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Grand Turk in the Turks and Caicos was the worst vacation ever. We stayed at the "recently renovated Governors mansion." If recently renovated means throwing a dab of paint on everything peeling and falling apart, then I guess it was renovated. There was supposed to be horse back riding on the beach but all the horses ran wild or were held captive in small back yards. The horse dung all over the streets in "town" and used condoms cast about was a real treat too. There were only two out door restaurants on the whole island and tiny at that. Our luggage came hours after our flight and we were lucky to get it. The left behind luggage seems to be the norm. The locals were less then friendly with the "This is our island" mentality. We found an abandoned house with a nice beach so we thought we'd take a swim. That evidently was where the locals go to party because there were used syringes on the beach. Gibbs Cay was the highlight of the trip. Catching stingrays with our bare hands was fun. The scuba diving was great as well, but I was never so happy to fly out of a place in my entire life. It's been over ten years since we were there but I'd be willing to bet that it;s even worse now. To say the tiny island was a sewer would be a compliment.
This is fairly typical of many tropical getaways outside the U.S. I wouldn't call it tacky (cheap showiness), more like real life infringing on your vacation experience.
Elvis gift shops ...... lamps of an Elvis figurine that gyrated ..... a single human hair encased in hardened plastic, claimed it was Elvis's and could be yours for a mere $900.
DH saw Graceland years before we saw it together ..... at that time the tours were given by guides. People were asking these mind-numbing questions ...... did he really shoot out the TV set? Is this the bathroom where he died? Was the toilet seat really gold with diamonds?
What is the TACKIEST tourist attraction and/or vacation destination you ever had the misfortune to experience?
This may include over-rated and over-hyped places. Or places that have become run down dives. Or places that are just plain silly.
I want to hear your opinions and experiences!
I'll start:
South Of The Border, off I-95 in South Carolina (that's right, it's just south of the "border" with North Carolina. A former gas station and rest stop that became a kitschy Mexican-themed gas station and rest area with restaurants, trailer campground, gift shop, and motel. See the giant Sombrero Tower! Select from your choice of 50 different South Of The Border coffee mugs! Beware of tired grouchy kids and foul smelling rest rooms!
OMG that was such a hell hole...and my kids were reading all the billboards and counting down the miles till we arrived...
I find almost all theme parks to be tacky but that could be because I don't like theme parks in the first place. Carnivals take the tacky up to a new level. I really dislike them and almost everything about them, the whole "Carney" thing just creeps me out.
I have to agree that "Wall Drug" is pretty darn tacky. I just had to go there after seeing their signs all over north America.
North of the border is beyond tacky. It's in the complete crap category.
Young Street is a major street in Toronto and is extremely tacky.
The boardwalk in Atlantic city does not even rise to the level of tacky. It's worse than tacky but I still go there to take advantage of the great hotel bargains and the GREAT beach!!! I can ignore the boardwalk.
There was a theme park near my parents house in Winterhaven Florida called "Cypress Gardens" Going there was like being transported back to the 50s. I don't know if it qualifies as tacky or just extremely dated.
Now here in Canada we only have ONE single federal interprovincial highway. The TransCanada. AS proud a Canadian as I am I have to tell you all that the entire 4860 miles of it is tackyness taken to the next level. After traveling on almost every Interstate in the USA I'm acutely embarrassed that the entire national highway of Canada makes "North of the border" look not so bad.
There was a theme park near my parents house in Winterhaven Florida called "Cypress Gardens" Going there was like being transported back to the 50s. I don't know if it qualifies as tacky or just extremely dated.
Cypress Gardens falls in the category of Old Florida when people would actually go to smaller attractions as well as Disney/Universal/Busch Gardens. See also: the Weeki Watchee mermaids, Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, Silver Springs, and Wakulla Springs.
Cypress Gardens hit hard times in the 90s, went through a series of owners in the 00s, including one point where Jeb! and state government used $11 million in Florida Forever funding to try to keep it going under new management as some sort of heritage site, and eventually got sold to Legoland, which has done its best to restore the core of the old botanical garden to its original glory as part of its overall plan for Legoland Florida, given many longtime Floridians an extra fondness for the Danish brickmakers.
Old Orchard Beach, ME, the official beach of Quebec. Not only is there plenty of kitsch, it's American kitsch made in Asia and advertised in Quebecois.
If I can add the "most anticlimactic" attraction, that would be Plymouth Rock. My family took multiple trips to Cape Cod growing up, but my wife had never been. And she wanted to stop in Plymouth and see the rock. When we got there, she just looked at me and said, "You're kidding, right?"
South Of The Border, off I-95 in South Carolina (that's right, it's just south of the "border" with North Carolina. A former gas station and rest stop that became a kitschy Mexican-themed gas station and rest area with restaurants, trailer campground, gift shop, and motel. See the giant Sombrero Tower! Select from your choice of 50 different South Of The Border coffee mugs! Beware of tired grouchy kids and foul smelling rest rooms!
That's exactly the one I was going to name.
Not so much a tourist attraction, per se, but a tourist trap, all the same - the Iowa 80 truck stop in Walcott, Iowa.
Here's one from my state - Paul Bunyan and Babe, the Blue Ox:
I confess. I stop for them all - The Corn Palace, The World's Largest Ball of Twine, The Vortex, Wall Drug, Cadillac Ranch.
There's a little Iowa amusement park about ninety miles from where I grew up called Arnold's Park that's about a hundred years old and was the stuff of dreams in my childhood. Vintage rides, vintage shops, vintage treats. The last time I was there they'd moved out the old and built a McDonald's on the lakefront. Tsk.
A trip across country sixty years ago was a montage of regional quirks and oddities reflective sometimes of get-rich-quick schemes, sometimes born of local legend or one lone soul's greatest aspirations. It was amusing, colorful, thought-provoking.
Now you can drive coast-to-coast on the same highway, stay in the same motel room every night and eat in the same fast food place. Ho-hum.
Add the Atlantic coast of Delaware up to cape Henlopen in with it and you got a deal. Dewey and Rehobath are cool if you own a house there but the immediate town areas blocks from the beach have some wild stuff.
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