Worst place you've ever visited - for me it was Bali (appointed, living in)

[Amercity]

Gary, Indiana-Potholes in streets, Abandoned high rises, smoke from steel works, A lot of traffic due to being close to chicago. Depressed houses although the libraries were lavish inside. I wonder if thats where all the money went? or maybe they stole money to get their libraries to not look like a slum in india

East St.Louis, Illinois- Do i even need to explain? Dont go here.

McAllen, Texas- Looks like a city put together by hand and not tools, poverty

Garfield, Texas- Very Sterotypical suburb (McMansion houses, car dominated, no attractions) but im not saying MOST suburbs are like this. Creepy feel.

Slums in delhi- Here it seems the slums are the worst. Very polluted.

[ABQConvict]

Re: The rudeness of New Yorkers.

Rudeness is contextual. A woman I used to work with came from a rural area. When she moved to the city (not New York, but a regional city) she said she couldn't get over how rude the drivers were since they didn't WAVE HELLO to one another. After about a week I guess she got tennis elbow from so much unrequited waving and realized that certain niceties are not practical in different environments.

In other words, while it is nice to hold the door for the person right behind you, are you willing to hold the door for the next 50 people who are trying to get through the same door? Or while it is nice to exchange 5 seconds of idle chat with the cashier after the transaction, is it so nice when you are at the back of a line of 20 people, each of whom want to have a pointless conversation with the worker behind the counter while you wait?

[Geggo]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

The way to enjoy Kiehl is to hang out at the yacht clubs/docks until someone invites you to go sailing. That's what Kiehl's great for--sailing.

That might be a good idea in Kiel, Northern Germany, but not really in Kehl (Southern Germany) on the Rhine opposite Strasbourg/France...

[erasure]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Could you elaborate on this? Whatever happened to "Ciao, bella!"? I thought Italians loved women. Or is that only in the movies?

Ruth, Italy is a Catholic country and Catholics are very peculiar about women's role in a family - let's put it this way. I think they didn't even allow divorces in their country ( I don't remember up to what year,) but then divorces were allowed, but the wait before the new marriage was seven years. ( I know so, because my Italian girl-friend was in this situation.) Overall when I was staying with couple of families there, you start noticing certain things, listening to women and just observing, that it's different from Northern Europe in this respect. It was far cry from the life of my muslim relatives in Caucasus of course, yet I could spot certain similarities here and there, although on a surface those things were not noticeable in Italy right away.
I dunno, may be it has changed by now, but from what I hear - not much.

[Natural510]

Originally Posted by clongirl

This would be my experience also..and luckily I didn't have to stay very long since we were on a pitstop prior to heading to France.

My husband was trying to figure out the subway ticketing system and purchase 6 tix. Line behind us was growing increasingly long and the 'effin machine wouldn't allow him to buy 6 tix at once-only singles. NOBODY that stood behind him offered any information or help. He just got angry stares and pissed off attitudes even though we were fairly obviously tourists. Later I discover the kids didn't even need tix and could just duck underneath the turnstile yet nobody said a word.

Oh, and then some weird super windstorm suddenly blew down between the skyscrapers and blasted the city with garbage, dust,grit, anything that could be lifted off the ground and pelted us and our eyes as we exited the subway. Geez.

Later, we took a train to get to our hotel--every single passenger sat on the aisle seat leaving the window seat free so nobody else could sit down (I had four kids in tow and not one person moved for us or let any of us sit).

Finally..after standing for 10 minutes trying to tell my kids to hold on so they wouldn't fall, some man offered his seats to us. It was a frustrating experience for us...and we're from San Francisco so it's not like we are naive to urban ways!

Now when I visited Paris, a similar subway problem arose- having difficulty trying to figure out how to pay for the ticketing system on the Metro, several people tried to help us just for a comparison. They went out of their way to help.

Oh, and it's not like we're naive to urban life--we're from San Francisco where I sure hope that tourists wouldn't get the same treatment by my fellow San Franciscans.

They'd get the same treatment in San Francisco...you might see a child or pregnant woman given a seat on BART but never on MUNI, especially from a certain demographic which I won't name.

The only place I couldn't wait to leave was Gatlinburg Tennessee; wall-to-wall obesity and it's easy to see why...I don't think you could find a meal under 2000 calories and 30g of fat even if you ordered salad and water. The aesthetics outside the town itself were nice, still.

[chielgirl]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Academics who study tourism discuss this. Tourism destroys the very thing tourists travel to experience. As soon as a beautiful, isolated place is "discovered", more tourists inevitably come, and eventually the place is ruined. Bhutan handles it best. They charge so much for visa and hotels (like the Soviet Union did), that the cost limits the number of tourists that can visit. So they've avoided the fate of its neighbors, like Katmandu, which attracts druggies and has turned the town into a giant ramschackle youth hostel.

Absolute truth.
Here's the lyrics for a Greg Brown song called Boomtown:
Greg Brown - Boomtown Lyrics
Here come the tourists with their blank stares,
with their fanny packs - they are penny millionaires.

[miticoman]

Any place of this bloody world has its own special characteristics, in my opinion what makes the difference is your wallet. I know a guy who wanted to travel around the world but he had no money nor to buy toilet paper, (which is why I never shook hands with him ), I tried to make him understand that the good places are like beautiful women ... very expensive, but he does not understand and continues to annoy me

[miticoman]

Originally Posted by erasure

Ruth, Italy is a Catholic country and Catholics are very peculiar about women's role in a family - let's put it this way. I think they didn't even allow divorces in their country ( I don't remember up to what year,) but then divorces were allowed, but the wait before the new marriage was seven years. ( I know so, because my Italian girl-friend was in this situation.) Overall when I was staying with couple of families there, 1) you start noticing certain things, listening to women and just observing, that it's different from Northern Europe in this respect. It was far cry from the life of my muslim relatives in Caucasus of course, yet I could spot certain similarities here and there, although on a surface those things were not noticeable in Italy right away.
I dunno, may be it has changed by now, 2) but from what I hear - not much.

Totally right here the ladies are wrapped in their own burka, as you can....Armani Versace Trussardi ..griffed

1) yeahh the unveiled obscure reality

2) no news for now, but l will keep you well informed

Originally Posted by Kenneth-Kaunda

What's the worst place you've ever been to?

for me, top of the list must be Bali, Indonesia

absolutely horrible place, harassed literally every 10 seconds to buy something, no women, overpriced, traffic nightmare and just not a place worth going on holiday to.

any others?

You must not be Australian then if you had such a discouraging experience with Bali Indonesia.

Just joking, but it seems the foreigners that always enjoy Bali Indonesia the most really are Australians.

For Bali, I just don’t see how “no women, overpriced, and traffic nightmare” can be true for the entire island. Maybe you just saw a tiny bit of Bali, and could have seen more of the rest of the island to get a change of opinions.

Bali actually appears to be one of the furthest away locations from where I live in terms of geographic distance.

Most of my life, Indonesia was just one of those places I didn’t know existed.

I know it more now, and it appears to be a worthwhile good enough far away place to travel in.

However, there is so many other places higher on my preferences for international traveling.

I traveled in 8 countries total so far.

For the USA, I went to 13 states.

The worst places I have ever visited (Or at least the most mediocre/bland and least inspiring) was most of New Jersey, Connecticut, and Maryland, but I only went to them on my way to better places.

All of my other traveling experiences were much better, with lots of satisfying, valuable, fun memories that was good for my intellectual stimulation and perception.

I am one of those many people that is adaptable to traveling, being resourceful with knowing what to get from it and the best places to go for traveling.