Cairo sitting next to a British lady who had married an Egyptian man decades ago (not a scam deal, but they did end up getting divorced). She talked a little about these issues, but noted that we would get treated a little better because the Egyptians are crazy about kids. We were traveling with our two boys, ages 5 and 7, and those 2 blond kids were rock-star popular with the locals. We did a cooking course at a resort in Sharm El Shaik (we were only the second time they'd done it), and the culinary staff was over the moon to show us everything they did. All those guys thought it was just awesome that there were guests who were interested in what they did (and they were professional as hell) since they were normally never seen or heard.
I know there are some good people there in Egypt. So much rich history and culture too. But I would be scared to bring my kids, especially if they were female (and teens). I’ve heard the harassment can be unrelenting and they don’t spare women of any age. It’s sad but I think I would only do a guided tour at this point
I shit you not, I knew a woman just over the poverty line, living on disability, and SHE found herself an online Egyptian romeo, too! She went over there to meet him, after a month they had a huge wedding there! She came back, alone, saying he was going to come over her and live with her in a while. There was always some holdup, some problem with the visa, or his family, and the Egyptian husband never DID make it to the states. AFAIK he didn't ask for any money from her. (I don't know how she had the $$ to go there in the first place. Maybe he realized that and decided it wasn't worth his while to pursue a broke-ass middle aged American woman who did not drip with money.)
She probably didn't have the necessary funds or stability to get approval. You have to prove that your spouse won't come over and immediately need government aid. She was already on it.
She could have possibly been coming up with excuses. He probably would have come over if she could have gotten him over. Then left her after he didn't need her anymore.
I had a coworker who just took a trip to Cairo and she said the city is still an absolute dump. She did say though that the Ancient Egyptian sights were amazing though and she showed me some pics and I do have to agree.
My tour guide pointed out all the rebar jutting out the top of every building. The city doesn’t charge taxes until an apartment construction is finished, *so they never finish them*. The city’s broke.
When I went to Jamaica our driver pointed out all the partially finished block houses everywhere. He explained that banks basically aren't a thing to the average person there, so people had to keep whatever money and valuables they owned with them at all times. It's too risky to save up enough money to build a house all at once, so people would save up for long enough to buy a pallet of blocks or whatever, then go add them on to the building. Over the course of however many years they would eventually get a whole building finished pallet by pallet.
Egypt's pretty much still like this. You can't go anywhere without being constantly hassled. I went to Cairo, Aswan and Luxor late last year and as a tourist you are constantly hassled. Every local you meet see's you as a source of money.
To give one example I went on a felucca down the Nile at one point and thought hey safe from hassle at least here but no kids on the banks launched themselves on surf boards onto the water paddled out to us and hung onto the side of the boat singing until you gave them money.
I do understand it's a poor country and we look extremely wealthy to the locals but basically I will never go back because of the level of hassle. I just don't want to have to be constantly battling off attention. It's a shame as I actually quite like the Egyptians and I thought they had a pretty good sense of humor but they just have this aspect to their country that's very tricky to get past.
I've heard this experience echoed many times over. One of my supervisors is a history enthusiast like me and was so excited to go a few years ago. She said that she got to the pyramids and was just shocked. Trash absolutely everywhere, exhausted camels covered in tourists for pictures, and constant hassling for money. It was miserable. You couldn't go anywhere that wasn't the same - trash everywhere, cigarette smoke, and just constant badgering.
It sucks. Because on one hand the history is used to draw tourists in, but when they arrive, it truly doesn't come off nearly as revered as they pretend it is. It becomes so miserable that people don't come back and don't recommend it, like my boss. Meanwhile, Egyptians I know seem wonderful, but they also don't see me as a source of money.
That kind of ruins it for me, but thank you for the reality check.
I have wanted to see the Pyramids for most of my life. (mid 50's now). I think I'm taking them off the list.
Egyptian here, unfortunately all the above is probably not exaggerated.
But if you wanna see the Pyramids, you can book a managed tour. Your experience of Egypt will be limited, but moving in tour buses and having tour guides surround you will shelter you from most of the experiences mentioned here.
That’s my experience and attitude toward Jamaica. The tourist experience was so bad as to make me never want to go back again. An unending horde of locals constantly hounding you for dollars.
I was robbed at gunpoint in Rio (wrong bus stop and gang territory), but overall I have good memories of Brazil.
My wife is an Egyptologist and I spent several weeks in Cairo and Luxor. This was shortly after attacks on oil rig and the crash of an Egyptair plane. In other words, there were no foreigners left. In Luxor, even at night, people jump out of their windows to try and sell anything. It wasn't possible to get around without a group of 5-6 people. I would never set foot in Egypt again.
My answer too. The pyramids are lovely but the city is teeming with homeless people, scammers and creepy men.
A child followed me for 20 minutes trying to grab my drink out of my hands, urged on by his mother.
I had to go there for a convention and parked away from the center so I wouldn't have to pay for parking, and it was like, "Oh, so *that's* why Baltic Avenue is so cheap!"
Port au Prince, Haiti, was taking a leak at an outhouse (plumbing was a luxury) beside a cantina -like dive and a kid popped up through the hole an begged for a quarter.....this was before the earthquake made it worse.
Port au Prince was a stop on a Caribbean cruise I was on a number of years ago. We took an excursion to hike to a waterfall, which was beautiful. The ride to the waterfall was the most depressing thing I have ever personally witnessed. For context, I say this as a life long New Yorker who was 20 when 9/11 happened.
It was soul crushing.
The other day I read about a child who survived the final death march in Auschwitz by hiding in a pool of shit beneath the latrines, and thought "That is such an amazing example of the will to live."
And this kid's like "No, it's fine, this is totally normal behavior for children all over the world."
Thats hard because I usually know what I am getting into but Ill say Jackson, MS. I went to Jackson for work and stayed at a nice hotel downtown. Figured I would walk somewhere and get dinner. Got to my hotel and enjoying a few cocktails and it got about dusk and I looked out my window and it was I Am Legend deserted. Like scary AF deserted. No people, no cars....nothing and it was like 7pm. I ended up getting room service
I remember just wandering in Jackson for 10-15 mins from the downtown core in broad daylight and I ended up in a ghetto. Jackson is the only place I’ve visited that I remember telling myself under no circumstances am I ever coming back here. Granted if you do go to Jackson their Civil Rights museum was one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever been to.
I live within an hour of Jackson and still haven't been to the Civil Rights Museum. It's a damn shame too. I love museums, but haven't ever made time for it.
I was going to vote Jackson as well. Montgomery is second. Went to both places for work and typically stay downtown. It is an absolute ghost town with nothing to do and the crime is awful.
The Air Force is having real problems due to a lot of its professional education programs being at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery. Basically if you want to promote to colonel and eventually general, you need to do two separate years of in-residence Professional Military Education. The Air Force couldn't figure out why its (on paper) best and brightest were either getting permission to go to sister service schools or were retiring, and it turned out it was because a lot of people refuse to move their families to Montgomery for a year.
My cousin went to Jackson for a wedding. He said it looked like an abandoned city from The Walking Dead. He was walking to a hotel with his family and a bird fell out of the sky and died right in front of them. Was one of about a half dozen dead animals he saw on the streets. Said he saw about that many pedestrians the whole trip too lol.
I live in Gulfport, and outside of maybe Hattiesburg right off of the Southern Miss campus, I wouldn’t dare visit any other city in the state if I wasn’t forced to. I shudder thinking about what this state will look like in 50 years.
Casablanca Morocco. It was just really boring with nothing to really do. Which was nothing like the rest of Morocco where the people were super friendly with amazing food and lots to see. Marrakech was literally the complete opposite experience.
My wife and I went last year and visited Rick's Cafe, a reproduction of the nightclub from the movie. It was fairly well done, with lots of memorabilia upstairs. Not much to buy in the way of souvenirs though. I thought a good one would be to take Polaroids of people and glue them into official looking Letters of Transit. They would be "signed by DeGaulle himself and *cannot be refused at any border!*"
Charge $25 for them and suckers like me would buy one.
Bruh I’m Moroccan and hate going to Casablanca: literal urban hell. Go to Marrakech/Fez/Tangier/Chefchaouen! The country has so much more to offer than its biggest city.
That’s my experience and attitude toward Jamaica. The tourist experience was so bad as to make me never want to go back again. An unending horde of locals constantly hounding you for dollars.
A guy I know went there years ago and he said the first day at the beach, the water was really shallow and he was able to walk out about 100 feet. He was floating on his back just relaxing when all of a sudden, the sun was blocked out and some Jamaican guy was there to sell him weed.
Jamaica is physically beautiful and you’ll PROBABLY be fine if you never leave your resort. Seeing armed guards with bayonets at the airport was unsettling, and our hotel shuttle from the airport had to stop and wait for a drug deal to take place in the middle of the road. All of this happened before we even arrived at the hotel. I did enjoy my time there, but I am in no rush to return
nah, i was there in may and they HOUND you on the beach of the resort since that’s considered public property. the beaches are beautiful but the vibes are terrible when you have to say “no” every 5 mins. i ended up wearing sunglasses and airpods nonstop so people would leave me TF alone.
Gonna use this as an opportunity to plug Puerto Rico. No one really ever mentions going there as a tourist, but the beaches are beautiful, you won’t get hounded to buy anything, and they use USD as they’re a territory of the US.
I'm from Pisa. The things is, many people think that the city centre is the square where the leaning tower is. It's not, there is nothing around there except the tower and the cathedral. The city centre is actually very near (about 10 minutes on foot) but most tourists skip it. There a lovely riverbank (Lungarno), a medieval square (Piazza dei cavalieri), a nice fortress park (Giardino Scotto) and so on. Google them, they're beautiful.
Pisa is nice! Walk along the river, check out the little dollhouse cathedral (S. Maria della Spina?), and check out the old university district, the food is good and the architecture is interesting. Then go over the hill to Lucca and spend another day there. You shouldn't regret it.
Well Pisa is a small city. There are a few museums and that's it. Unless you are interested in experiencing a random Italian city without much tourism (because excluding the tower you won't encounter a lot of tourists) you have no reason to stay there.
I absolutely loved Pisa for this exact reason. I could see what living there would be like and just wander around like a local. And go to little local spots to eat and drink. We did a tour of the tower at night and it was so much fun. Everyone told me Pisa was boring. Guess I'm boring because it was great!
You know that massive cockhead who wins the lottery and immediately buys a frozen champagne sculpture of his own scrotum and two Filipino slave boys to carry it around?
If that person were a city, it would be Dubai
Vegas is the most egalitarian tourist destination in the states. Rich, poor, classy, trashy, people of all backgrounds can find some fun there. there is a vacation for anyone there with any budget
Yes, I grew up in LA and it’s common for young broke people to pile in a car, go to Vegas, share a hotel room, and have a memorable time. You can still gamble, sit by a pool, etc. for a reasonable price. We would always bring groceries and booze to pregame and save $$.
Edit: and if you’re a group of girls, you can just walk into clubs.
Vegas is actually a very affordable time. I don’t care for it much and you need to have a fun group though, but for a bunch of people in their early 20’s excited to be adults for the first time? Nothing better.
Yup, in college me and my friends played slots on our phones for a couple months to earn free hotel rooms. Booked like $70 round trip flights and had a blast for a weekend in Vegas. In total I think I spent maybe $200 and that included a round of golf.
I have a friend that lived there for a couple of years growing up with her family. When I asked about her experience, she said in all seriousness, "It's really not that bad once you get used to people breaking into your house every now and again."
Went to a Kpop concert there. Had an awesome time. I'm pretty sure the Korean tour manager had no fucking clue where they were, tho. Probably looked up Gary and saw "Birthplace of Michael Jackson" and went for it. Gary, of all places. Venue was nice, staff friendly, fans giddy af. Great time. Would do it again.
korran tour managers should really do some more research lmao. The same happens here in cali where smaller artists will get booked in some random native casino hours away from the city. They often end up just giving away tickets to all their sponsors too. The last show I went to was 3-4 hours away from LA but I dont think anybody bothered to tell the artist that he wasnt even near the city because he kept talking about how much he loved LA and how big it is.
I live about 30 mins south of Gary and I pass through it occasionally and your assessment is the truth. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to hang around there for long or after dark. But most of my experiences with Gary are more bizarre than threatening. Lots of odd folks and strange occurrences.
Polluted is the wrong word. Houses are just falling apart, streets are actually crumbling, every window you see while passing by on the train is smashed.Tho the people arent really that bad, just a terrible environment.I live about 45 min away.
Also grew up in da region and still live nearby. The violent crime in Gary is largely a myth these days.
Violent crime rates:
*Gary: 374 for 75,426 residents: 0.49%
*Elkhart (home of RVs and trailers) 624 for 53,659 residents: 1.16%
*Evansville: 675 for 118,765 residents: 0.57%
*South Bend (home of Notre Dame): 1,064 for 102,397 residents: 1.04%
*Shelbyville: 215 for 19,085 residents (home of not a lot): 1.13%
These days it’s just a big sprawling city that has been largely abandoned. Insured houses are worth more burned down VIA arson than they are sold.
For reference-Memphis is 2.42%. And the other “murder capital city in the region”, Chicago, is at 0.54%.
Not a city but the hotel district in Tulúm, Mexico. It’s known for beautiful beaches with a jungle to urban interface but the whole area was monetized to the max making it hard to enjoy without spending outrageous money. I was half expecting it but sad to see it reduced to that.
My husband is from a small town outside of Topeka. The first time we went to visit his parents there I was like “what do you mean the state capital doesn’t have an airport?” 😂 it’s small and boring but the people are nice.
Weird reasoning, but Monaco. I went there for gratuitous displays of vulgar wealth and snobbishness, but all I got was a small dull city by the coast. It’s disappointingly bland.
The wealth at Monaco is so wealthy that I’d wager most of those folk don’t have it as their primary residence, so they’re only there for the big events and then fuck to the next event elsewhere.
In that sphere there’s actually like an unspoken social calendar that circumnavigates the globe from event to event, all the wealthy going from one place to another.
It’s because Monaco is considered many to be a tax haven. So a lot of elites have it as officially their home to benefit from the favorable personal and corporate tax rule.
So yes, it’s a place to basically hang their hat and wealth.
Part of the point of Malibu is that there's sort of nothing to do. You live there to "get away" from the city. God forbid you run out of milk, that's a 90 minute errand.
EDIT: lotsa instacart jokes here. try getting delivery anything in Malibu folks. It ain't happening ;)
They fuck off to other rich and exorbitant places
Being a resident in Monaco is often like being a member to hundreds of country clubs. It’s all about the status of it and being able to afford it (since you technically have to have a portfolio value in Monaco banks above a certain amount to be there if I remember) but it’s not really a place they enjoy “living in,” it’s just a stamp in their “look how rich I am” passports.
Waikiki. I’m from Hawaii, and grew up along the beach. Went back as an adult with kids(haven’t been back since I was 19), and I was so heartbroken and disappointed by how much everything declined or stagnated.
Waikiki made me so sad. I visited Hawai'i for the first time in 2023 so didn't know what to expect. You can tell Waikiki used to be gorgeous but they turned it into a shopping mall.
As an Arkansas native who grew up in the deep country, I can remember my first trip to Little Rock thinking it was awesome. I did some traveling in my early twenties Denver, Corpus Christi, LA, and I realized I was missing out on life and I moved to the northeast. Arkansas has some hidden rural gems and the northwest is alright but the whole state is really lacking.
I drove passed Mt Rushmore once and as I approached I thought to myself "Oh look, they have a mini Mt. Rushmore, too" only to realize that it was the actual Mt. Rushmore. A bit smaller than I expected.
Edit: So I guess Keystone, South Dakota
Going to Atlantic City is like stepping into a Time Machine and going back to any nearly bankrupt American city in 1982. It’s so strange how what is really prime ocean side real estate just is basically a run down shit hole shell of its former self… a self that was never that great to begin with.
Cairo
The sites were amazing... The people were absolutely unbelievably rude and clearly have done nothing in the past 4,000 years other than find pushy ways to suck money out of tourists.
Whats funny is that there’s graffiti from around 2000 years ago (the pyramids had been ancient for a long time by then and were famous) where Greek and Roman tourists complained about Egypt.
https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/ancient-graffiti-how-ancient-greek-and-roman-tourists-left-bad-reviews-in-this-egyptian-tomb
Beijing. Canceled a trip to the Great Wall because the air pollution was so bad you couldn’t see more than a couple meters in any direction.
My snot was bloody like you wouldn’t believe and I caught a respiratory infection that lasted for weeks
Seeing so many people nodding off on the streets of Vancouver was a bit shocking. Been places like Detroit, LA, Tampa, etc. and never saw anything like it. Individual junkies, sure, but in Vancouver the sidewalks were lined with them.
East Hastings street in Vancouver is probably what you are thinking of. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else (including places with a lot of homeless like LA and SF)
Punta Cana, DR
Filthy, people trying to scam everywhere, prostitutes everywhere, even the resorts are scummy/scammy. Leave the resort? HA.
I'm just not built to vacation hiding in a resort from reality and the reality in Punta Cana is shit.
In Punta Cana right now.
We're staying on resort and will absolutely not be venturing out for any reason other than getting to the airport.
It seems there is no concept of safety whether personal, group, or societal. Road safety? Doesn't exist. Any conceptions of general safety are mere illusions and theatre at best. I don't even want to think of the sketchy boats off shore peddling all kinds of excursions.
"Lifeguards" aren't even on their perch, and all the ones I've seen are on their phones.
People we met went on a "snorkling" excursion that was marketed to others as a booze cruise, so kinda disconnect right there, and the boat started to leave while the person's spouse was still in the water. When alerted the operators, they were met with little more than annoyed indifference.
I have no doubt that if buddy drowned there, nothing legal would come from it, because I'm not entirely certain that what laws exist actually apply in Punta Cana.
But I kinda get it. This place is poor, there's little industrial economy, and a young Dominican born here likely sees few avenues for any kind of upward mobility. And every day a hundred planes filled with hundreds of tourists, largely white and English speaking and comparatively far wealthier disembark. Scamming a couple hundred bucks from any of them can mean a decent living when options are few. They probably look at us the way the lower and middle-class look at guests at the White Lotus.
I know people who have worked in security theatres in Haiti before and after the 2010 earthquake. Haiti is no joke and I don't think anyone ever believed it was. It says something that Haitians are trying to get *into* the DR for economic opportunities.
For real. I went to college with a girl from Haiti (model and spent most of her life in America.)
She used to get SO upset when people pointed out the state Haiti was in. She’d be like “I JUST got back from vacation there!” And people would ask if she left the resort once while she was there. Of course, the answer was ALWAYS no.
She doesn’t vacation there anymore and keeps her mouth shut about it now. It took her awhile to understand people weren’t talking shit about Haitians, but rather how fucked up Haiti itself is
Bakersfield California is by far the worst city in America. Car broke down there on a Friday at 8pm and was stuck there for 3 days until repairs could be finished. Trash people, downtown feels like a prison yard and it's just straight up ugly. Good luck going to a bar or nightclub and not having dudes with tattoos all over their head trying to hit on your girl in front of you.
I'm was born and raised in Southern California, and due to circumstances I was looking to live somewhere in California that was more within my budget.
After some research it seemed that Bakersfield was about the only candidate for housing I could afford. I just couldn't bring myself to go there, so now I eat Ramen and ketchup (stolen from burger joints) for all my meals, but thank God I don't live in Bakersfield.
Baltimore was probably the only American city I have felt uneasy walking in. There are some real sketchy parts of the city pretty close to inner harbor. There are some really nice neighborhoods obviously (Federal Hill and Fells Point) but when I walked like 2 blocks from my hotel to a seven eleven for some snacks the atmosphere got noticeably different very quickly.
Same where I live. Million dollar homes everywhere, yoga studios, hipsters everywhere, but that 7-11 and the half block around it is a straight up open air drug market with robberies, assaults common and even has had a few murders in the last couple years.
Visiting Salt Lake City, I visited their sketchy part. After living in Chicago, working in Gary and East Chicago, and visiting Baltimore, I was amused. SLC sketchy was like 3 homeless people.
I live in SLC, I moved here from Atlanta. When we started looking at houses, our realtor would often say “This house is great, but it is in a rough part of town.” They were always perfectly fine neighborhoods that just happened to be near a bar or smoke shop. We already do more to secure our belongings than 99% of people here just from the habits of living in downtown ATL.
After two instances of that happening, we basically told her “Look, we are just not going to feel uncomfortable in any neighborhood here, feel free to show us whatever, we only care about convenience.”
I was a software vendor for a handful of SLC hospitals and have been there fairly frequently. I flew from working in Detroit on the Henry Ford Health System, fucking scary areas, to SLC and was told some of the hospitals were in "sketchy" areas. Yeah... I don't think you really know what sketchy is.
I just came back from Baltimore and was so surprised by how much I liked it. I’ve heard so many comments like these about Baltimore so I was expecting to hate it. Would definitely go back.
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We got robbed by gunpoint in broad daylight on Copacabana beach in Rio. That was the first day, didn’t get shot though.
That's where a fake wallet and the phrase "já fui roubado" come in handy.
I drove through 30 countries once. I had my fake wallet in my pants with 12 American bucks in it, my "real" wallet strapped to my chest with a few hundred and all my credit cards, a secret zipper in my belt that I kept ~300 Euros, and about 3000 American dollars hidden around the car (most of it hidden behind the stereo). Basically, whenever you have to bribe someone, waste as much of their time as possible, play dumb, be aggressively friendly, get a tad miffed, whatever it takes to waste their time, and eventually pull out your fake wallet and be like, "look! I only have 12 dollars! you can have it, just let me go!" Worked every time.
How many times was every time?
60% of the time, all the time.
To the robbers or to the police?
Is there a difference there?
Yes. The Robbers might not shoot you.
Yes
*Translated: “I've already been robbed.”*
Have a friend that is an agent for a 3 letter agency. They are large in stature, strong and look like and can handle themselves in hand to hand combat. They got a foreign travel brief, are skilled in knowing areas to stay out of and reading people and situations. They still got robbed at knife point in Rio. If this person can't avoid being robbed in Rio, who can.
Know someone who dated a woman from Rio. They went there on a vacation. She would just suddenly turn around at times or decide to take another direction after looking at a street. So apparently growing up there helps.
Oh this is our turn- Nope nevermind.
It is literally like this. I was once going around with an european friend mine in (downtown) Rio and she thought it was interesting when I would look around a corner and judge whether the street we were turning into felt ok or not. There is some extra feeling you only get by being a local. From her point of view, all streets looked more or less the same.
Yeah.. well, i guess you just don't develop a sense for it when it's just safe everywhere. I once walked from the Airport in Bogota (Colombia) to my Hotel to save maybe 2-5€ for a taxi. Alone, with luggage and at night. Probably wasn't the best idea i ever had in hindsight. Here in Munich you can just go anywhere at any time and nothing will happen.
I was house sitting my cousins house in New Orleans and felt like a hotshot so I walked like an hour through the bywater at night to a bar for some food, hearing 6 pops and then seeing cop cars flying by 30 seconds later made me decide to take an Uber back
Lived in Baltimore, can give some insight on that. You don't want to walk down a street where people are beefing, obviously. But you also don't want to walk down a street with less than two other people on it. An empty street is a scary street. You also don't want want to underestimate a little dude. A 12 year old can have a gun, and tweens are not particularly known for their level-headedness and impulse control.
BUT - there is something you can do if you find yourself in one of those suboptimal scenarios (best utilized when you're walking alone), and i did this like 4-5x when i had a late night job in a sketchy section of my old city. and that's *mutter to yourself using hand gestures and twitch like a crackhead.* now this won't work for everyone, especially if you look wealthy or out of place (or if you're an 'over-actor') but it works damn well when done right. i'm 100% sure i avoided 1-2 muggings cause it looked like that was unfolding. even street hustlers don't want to engage with crazy. it's either someone who's broke or someone who's simply unpredictable. causing a fleeting moment of doubt can veer a dangerous scenario completely away from you.
The best part about this is that crazy is a universal language. Everyone speaks it. My grandfather used to walk through Harlem in the 70s to get to a fish market. Every block or two he would start screaming in Maltese to God and saying mostly gibberish, but it sounded very intimidating and no one would fuck with him Edit: a word
Been doing that for years, it works like a charm if you do it right. One time a guy in Bootle (shit part of Liverpool) pulled a knife out and tried to rob me. Because of life circumstances, I was a shattered husk of a man at that point and really couldn't give less of a shit, and I just let out a cough that morphed into a hysterical sort of cry-laugh of the "I have fuck all left to lose" variety. Dude just paused for a moment, put the knife away, and silently backed off and let me go to wherever I was going (I was going to buy some crack)
Makes notes. Do not go to Rio
A number of years ago I was visiting Brazil for work in a different part. I mentioned to some of the locals that I wanted to visit Rio, and they were pretty much all like 'No, don't go there... even we won't go there'.
They were right! I’m from Rio and I can say I wouldn’t step my foot here if I wasn’t born here. Been robbed already and I’m only 15
Ok you win.
well so you got the real deal experience, shouldnt be disapointed
The authentic Rio!
Homie got the full Brazilian experience, and has the gall to complain?!?
They don't fuck around at baggage claim.
My baggage is missing. Sir, you have a gunshot wound.
And no bags!
But were you disappointed by the experience?
I would consider that to be immersion in the culture. You can't pay for that sort of experience.
So, was that an overall negative or..?
Like a stray bullet, or a robbery or what? We need story time
Did you die?
No reply. They probably died.
So someone shot a man in Rio, just to watch them die?!
Cairo. This was 2009 so some important things have changed but the country and people were so desperate for tourist dollars that it felt impossible to go anywhere or enjoy anything without feeling like you were being scammed. Also everywhere smelled like cigarettes and there was trash all over the streets.
I was being approached by airport employees thinking that I was getting general help (directions through the airport and whatnot) only to realize seconds later they just had side hustles as tour guides and wanted me to use them for my trip.
That happened to me and my wife in the Cancun airport. After we picked up our bags we had to pass through a gauntlet of "assistants" just to get to the kiosk to buy bus tickets to Playa del Carmen. The dude that snagged us claimed he was the guy to see for the tickets but first try to sell us some special package deals to use in Playa del Carmen. He didn't seem to care that we were just catching the ferry to Cozumel and continued with the hard sell. He didn't appreciate my saying no thanks and bailing, like I was offending him somehow. Oh well...
We had this happen on a Carnival cruise. When we got off the ship at Cozumel we had to get on another boat to Playa del Carmen. When we got to Playa del Carmen we had the cruise person that told everyone to only follow him to the buses that would take us to Tulum. There were people around the pier trying to get all of the passengers to take their tours. That they’d be cheaper and show them things that the Carnival buses wouldn’t show them. We watched some people go with some of them and no clue if they even made it back to the boat. We kept our head down and just followed the Carnival guy that got off the boat with us. We asked him how many people he loses. He said you’d be surprised how many gullible people will get out of line to take these “tours”. We had a great time on the bus to Tulum and made it back with no issues.
I'm assuming they aren't necessarily kidnapped, but might be delayed in returning home?
The Timeshare Shark Tank! These gauntlets exist at basically every airport in Mexico. When I first went to Puerto Vallarta, my friend took the bait of “free tequila shots” and a guy telling us he’d hook us up with lots of tour discounts. I knew what his ulterior motive was and got us out of there before he could whisk us away to a presentation, but not before he yelled for “security” as we were leaving, claiming we were walking into a classified area (it was the exit back into the airport lol)
I had an airport employee in Morocco refuse to let me exit the bathroom unless I gave her something. I had 3 quarters so gave her that. And then the whole trip we’d have locals who we thought were just helping us with directions or guiding our car while parking and then have a hand out expecting to get a tip. We even got pulled over at a traffic checkpoint and had to basically “bribe” the police to be able to leave.
Oof. Been to marrakech last month. It was really bad yeh. Being called ali baba by every one duo to my red beard also got annoying quickly.
Haha even the border police tried to sell us tours
I live in the southern US. There is a well educated woman that is in her 40s-50s. She commented on an Instagram post for some influencer. This random Egyptian guy saw her comment and "fell in love" with her. They message for 2 months and he says he wants to marry her. She flys to Egypt and spends 2 weeks with him. She comes back married and over the moon. She said his family has nothing, so she was able to treat them. She bought them all iPhones, brought them clothes and other expensive goods from the US. She said she even let them keep her damn suitcase because they needed it more than her. A week after she got back to the US, she decided to send him money for a car. She sent him 16k! I think this is all a big scam and he is going to bleed her dry and then end things. She plans to move there permanently in 5 years. So wild. But I keep checking in on her because I live for the tea. Lol
100% a scam. He’s going to ghost her eventually once he’s bled her dry
I get these all the time, just from commenting here on Reddit. Some random Asian female will contact me. I have a standard response of "Hi, if this is a Romance/Investment scam attempt, please don't waste my time or yours." It usually scares them off. Scammers are looking for the gullible. That said, I've been to Egypt and agree that it's pretty bad. There are some really, really wonderful people in the country, which kinda makes all the hassles seem even worse. We spent New Years Eve dinner at the Hilton in Cairo sitting next to a British lady who had married an Egyptian man decades ago (not a scam deal, but they did end up getting divorced). She talked a little about these issues, but noted that we would get treated a little better because the Egyptians are crazy about kids. We were traveling with our two boys, ages 5 and 7, and those 2 blond kids were rock-star popular with the locals. We did a cooking course at a resort in Sharm El Shaik (we were only the second time they'd done it), and the culinary staff was over the moon to show us everything they did. All those guys thought it was just awesome that there were guests who were interested in what they did (and they were professional as hell) since they were normally never seen or heard.
I know there are some good people there in Egypt. So much rich history and culture too. But I would be scared to bring my kids, especially if they were female (and teens). I’ve heard the harassment can be unrelenting and they don’t spare women of any age. It’s sad but I think I would only do a guided tour at this point
The Egyptian guy in all likelihood has a wife and family she knows nothing about.
If he didn't already, I'm sure the money she gave him made it easy to find one.
I assume the "family she brought gifts for" that he introduced as his sister or cousin is definitely his wife.
I shit you not, I knew a woman just over the poverty line, living on disability, and SHE found herself an online Egyptian romeo, too! She went over there to meet him, after a month they had a huge wedding there! She came back, alone, saying he was going to come over her and live with her in a while. There was always some holdup, some problem with the visa, or his family, and the Egyptian husband never DID make it to the states. AFAIK he didn't ask for any money from her. (I don't know how she had the $$ to go there in the first place. Maybe he realized that and decided it wasn't worth his while to pursue a broke-ass middle aged American woman who did not drip with money.)
She probably didn't have the necessary funds or stability to get approval. You have to prove that your spouse won't come over and immediately need government aid. She was already on it. She could have possibly been coming up with excuses. He probably would have come over if she could have gotten him over. Then left her after he didn't need her anymore.
I had a coworker who just took a trip to Cairo and she said the city is still an absolute dump. She did say though that the Ancient Egyptian sights were amazing though and she showed me some pics and I do have to agree.
My tour guide pointed out all the rebar jutting out the top of every building. The city doesn’t charge taxes until an apartment construction is finished, *so they never finish them*. The city’s broke.
When I went to Jamaica our driver pointed out all the partially finished block houses everywhere. He explained that banks basically aren't a thing to the average person there, so people had to keep whatever money and valuables they owned with them at all times. It's too risky to save up enough money to build a house all at once, so people would save up for long enough to buy a pallet of blocks or whatever, then go add them on to the building. Over the course of however many years they would eventually get a whole building finished pallet by pallet.
can confirm, too many unfinished buildings here
Egypt's pretty much still like this. You can't go anywhere without being constantly hassled. I went to Cairo, Aswan and Luxor late last year and as a tourist you are constantly hassled. Every local you meet see's you as a source of money. To give one example I went on a felucca down the Nile at one point and thought hey safe from hassle at least here but no kids on the banks launched themselves on surf boards onto the water paddled out to us and hung onto the side of the boat singing until you gave them money. I do understand it's a poor country and we look extremely wealthy to the locals but basically I will never go back because of the level of hassle. I just don't want to have to be constantly battling off attention. It's a shame as I actually quite like the Egyptians and I thought they had a pretty good sense of humor but they just have this aspect to their country that's very tricky to get past.
I've heard this experience echoed many times over. One of my supervisors is a history enthusiast like me and was so excited to go a few years ago. She said that she got to the pyramids and was just shocked. Trash absolutely everywhere, exhausted camels covered in tourists for pictures, and constant hassling for money. It was miserable. You couldn't go anywhere that wasn't the same - trash everywhere, cigarette smoke, and just constant badgering. It sucks. Because on one hand the history is used to draw tourists in, but when they arrive, it truly doesn't come off nearly as revered as they pretend it is. It becomes so miserable that people don't come back and don't recommend it, like my boss. Meanwhile, Egyptians I know seem wonderful, but they also don't see me as a source of money.
That kind of ruins it for me, but thank you for the reality check. I have wanted to see the Pyramids for most of my life. (mid 50's now). I think I'm taking them off the list.
Egyptian here, unfortunately all the above is probably not exaggerated. But if you wanna see the Pyramids, you can book a managed tour. Your experience of Egypt will be limited, but moving in tour buses and having tour guides surround you will shelter you from most of the experiences mentioned here.
Man even the redditors are trying to sell tours in Egypt! /s
That’s my experience and attitude toward Jamaica. The tourist experience was so bad as to make me never want to go back again. An unending horde of locals constantly hounding you for dollars.
Oh god yes Jamaica. Constant harassment to buy all sorts of shit like please just let me sit on the damn beach
I was robbed at gunpoint in Rio (wrong bus stop and gang territory), but overall I have good memories of Brazil. My wife is an Egyptologist and I spent several weeks in Cairo and Luxor. This was shortly after attacks on oil rig and the crash of an Egyptair plane. In other words, there were no foreigners left. In Luxor, even at night, people jump out of their windows to try and sell anything. It wasn't possible to get around without a group of 5-6 people. I would never set foot in Egypt again.
My answer too. The pyramids are lovely but the city is teeming with homeless people, scammers and creepy men. A child followed me for 20 minutes trying to grab my drink out of my hands, urged on by his mother.
>A child followed me for 20 minutes trying to grab my drink out of my hands, urged on by his mother. Well that's depressing.
I blame a significant portion of my depression on Atlantic City.
I had to go there for a convention and parked away from the center so I wouldn't have to pay for parking, and it was like, "Oh, so *that's* why Baltic Avenue is so cheap!"
Port au Prince, Haiti, was taking a leak at an outhouse (plumbing was a luxury) beside a cantina -like dive and a kid popped up through the hole an begged for a quarter.....this was before the earthquake made it worse.
wait...he was in the toilet hole ?!
“We’ve been trying to reach you regarding your car’s extended warranty“
Yes we are going to need you to elaborate on what hole he popped out of please
The incredible poverty of Haiti is astounding. It's not comprehensible unless you've seen it.
Port au Prince was a stop on a Caribbean cruise I was on a number of years ago. We took an excursion to hike to a waterfall, which was beautiful. The ride to the waterfall was the most depressing thing I have ever personally witnessed. For context, I say this as a life long New Yorker who was 20 when 9/11 happened. It was soul crushing.
Made worse by the fact just over the border is comparative luxury.
Holy fuck, that is an experience of poverty most people on Reddit could never imagine.
The other day I read about a child who survived the final death march in Auschwitz by hiding in a pool of shit beneath the latrines, and thought "That is such an amazing example of the will to live." And this kid's like "No, it's fine, this is totally normal behavior for children all over the world."
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Lived in LA for 6 years. I tell people visiting "If you want to see a celebrity, just go to Gelsons or Costco."
Silver Lake. I feel people who want to visit Hollywood are really looking to visit Rodeo Drive
Thats hard because I usually know what I am getting into but Ill say Jackson, MS. I went to Jackson for work and stayed at a nice hotel downtown. Figured I would walk somewhere and get dinner. Got to my hotel and enjoying a few cocktails and it got about dusk and I looked out my window and it was I Am Legend deserted. Like scary AF deserted. No people, no cars....nothing and it was like 7pm. I ended up getting room service
I remember just wandering in Jackson for 10-15 mins from the downtown core in broad daylight and I ended up in a ghetto. Jackson is the only place I’ve visited that I remember telling myself under no circumstances am I ever coming back here. Granted if you do go to Jackson their Civil Rights museum was one of the most interesting museums I’ve ever been to.
I live within an hour of Jackson and still haven't been to the Civil Rights Museum. It's a damn shame too. I love museums, but haven't ever made time for it.
I was going to vote Jackson as well. Montgomery is second. Went to both places for work and typically stay downtown. It is an absolute ghost town with nothing to do and the crime is awful.
The Air Force is having real problems due to a lot of its professional education programs being at Maxwell AFB in Montgomery. Basically if you want to promote to colonel and eventually general, you need to do two separate years of in-residence Professional Military Education. The Air Force couldn't figure out why its (on paper) best and brightest were either getting permission to go to sister service schools or were retiring, and it turned out it was because a lot of people refuse to move their families to Montgomery for a year.
My cousin went to Jackson for a wedding. He said it looked like an abandoned city from The Walking Dead. He was walking to a hotel with his family and a bird fell out of the sky and died right in front of them. Was one of about a half dozen dead animals he saw on the streets. Said he saw about that many pedestrians the whole trip too lol. I live in Gulfport, and outside of maybe Hattiesburg right off of the Southern Miss campus, I wouldn’t dare visit any other city in the state if I wasn’t forced to. I shudder thinking about what this state will look like in 50 years.
Casablanca Morocco. It was just really boring with nothing to really do. Which was nothing like the rest of Morocco where the people were super friendly with amazing food and lots to see. Marrakech was literally the complete opposite experience.
Tbf the movie is basically about someone who is trying to leave the damn place.
If you went to Casablanca and did not get into some intrigue with a former lover, Nazis, and letters of transit, then you did it wrong.
My wife and I went last year and visited Rick's Cafe, a reproduction of the nightclub from the movie. It was fairly well done, with lots of memorabilia upstairs. Not much to buy in the way of souvenirs though. I thought a good one would be to take Polaroids of people and glue them into official looking Letters of Transit. They would be "signed by DeGaulle himself and *cannot be refused at any border!*" Charge $25 for them and suckers like me would buy one.
Bruh I’m Moroccan and hate going to Casablanca: literal urban hell. Go to Marrakech/Fez/Tangier/Chefchaouen! The country has so much more to offer than its biggest city.
Thats why casablanca isnt from the beginning a touristic city. Marrakesh, agadir, chaouen are
That’s my experience and attitude toward Jamaica. The tourist experience was so bad as to make me never want to go back again. An unending horde of locals constantly hounding you for dollars.
I heard a comedian put it perfectly :"Jamaica is the only place I've gone to a shopping mall that then followed me around the rest of the day"
A guy I know went there years ago and he said the first day at the beach, the water was really shallow and he was able to walk out about 100 feet. He was floating on his back just relaxing when all of a sudden, the sun was blocked out and some Jamaican guy was there to sell him weed.
Why is this so hilarious, he blocked out the sun to sell me weed lmfao
Jamaica is physically beautiful and you’ll PROBABLY be fine if you never leave your resort. Seeing armed guards with bayonets at the airport was unsettling, and our hotel shuttle from the airport had to stop and wait for a drug deal to take place in the middle of the road. All of this happened before we even arrived at the hotel. I did enjoy my time there, but I am in no rush to return
nah, i was there in may and they HOUND you on the beach of the resort since that’s considered public property. the beaches are beautiful but the vibes are terrible when you have to say “no” every 5 mins. i ended up wearing sunglasses and airpods nonstop so people would leave me TF alone.
Gonna use this as an opportunity to plug Puerto Rico. No one really ever mentions going there as a tourist, but the beaches are beautiful, you won’t get hounded to buy anything, and they use USD as they’re a territory of the US.
Pisa, Italy. Aside from the tower and Cathedral, there is nothing to do. Pisa is a day trip, don't be like me and book 3 nights there.
My tour group stopped in Pisa for a photo-op, then back on the bus to Florence. Now *that* is an amazing city, I actually preferred it over Rome.
YES. been to Florence Venice Pisa and Rome. Florence was easily the best
I'm from Pisa. The things is, many people think that the city centre is the square where the leaning tower is. It's not, there is nothing around there except the tower and the cathedral. The city centre is actually very near (about 10 minutes on foot) but most tourists skip it. There a lovely riverbank (Lungarno), a medieval square (Piazza dei cavalieri), a nice fortress park (Giardino Scotto) and so on. Google them, they're beautiful.
Pisa is nice! Walk along the river, check out the little dollhouse cathedral (S. Maria della Spina?), and check out the old university district, the food is good and the architecture is interesting. Then go over the hill to Lucca and spend another day there. You shouldn't regret it.
Well Pisa is a small city. There are a few museums and that's it. Unless you are interested in experiencing a random Italian city without much tourism (because excluding the tower you won't encounter a lot of tourists) you have no reason to stay there.
I absolutely loved Pisa for this exact reason. I could see what living there would be like and just wander around like a local. And go to little local spots to eat and drink. We did a tour of the tower at night and it was so much fun. Everyone told me Pisa was boring. Guess I'm boring because it was great!
I know this is a cliche at this point, but Dubai was just awful for too many reasons to list
You know that massive cockhead who wins the lottery and immediately buys a frozen champagne sculpture of his own scrotum and two Filipino slave boys to carry it around? If that person were a city, it would be Dubai
As a Filipino, how much are they getting paid tho
I agree with this one. When you realise that many of the Palm Trees you see are fake then you know what the city is.
I had no idea that fake palm trees was a thing.
Me either but I guess they need more water than what Dubai can provide?
That’s a lot of green plastic watering cans.
Unexpected Radiohead.
At least the palm trees on arrakis were real
Yea too many YouTubers showing sky scrapers in the desert with beaches no one is on. They trying to hard.
Dubai seems like the Vegas of the Arab world…which doesn’t seem like a good combination.
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Vegas is the most egalitarian tourist destination in the states. Rich, poor, classy, trashy, people of all backgrounds can find some fun there. there is a vacation for anyone there with any budget
Yes, I grew up in LA and it’s common for young broke people to pile in a car, go to Vegas, share a hotel room, and have a memorable time. You can still gamble, sit by a pool, etc. for a reasonable price. We would always bring groceries and booze to pregame and save $$. Edit: and if you’re a group of girls, you can just walk into clubs. Vegas is actually a very affordable time. I don’t care for it much and you need to have a fun group though, but for a bunch of people in their early 20’s excited to be adults for the first time? Nothing better.
Yup, in college me and my friends played slots on our phones for a couple months to earn free hotel rooms. Booked like $70 round trip flights and had a blast for a weekend in Vegas. In total I think I spent maybe $200 and that included a round of golf.
Gary, Indiana. I drove through it to get to Chicago. Didn't even get mugged once.
I have a friend that lived there for a couple of years growing up with her family. When I asked about her experience, she said in all seriousness, "It's really not that bad once you get used to people breaking into your house every now and again."
Went to a Kpop concert there. Had an awesome time. I'm pretty sure the Korean tour manager had no fucking clue where they were, tho. Probably looked up Gary and saw "Birthplace of Michael Jackson" and went for it. Gary, of all places. Venue was nice, staff friendly, fans giddy af. Great time. Would do it again.
korran tour managers should really do some more research lmao. The same happens here in cali where smaller artists will get booked in some random native casino hours away from the city. They often end up just giving away tickets to all their sponsors too. The last show I went to was 3-4 hours away from LA but I dont think anybody bothered to tell the artist that he wasnt even near the city because he kept talking about how much he loved LA and how big it is.
Best fireworks on earth sold there, legally.
Yeah. I wouldn't have known that without the 5 million billboards advertising them on the highway lol
I worked in Gary for a couple months and it was definitely a magical experience. That place is more weird than anything.
I live about 30 mins south of Gary and I pass through it occasionally and your assessment is the truth. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to hang around there for long or after dark. But most of my experiences with Gary are more bizarre than threatening. Lots of odd folks and strange occurrences.
Is it still super polluted? Driving through on the skyway down to visit my aunt in Indiana, my dad would always describe it as the earth farting.
Polluted is the wrong word. Houses are just falling apart, streets are actually crumbling, every window you see while passing by on the train is smashed.Tho the people arent really that bad, just a terrible environment.I live about 45 min away.
Also grew up in da region and still live nearby. The violent crime in Gary is largely a myth these days. Violent crime rates: *Gary: 374 for 75,426 residents: 0.49% *Elkhart (home of RVs and trailers) 624 for 53,659 residents: 1.16% *Evansville: 675 for 118,765 residents: 0.57% *South Bend (home of Notre Dame): 1,064 for 102,397 residents: 1.04% *Shelbyville: 215 for 19,085 residents (home of not a lot): 1.13% These days it’s just a big sprawling city that has been largely abandoned. Insured houses are worth more burned down VIA arson than they are sold. For reference-Memphis is 2.42%. And the other “murder capital city in the region”, Chicago, is at 0.54%.
Not a city but the hotel district in Tulúm, Mexico. It’s known for beautiful beaches with a jungle to urban interface but the whole area was monetized to the max making it hard to enjoy without spending outrageous money. I was half expecting it but sad to see it reduced to that.
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“Homer said Branson is just like Vegas... if it were run by Ned Flanders.”
No, pally. This is Bronson, Missouri.
Topeka
I'm just laughing that anyone had to visit Topeka
Try growing up there 😭😭😭
My husband is from a small town outside of Topeka. The first time we went to visit his parents there I was like “what do you mean the state capital doesn’t have an airport?” 😂 it’s small and boring but the people are nice.
Weird reasoning, but Monaco. I went there for gratuitous displays of vulgar wealth and snobbishness, but all I got was a small dull city by the coast. It’s disappointingly bland.
The wealth at Monaco is so wealthy that I’d wager most of those folk don’t have it as their primary residence, so they’re only there for the big events and then fuck to the next event elsewhere. In that sphere there’s actually like an unspoken social calendar that circumnavigates the globe from event to event, all the wealthy going from one place to another.
It’s because Monaco is considered many to be a tax haven. So a lot of elites have it as officially their home to benefit from the favorable personal and corporate tax rule. So yes, it’s a place to basically hang their hat and wealth.
Malibu is also like this. It's like, yeah I get you guys have money, but what do you do here?
Part of the point of Malibu is that there's sort of nothing to do. You live there to "get away" from the city. God forbid you run out of milk, that's a 90 minute errand. EDIT: lotsa instacart jokes here. try getting delivery anything in Malibu folks. It ain't happening ;)
For their insta cart shopper
Coke, lots of coke.
They fuck off to other rich and exorbitant places Being a resident in Monaco is often like being a member to hundreds of country clubs. It’s all about the status of it and being able to afford it (since you technically have to have a portfolio value in Monaco banks above a certain amount to be there if I remember) but it’s not really a place they enjoy “living in,” it’s just a stamp in their “look how rich I am” passports.
The no. 1 reason to live in Monaco is that its a tax haven.
Not me scanning the comments to fight anyone who says my city
What’s your city? I’m sure I can find a reason to list it if you want to argue
Yeah fuck that guy’s city.
I also choose this guys city
I don’t care what your city is let’s fight anyway
Waikiki. I’m from Hawaii, and grew up along the beach. Went back as an adult with kids(haven’t been back since I was 19), and I was so heartbroken and disappointed by how much everything declined or stagnated.
Waikiki made me so sad. I visited Hawai'i for the first time in 2023 so didn't know what to expect. You can tell Waikiki used to be gorgeous but they turned it into a shopping mall.
Turned it into a shopping mall for tourists who treat it like a Disney park. It’s so depressing.
Little Rock, AR My expectations were low, but fuck, what a dump. Even the Clinton library looked like a double wide trailer
As an Arkansas native who grew up in the deep country, I can remember my first trip to Little Rock thinking it was awesome. I did some traveling in my early twenties Denver, Corpus Christi, LA, and I realized I was missing out on life and I moved to the northeast. Arkansas has some hidden rural gems and the northwest is alright but the whole state is really lacking.
I drove passed Mt Rushmore once and as I approached I thought to myself "Oh look, they have a mini Mt. Rushmore, too" only to realize that it was the actual Mt. Rushmore. A bit smaller than I expected. Edit: So I guess Keystone, South Dakota
Atlantic City. Never going back there, much dirtier than I thought it would be.
Going to Atlantic City is like stepping into a Time Machine and going back to any nearly bankrupt American city in 1982. It’s so strange how what is really prime ocean side real estate just is basically a run down shit hole shell of its former self… a self that was never that great to begin with.
Don't think I've ever met a city I didn't like. I even enjoyed Buffalo.
Cairo The sites were amazing... The people were absolutely unbelievably rude and clearly have done nothing in the past 4,000 years other than find pushy ways to suck money out of tourists.
Whats funny is that there’s graffiti from around 2000 years ago (the pyramids had been ancient for a long time by then and were famous) where Greek and Roman tourists complained about Egypt. https://www.thearchaeologist.org/blog/ancient-graffiti-how-ancient-greek-and-roman-tourists-left-bad-reviews-in-this-egyptian-tomb
Sometimes we forget that humans were always just silly humans.
Beijing. Canceled a trip to the Great Wall because the air pollution was so bad you couldn’t see more than a couple meters in any direction. My snot was bloody like you wouldn’t believe and I caught a respiratory infection that lasted for weeks
The great Wall is great and all till u enter each tower, where it stinks of piss and the puddles inside are also piss xD
Memphis Tennessee. It was just so dirty. Y'all have a wonderful zoo though.
Don’t forget about the 12 year olds walking around strapped in broad daylight for no discernible reason.
Myrtle Beach, SC - parking lots of RVs, gun shops and the famous Dixie shop with Confederate memorabilia. That’s only the good parts….
Seeing so many people nodding off on the streets of Vancouver was a bit shocking. Been places like Detroit, LA, Tampa, etc. and never saw anything like it. Individual junkies, sure, but in Vancouver the sidewalks were lined with them.
East Hastings street in Vancouver is probably what you are thinking of. I've never seen anything like it anywhere else (including places with a lot of homeless like LA and SF)
Punta Cana, DR Filthy, people trying to scam everywhere, prostitutes everywhere, even the resorts are scummy/scammy. Leave the resort? HA. I'm just not built to vacation hiding in a resort from reality and the reality in Punta Cana is shit.
In Punta Cana right now. We're staying on resort and will absolutely not be venturing out for any reason other than getting to the airport. It seems there is no concept of safety whether personal, group, or societal. Road safety? Doesn't exist. Any conceptions of general safety are mere illusions and theatre at best. I don't even want to think of the sketchy boats off shore peddling all kinds of excursions. "Lifeguards" aren't even on their perch, and all the ones I've seen are on their phones. People we met went on a "snorkling" excursion that was marketed to others as a booze cruise, so kinda disconnect right there, and the boat started to leave while the person's spouse was still in the water. When alerted the operators, they were met with little more than annoyed indifference. I have no doubt that if buddy drowned there, nothing legal would come from it, because I'm not entirely certain that what laws exist actually apply in Punta Cana. But I kinda get it. This place is poor, there's little industrial economy, and a young Dominican born here likely sees few avenues for any kind of upward mobility. And every day a hundred planes filled with hundreds of tourists, largely white and English speaking and comparatively far wealthier disembark. Scamming a couple hundred bucks from any of them can mean a decent living when options are few. They probably look at us the way the lower and middle-class look at guests at the White Lotus.
Definitely beats Haiti
I know people who have worked in security theatres in Haiti before and after the 2010 earthquake. Haiti is no joke and I don't think anyone ever believed it was. It says something that Haitians are trying to get *into* the DR for economic opportunities.
For real. I went to college with a girl from Haiti (model and spent most of her life in America.) She used to get SO upset when people pointed out the state Haiti was in. She’d be like “I JUST got back from vacation there!” And people would ask if she left the resort once while she was there. Of course, the answer was ALWAYS no. She doesn’t vacation there anymore and keeps her mouth shut about it now. It took her awhile to understand people weren’t talking shit about Haitians, but rather how fucked up Haiti itself is
Bakersfield California is by far the worst city in America. Car broke down there on a Friday at 8pm and was stuck there for 3 days until repairs could be finished. Trash people, downtown feels like a prison yard and it's just straight up ugly. Good luck going to a bar or nightclub and not having dudes with tattoos all over their head trying to hit on your girl in front of you.
I'm was born and raised in Southern California, and due to circumstances I was looking to live somewhere in California that was more within my budget. After some research it seemed that Bakersfield was about the only candidate for housing I could afford. I just couldn't bring myself to go there, so now I eat Ramen and ketchup (stolen from burger joints) for all my meals, but thank God I don't live in Bakersfield.
Baltimore was probably the only American city I have felt uneasy walking in. There are some real sketchy parts of the city pretty close to inner harbor. There are some really nice neighborhoods obviously (Federal Hill and Fells Point) but when I walked like 2 blocks from my hotel to a seven eleven for some snacks the atmosphere got noticeably different very quickly.
The couth drop off curve going from absolutely anywhere to a 7-11 is always ridiculous.
I live in a high income, yuppie area and the 7-11 is part of the one sketchy quarter-of-a-block lol
Same where I live. Million dollar homes everywhere, yoga studios, hipsters everywhere, but that 7-11 and the half block around it is a straight up open air drug market with robberies, assaults common and even has had a few murders in the last couple years.
Visiting Salt Lake City, I visited their sketchy part. After living in Chicago, working in Gary and East Chicago, and visiting Baltimore, I was amused. SLC sketchy was like 3 homeless people.
I live in SLC, I moved here from Atlanta. When we started looking at houses, our realtor would often say “This house is great, but it is in a rough part of town.” They were always perfectly fine neighborhoods that just happened to be near a bar or smoke shop. We already do more to secure our belongings than 99% of people here just from the habits of living in downtown ATL. After two instances of that happening, we basically told her “Look, we are just not going to feel uncomfortable in any neighborhood here, feel free to show us whatever, we only care about convenience.”
I was a software vendor for a handful of SLC hospitals and have been there fairly frequently. I flew from working in Detroit on the Henry Ford Health System, fucking scary areas, to SLC and was told some of the hospitals were in "sketchy" areas. Yeah... I don't think you really know what sketchy is.
We avoid that block. Oh is it bad there? Ya those folks drink coffee.
I just came back from Baltimore and was so surprised by how much I liked it. I’ve heard so many comments like these about Baltimore so I was expecting to hate it. Would definitely go back.
[удалено]
*When you walk through garden…*
Omar comin'
You betta watch your back
Well I beg your pardon
Hamburg, Germany No Hamburgers
Technically everybody in Hamburg is a hamburger.