27 Of The Most Disappointing Tourist Destinations In The World According To People Who Live There

Tourist attractions are called “traps” for a reason. And if you’re a local, you know that these sites are often not only a waste of time but also a waste of money.

In an effort to help people travel better, Reddit user meggyAnnP went straight to the source, asking locals to weigh in on their tourist traps that just aren’t worth it. They prompted, “Most disappointing tourist destination in your country,” and the replies will save you a whole heap of time and money:

1. “While Plymouth Rock sucks, Plymouth itself is actually a great tourist destination. It has the Mayflower II (rebuilt exactly as the original Mayflower, and did the voyage using the technology of the era), and a fantastic living museum of how both the Pilgrims and the Indigenous Peoples lived at the time. Plus, the New England coast is just pretty.”

—u/ND7020

“The Plymouth region is a perfectly fine place to visit,  but dear god, skip the stupid rock. Just utterly pointless.”

—u/mj11mj

2. “The Trojan Horse in Turkey. Like…it’s just a replica and not even a very good one. Fun fact: the current Trojan Horse in my city (Çanakkale) is the one from the movie Troy. We had a shittier one until that upgrade. You had to climb its dick to get into it.”

—u/gundaymanwow

3. “The Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen is famous for two things: being constantly surrounded by tourists and being considered pretty damn unremarkable by everyone who has seen her. How she became THE thing to see in Copenhagen, no one knows. She’s not particularly impressive, unusual, historic, or artistically significant. She’s not even near any of the places where residents ever go. She just…sits there. Kinda like what the Statue of Liberty would be if it were only 5 feet tall and located on a random pier with no security.”

—u/t-licus

4. “Bondi Beach. It’s honestly one of the worst, overcrowded beaches in the entirety of Australia.”

—u/No_Seat8357

5. “The Mona Lisa. You come to France expecting to see a big, beautiful painting close up, but all you get is a sea of tourists crowding around this tiny-ass painting that’s behind a barrier and glass.”

—u/radish-salad

6. “In my city, there’s the ‘Gastown Steam Clock,’ which is always mobbed by cruise ship tourists. It’s an electric clock made in the ’70s that sits over a steam vent and has all sorts of brass gears and stuff to make it look like it’s steam-powered. Absolute tourist trap, but always the top of the ‘must see’ things in Vancouver.”

—u/asunyra1

“I went to Vancouver for the first time this past winter, and I walked by the Gastown Steam Clock. It was so unremarkable, haha.”

—u/Accurate-Frame-5695

7. “Mount Rushmore. You have to travel to a very remote place, and then you probably won’t even see it because of the fog. The gift shops there even sell an all-gray postcard that says: ‘Mt. Rushmore in the fog.'”

—u/salsafresca_1297

8. “The Autobahn in Germany. Like, it’s a fucking road, nothing special. What did you expect?”

—u/Swimming_Local_4625

“The internet tells people that the Autobahn has no speed limit. It doesn’t tell them about the many road constructions. 🤣”

—u/brownnoisedaily

9. “Stonehenge was so underwhelming, LOL. Had to take a train, then a bus, paid way too much to get in, and you are only allowed to walk around a path that’s like 300 feet away from it, listening to the traffic from the nearby road.”

—u/asunyra1

10. “When I took my daughter to LA for the first time, she wanted to see the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Two minutes in, she declared it was dirty and gross and was ready to do something else.”

—u/four100eighty9

11. “The Red Light District in Amsterdam. This is not the only city in the world with sex workers. It’s covered with American tourists who think this is how locals live.”

—u/narkohammer

12. “In New Zealand, we have That Wānaka Tree. It’s literally just a tree in a lake. The surroundings are 10,000,000% more interesting.”

—u/Slaidback

13. “The leaning tower of Pisa — it’s nothing compared to the Duomo right next to it. It’s literally just a small, leaning tower.”

—u/vanna-molly21

14. “The Guanajuato Mummies in Mexico. The wait is long as fuck as they’re just mummies. The reason they’re well-known is because of movies from the ’40s.”

—u/Lazzen

15. “In Finland, we have the Kusikivi (the literal translation would be ‘a piss stone’). It’s a small glacial rock, which, according to legends, the king of Sweden stopped to pee behind some 300 years ago. The glacial rock used to be taller, approximately two meters, but nowadays it stands at 70 cm. There is a plate on the rock honoring the Swedish king’s alleged peeing.”

—u/Akiira2

16. “The Merlion fountain in Singapore. It’s just a glorified water hose, nothing more.”

—u/Cuddling-crocodiles

17. “The Temple Bar is literally just a pub, and not even a nice one. The drinks are twice as expensive as they would be elsewhere. There are thousands of better, cheaper, and prettier pubs across Ireland.”

—u/a_mhairtin

18. “Ecuador is BEAUTIFUL and feels like it literally has everything to offer with jungle, mountains, coast, and islands. But going to the ‘Middle of The World,’ you definitely get that ‘Oh, I just got got’ feeling.”

—u/aceituna_garden

19. “Roda Rico, in São Paulo. It’s just a boring Ferris wheel, a copycat of the London Eye, but in a location with nothing else interesting around it. It’s far from the city center, it doesn’t look like anything out of the ordinary, the view is boring, and the park it’s in is a drag. Plus, the name is tacky: ‘Rich Wheel.’ It’s trying to be catchy, but it’s just tacky.”

—u/rom2050

20. “A wannabe castle in Toronto called Casa Loma. It’s in all the tourist guides because only tourists go there. No local ever wastes their time with it.”

—u/Objectalone

21. “Times Square. I don’t know what the appeal is. Looking at bright ads surrounded by dirty, grungy mascots and other tourists?”

—u/crimsondodecahedron

22. “Romania: Bran Castle. It has nothing to do with Dracula, and it’s just a kitschy tourist trap.”

—u/LAffaire-est-Ketchup

23. “The N Seoul Tower itself seems a bit lackluster, considering it’s supposed to be the landmark of the city. If you can enjoy Namsan and the experience on the way up to the tower, it will be a nice visit, but the tower itself isn’t that special IMO.”

—u/CommercialChart5088

24. “For Singapore, it would be the tourist cable cars (Mount Faber and Sentosa). It’s not a high elevation, and all you really see are some small hills and man-made forests outside the actual city. Basically, the most underwhelming view for a price tag of $23 a ticket. Maybe it’s fun for small kids, but they would probably be just as entertained by the Bukit Panjang LRT, an actual transit system that costs less than one dollar to ride.”

—u/demostenes_arm

25. “Canada is such a big country to pick just one, but out in Moncton, New Brunswick, they have a whole park dedicated to the Tidal Bore. It’s a muddy wave of salt water that comes down an otherwise ugly, muddy river when the tide comes in. The locals used to call it the ‘Total Bore’ and were kind of embarrassed that tourists got sucked in by it.”

—u/myDogStillLovesMe

26. “I personally despise Neuschwanstein ‘Castle.’ It’s not a real castle. It’s a very shitty fantasy palace, built by an unhinged Bavarian king, who paid for it with money he got as a bribe to join the German Empire. It’s tacky as hell, not functional, and used construction methods that were entirely inconsistent with the pseudohistorical style it tried to copy. We have thousands of better castles and palaces all across Germany. Want a true medieval knight’s castle? Visit Burg Eltz. Want an actual palace? Visit Palace Sanssoussi, the residence of the Prussian kings near Berlin in Potsdam (basically a small Versailles).”

—u/tirohtar

27. And finally, “The Chicago bean. It’s fucking stupid. The whole point is that you can’t see any seams on the metal. Who fucking cares? Chicago is amazing, quit spending time at the stupid bean.

—u/cmacfarland64

Are there any tourist attractions near you that you think are just not worth it? Tell me about them in the comments, or fill out the anonymous form below. Your response might end up in an upcoming BuzzFeed article!

Note: Responses have been edited for length/clarity.