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Or San Diego or Los Angeles. Or reportedly Honolulu. Have been to the other three, and was surprised how many homeless are there. It's probably the pleasant climate.
I was excited to go to Portland, OR because I always heared how nice the city is, clean and liberal, good food and beer scene. When we arrived everything was full of aggressive homeless beggars lying in the streets, everything was dirty and smelly. And I was like WTF?
I have been traveling to Seattle and Portland over the past 10 years through my work. Up to 5 years ago, I strongly considered moving to one of these places but the slow deterioration over the past 5 years, in both cities, resulting in what you described, deleted that idea from my list! Your description of Portland is exactly what I experienced on my last visit there! Such a shame!
Let's hear expectations vs reality about your travelings.
As you may or may not know i am fan of mountains. So the first time i went to Colorado i was super excited, but then when i landed in Denver i didn't realize the mountains would be so far away. At times it felt the city was nowhere near the mountains. I did love the city and people i met there but i had the expectations that mountains would be much closer like in Salt Lake City
Yeah, I would imagine many people out there who don't travel that much and don't know that much about geography (I'm not referring to you), would think the entire state of Colorado is mountainous, when probably at least 40% of the state is a semi-arid, high desert-like plain. Along those lines, many might think Denver is surrounded by this mountainous kingdom on all sides, like you're in Nepal of Bhutan, when if fact Denver is on that high plain, somewhat far from the moutnains!
Likewise, having lived in Arizona, people just assume the entire state is a hot barren desert, which is so far from the truth, but hey let people believe that, to keep down all those tourists!
I've traveled quite a lot within the US, just a bit outside of US ... the only place that blew my mind and expectations out of the water was NYC. I fell head over heels in love with it. Huge doesn't begin to describe it, either. ❤️
Let's hear expectations vs reality about your travelings.
As you may or may not know i am fan of mountains. So the first time i went to Colorado i was super excited, but then when i landed in Denver i didn't realize the mountains would be so far away. At times it felt the city was nowhere near the mountains. I did love the city and people i met there but i had the expectations that mountains would be much closer like in Salt Lake City
I go to CO every year and NEVER go to Denver. For me, Denver is just an airport. Fly to Denver, rent a car and drive an hour and you are in wonderful mountain country.
I was at my work in my former employment when suddenly the CEO showed up in my office. He asked, "Do you have a valid Passport?"
And I was like "Yeah", with a question mark on my face.
He said, I want you visit Johannesburg where the local engineers were having difficulties in running our software (on a multimillion dollar medical device). This was an emergency situation as rest of our engineers were either busy or on vacation.
He knew very well that customer service and visiting client sites to trouble shoot was NOT my specialty, but wanted a favor.
We briefly discussed the situation and I said, "OK let me give it a shot."
Three days later, I landed in Johannesburg. I never thought anything in particular about South Africa and spent the next 48 hours at the client site where another team of engineers had arrived from Germany to work in collaboration with us.
^^ This was to relate to OP was my expectation.
Following is the reality.
After we got the system up and running, a local doctor invited us for a safari trip. And I was like, we are here so why not?
And by this time I had settled in the enviornemment to start realizing these strange new and very pleasant bird songs early morning from hotel room window. (There was large wilderness area behind the hotel where my window would open).
This nature scene quickly sunk into me after the Safari trip - I had already noticed that the food was absolutely out of this world at very affordable prices.
The German Engineers would not stop praising the food, the quality of steaks, the portion size, presentation, amount of sides, and unreally good customer service that sounded almost free when you looked at the cost.
I extended my trip to another 3 days and visited Durban and Pretoria - I was really impressed by the atmosphere.
There was definitely something pure and organic in the air. The sweet natural aroma in air was something that I have not experienced anywhere else in the world.
South Africa literally caught me by a very pleasant surprise. Great value for the money. Great place to visit.
Yes, security situation is not a whole lot friendly but using common sense helps.
I would most definitely like to visit Cape Town with family.
Last edited by GoCardinals; 08-27-2017 at 06:46 PM..
Been there, and also noticed the problem. However, for me it was not that predominant as in Portland, because SFO has much more other stuff to offer, more things to see, and is overall bigger. But yes, it is a problem.
I wonder how people in this cities can be happy with those conditions. That is not a place where I would like to live, work and send my children to school. Especially not for the price tags that those cities come with. That mayor should be sent to hell asap.
I wonder how people in this cities can be happy with those conditions. That is not a place where I would like to live, work and send my children to school. Especially not for the price tags that those cities come with. That mayor should be sent to hell asap.
Not that I'm any fan of the homeless, but not sure how much can be done about them legally. And I'm sure cities like LA, SF, SD, etc. are attractive to them because of the climate and other enticing factors.
Puerto Rico really disappointed me. I expected the beaches to be cleaner and more beautiful; I expected the rain forest to be far more impressive; and I expected San Juan to be much cleaner and nicer generally.
Conversely, I thought Athens was WAY nicer than I expected. Obviously it is a large city with loads of problems, but we found the pedestrian-only Plaka district to be absolutely lovely, with almost no panhandlers or sketchy looking people as you frequently find in major tourist areas of European cities. I thought the new Acropolis museum was phenomenal; and the Acropolis was as impressive as anything in Rome. Athens is not my favorite city in the world by a long shot, but I really liked it and found it to be much, much nicer than I expected based upon reputation (much of which may pre-date the past 13 years of efforts to reduce smog, congestion, etc.).
Not that I'm any fan of the homeless, but not sure how much can be done about them legally. And I'm sure cities like LA, SF, SD, etc. are attractive to them because of the climate and other enticing factors.
They should not also hang out in the city center where there are a lot of people. Just stay somewhere quiet and peaceful.
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