Cranky Travelers Diss 'Overrated' Hot Spots

Paris smelly? Athenians surly?
By Victoria Floethe,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 4, 2009 5:29 AM CST
Cranky Travelers Diss 'Overrated' Hot Spots
Festival gathering in Besakih, Bali.   (Flickr)

Italy? Ugly. Grand Canyon? A pain. No travel hot spot is safe after cranky readers filled Los Angeles Times inboxes with their picks for "overrated travel destinations."

  • Bali: "Mosquitoes ate us up," wrote two travelers, and "there was poverty everywhere."
  • Austin: "About the only thing Austin has going for it is a plethora of Tex-Mex restaurants," wrote one Yankee who ventured South.
  • Seattle: "The city is nothing more than an overcaffeinated shopping mall filled with upper-middle-class white people," sniffed a Virginian.

  • Sante Fe: One Los Angeleno quipped that "it feels like a cross between Knott's Berry Farm and Disneyland."
  • The Grand Canyon: Great—"if you are under 30 with a good prostate, balance and a taste for trail mix," wrote a visitor from Tehachapi.
  • Bora-Bora: Mary from Tuhunga is haunted "to this day" by the "feral dogs" who met her upon arrival.
For more angry tourists, click the link the below.
(More travel stories.)

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