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Probably Times Square out of that list, but it is a bit of an apples and oranges comparison comparing what is essential a few block district to entire neighborhoods. As for Hollywood, I get that a lot of the Walk of Fame has tacky shops/tour bus operators etc, but there are a lot of decent restaurants and theatres in Hollywood, even on or next to the Walk of Fame. The area also has nightlife. If you're talking about the whole neighborhood of Hollywood from roughly Franklin in the north to Santa Monica in the south and La Brea in the west to Van Ness in the east, the area with anything tacky is tiny compared to the whole neighborhood.
Same thing with the French Quarter in New Orleans (Only the southern half of Bourbon St is really tacky, the rest of the French Quarter is ok. For South Beach, there are a few tacky bars here and there, but most of it is not that tacky.
Mid-Atlantic beach towns are the definition of tacky. A bunch of buildings that tower over the sand, surrounded by a sea of parking and strip malls. There's at least 1 candy shop every 2-3 blocks and a mini-golf every 5-6 blocks.
Places like Ocean City, MD and Virginia Beach, VA are just sad.
Maybe south of the Delaware/Maryland line, but that doesn't sound to me like the beach towns in either Delaware or New Jersey, Atlantic City excepted.
Certainly not the sea-of-parking-and-strip-malls part, and not the buildings-towering-over-the-sand part either. The only buildings that do that are the casinos in AC. Most of the Jersey shore is very low-rise - and it's way overbuilt: parking lots are tucked in where they can fit them among all the houses.
The Delaware coast is the less overbuilt version of this. Rehoboth Beach remains my favorite mid-Atlantic beach town, and as someone else already noted, it looks nothing like OCMD or Virginia Beach. And it's more laid back than OCNJ. (It's also the only one of these communities that has an actual gay scene, which also influences my opinion. Asbury Park, NJ, has one too. Cape May IMO should but doesn't - it has the biggest collection of Victorian architecture of any East Coast seashore community.)
For Hollywood, I would say the Walk of Fame is definitely a tourist trap and is overrated. I had only been there less than 3 times during my 25 years of living in LA. But Hollywood as a whole is not overrated.
Also, the Chinese food in LA’s Chinatown is vastly overrated(a sharp contrast vs the Korean food in K-Town near the Wilshire) comparing to the Chinese food in SF Chinatown near the Union Square/Financial District and the Brooklyn/Manhattan/Flushing Chinatowns in NYC, SGV in LA is the “real Chinatown” and has the best and most authentic Chinese food.
Times Square and Chelsea Market in NYC, like the Hollywood Blvd in LA, are also tourist traps as well.
SF’s fisherman wharf is overrated but at least it has Boudin’s Sourdough & Bakery Cafe, one of my favorite go to places every time I’m in the Bay Area.
Las Vegas Strip, I think it all depends on how you judge it. Obviously, it is not as good as it was 10 or 20 years ago, but it is still one of the most vibrant and entertaining casino towns in the world for what it does. Vegas and NV wouldn’t have survived without it.
Hollywood is the biggest tourist trap in the world. Tourists travel there expecting to see someone famous and that hardly ever happens and they end disappointed because of that.
The attractions Hollywood DOES have are just overrated. The Hollywood sign is nothing special and neither is the Walk of Fame. Downtown LA is very bland, which doesn't do much, either.
*I'd love to mention Rodeo Drive and Santa Monica Pier as well. The Pier is always crowded and vastly overrated. Rodeo Drive serves no purpose for tourists, either.
Does anyone know of an actual case where a tourist planned a vacation to Los Angeles and came back disappointed because they didn't see their favorite actor wandering around a tourist zone randomly?
Where are people making the Hollywood sign and walk of fame out to be more than they are?
Are people hiking up to the sign and expecting to find more than....the sign?
The walk of fame is exactly what it is. You walk around and look at it, you see one you like take a picture. How could it be overrated? Its a sidewalk. No one has ever made it out to be anything more than that. Are there people showing up expecting to see the actor who corresponds with each star walking around?
The worst for me are the smaller towns that are built specifically for tourism and offer nothing redeeming outside of generic American consumeristic blandness. Vegas qualifies for cities but a town like Gatlinburg TN is just as bad if not worse.
For Hollywood, I would say the Walk of Fame is definitely a tourist trap and is overrated. I had only been there less than 3 times during my 25 years of living in LA. But Hollywood as a whole is not overrated.
Also, the Chinese food in LA’s Chinatown is vastly overrated(a sharp contrast vs the Korean food in K-Town near the Wilshire) comparing to the Chinese food in SF Chinatown near the Union Square/Financial District and the Brooklyn/Manhattan/Flushing Chinatowns in NYC, SGV in LA is the “real Chinatown” and has the best and most authentic Chinese food.
Times Square and Chelsea Market in NYC, like the Hollywood Blvd in LA, are also tourist traps as well.
SF’s fisherman wharf is overrated but at least it has Boudin’s Sourdough & Bakery Cafe, one of my favorite go to places every time I’m in the Bay Area.
Las Vegas Strip, I think it all depends on how you judge it. Obviously, it is not as good as it was 10 or 20 years ago, but it is still one of the most vibrant and entertaining casino towns in the world for what it does. Vegas and NV wouldn’t have survived without it.
I went to a Mexican seafood place in the Chelsea Market and it was amazing (and relatively unique for NYC).
Vegas qualifies for cities but a town like Gatlinburg TN is just as bad if not worse.
Gatlinburg is horrifying and always stunned by people who think it's "beauty-ful" up there. Of course usually by the type that finds the Jersey shore the best place to go to the beach...
Times Square was a mess. Dirty.. wait, Filthy... and mobs of people running around. In general, I find Manhattan not as cool as expected.. but Times Square is in a different list.
Gatlinburg is horrifying and always stunned by people who think it's "beauty-ful" up there. Of course usually by the type that finds the Jersey shore the best place to go to the beach...
Does Branson, Mo., also belong in this basket?
I've never been there, not even when I was growing up in the state, but from what I see and read, it looks like it should.
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