'It was a glorified gymnasium with corn stapled to the walls': 30+ Terrible tourist traps that these travellers would rate one star

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Sep 20, 2023 5:00 PM EDT

If you're travelling soon, we know a few destinations you can absolutely skip over. 

These tourists aren't holding back about some of the worst places they've ever visited. From England to France to the US of A, these travellers chose the wrong vacation spots and lived to regret it. 

While I've been to some of these places and enjoyed them anyway, there are some valid gripes included with the responses below. I completely agree with the person who was lamenting about taking photos in front of a green screen wall at the attraction. Imagine travelling all the way to somewhere stunning, with incredible views, and then paying $39.95 to stand in front of a green screen wall with your family to commemorate your time there. It's an infuriatingly lazy trend that seems all too common these days. 

Like a few other commenters, I've seen Stonehenge from the road driving by it. I think I got the gist of it. I don't think I need to go see it after all. 

In addition, I'm routinely subjected to Times Square, since I live in New York, but I do think it's a good place to see if you're a tourist. Just don't spend all your time there! There's a perfectly good Central Park just minutes away, and you won't even have someone in a grimy Cookie Monster costume begging to take your photo.

Check out all these places you can skip visiting. Then, you can feel better about your own embarrassing memories after you read the cringe moments that are keeping these folks up at night. 

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  • 01
    Human body - What's the most overrated tourist attraction?
    via u/therapeuticsmiles
  • 02
    Font - FrogEyed F The Mona Lisa. It looks like an A4 print of the Mona Lisa. 2/10.
    via u/FrogEyedF***
  • 03
    Font - PaperPlayte If you're on your way to Colorado on I-70, you'll start seeing signs for "The World's Largest Prairie dog" about a couple hours out of a sty hole in the wall town called Oakley, KS. As you journey on and get closer, you see signs displaying things such as "see the 3 legged steer" and various other odd messages, all still including "See the worlds largest prairie dog."
    via u/PaperPlayte
  • 04
    Font - So you get to Oakley like "I've GOTTA see this prairie dog man!" And you pull off the interstate to find literally one of the s est S holes in this county. It's a po-dunk, trashy little redneck exhibit outside. The animals are kept in miserable, run down pins. You can't wait to leave, but you've gotta see the prairie dog. And then you do. The best part? ITS A F FOOT STATUE. FIFTEEN- And that, my friends, is a ripoff done right.
    via u/BRCA1BRCA1
  • 05
    Font - thatsabitraven The pen museum in Wagga Wagga, Australia. Granted, it's not really rated at all, but calling themselves a museum when it's just a few pens in the back of a hardware shop is really a stretch.
    via u/thatsabitraven
  • 06
    Font - exbex South of the Border between North and South Carolina. It seemed like there were billboards for 100s of miles, and when you finally got there, it's cheesier than you could have imagined.
    via u/exbex
  • 07
    Font - The corn palace. We saw so many billboards advertising this magical mother f of a palace made entirely of corn. Its was a glorified gymnasium with corn stapled to the walls.
    via r/AskReddit
  • 08
    Font - JohnnyJonesIII The Hollywood Fame, actually all of Hollywood. The whole walk of thing is stupid and just filled with people trying to take your picture for money
    via u/JohnnyJonesIII
  • 09
    Font - BRCA1BRCA1 Hollywood/walk of stars. Dirty, loud, smelly, full of drug addicts and strangely dressed people. Its also really short/small; all my European friends that have ever gone have walked the couple of blocks and said, "Wait, that's all?"
    via u/BRCA1BRCA1
  • 10
    Font - NotRussian-Nope That woman from Scotland who registered herself by accident as a tourist attraction, I think.
    via u/NotRussian-Nope
  • 11
    Font - JensSass Roswell, New Mexico. Unless you enjoy shady guys selling you E.T plushies, all you're going to find is dry air and hot sauce.
    via u/JensSass
  • 12
    Font - TheBrofessor23 The first Starbucks by Pike Place Market in Seattle. People act like Elvis is buried there.
    via u/TheBrofessor23
  • 13
    Font - JIO firerosearien Empire State Building. Much cheaper to go to Top of the Rock, much shorter lines, you can stay up for as long as you'd like, better view, and dining concourse below when you're done.
    via u/firerosearien
  • 14
    Font - kukukele Navy Pier in Chicago. There is a reason why people who live here dont go there -- because it offers nothing. A few chain restaurants and a Ferris wheel.
    via u/kukukele
  • 15
    Font - nomameswe "The Skywalk" at the Grand Canyon. First of all, there is a 30 minute rocky dirt road to get there once you get off the highway. Also, it is overpriced at around $70-90 per person(as of my 2011 trip). Lastly, they make you lock up your ALL belongings, take your shoes off and then walk on this scratched glass platform and take silly pictures that you can buy when exiting. Not worth it for me. I'd rather just go hike the Grand Canyon and enjoy nature.
    via u/nomameswe
  • 16
    Font - laughingcow2012 The Leaning Tower of Pisa Everybody there is trying to take hokey funny pictures, but they're all getting in the way of each other. And that's it. That's all it is.
    via u/laughingcow2012
  • 17
    Font - ChocolateGautama. Route 66. I live on it and it's just a road.
    via u/ChocolateGautama
  • 18
    Font - aronnyc Many "historical" sites in China are overrated, mostly because they're fake. A lot of them were destroyed and then reconstructed as tourist traps. Even the authentic ones, like the Forbidden Palace, are overrated because they charge you a large sum to get in, and when you're in there, they're filled with people selling souvenirs and kites and all sorts of things that makes Times Square look tame. IMHO, China is doing a great disservice to itself by letting their historical sites g
    via u/aronnyc
  • 19
    Font - J beavershaw Madame Tussauds in London - £30 ($50) to see some wax models that look vaguely like celebrities.
    via u/beavershaw
  • 20
    Font - JorZroX Luna f in park, just no.
    via u/JorZroX
  • 21
    Font - Mileys Twerk_Coach Crazy Horse Monument. They're never going to finish it.
    via u/Mileys_Twerk_Coach
  • 22
    Font - MidKnight007 Mystery spot in Santa Cruz is super pointless, it's just a house built sideways and free stickers. Would not ever go again. But the spot is in a really nice place filled with redwoods I believe
    via u/MidKnight007
  • 23
    Font - Nemotos I was at "the beach"- beach from the movie "The Beach" with Leo DiCaprio, ugh it was really painful. First you have to pay overprice just to get there, and once you are there, you are there with 200-300 other people crammed into this very small beach that has little to no sun due to the mountains around it, its dirty and for some reason you have to pay 200 baht per person otherwise you cannot enter the beach.
    via u/Nemotos
  • 24
    Font - sickbutterygnar The Mall of America. People travel to shop in a giant mall that's almost always overcrowded, overpriced, and all you do is walk in circles. Granted there's the free cheese samples on the 3rd floor, some weird niche stores, and a little kid theme park inside but it's seriously just a really big mall and you will spend 90% of your time remembering why you hate the general public.
    via u/sickbutterygnar
  • 25
    Font - graymachine Mt Rushmore. Drove hours out of the way to see it. Fall. Yep there it is, like, a mile away (where the observation area is.) Looks like every picture you've ever seen if it.
    via u/graymachine
  • 26
    Font - emjaybe Niagara Falls. The Falls themselves are beautiful but pretty much the rest of Niagara Falls (ie Clifton Hill and other tourist traps there) is really cheesy and overrated.
    via u/emjaybe
  • 27
    Font - sulkywrench Any "big" thing in Australia, they're all ploys to lure people into sty small towns. The most interesting has to be the Big Bull in Rockhampton, and that's only because people constantly steal it's bls
    via u/sulkywrench
  • 28
    Font - wayndom In San Francisco, Fisherman's Wharf. ATTENTION VISITORS TO SAN FRANCISCO, DON'T WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY THERE. It's just a bunch of plastic tourist C that has nothing to do with the city. San Franciscans never go there. Walk through Chinatown, North Beach, Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Park (you could spend a whole day seeing what GG Park has to offer), walk across the Golden Gate Bridge...
    via u/wayndom
  • 29
    Font - ✪ [deleted] Hard Rock Cafe People seek them out and 'collect' them. FFS people.
    via u/deleted
  • 30
    Font - tigercat22 The Alamo. The other missions in San Antonio are beautiful and often ignored.
    via u/tigercat22
  • 31
    Font - weeitsvi Voodoo donuts in Portland. I live in Portland and the donuts there aren't even that great.
    via u/weeitsvi
  • 32
    Font - Djeter998 Dear God, Times Square. Every time a tourist tells me they didn't particularly like NYC I'm like, "that's because you spent half of your vacation in a neon-lit pedestrian traffic h hole with Elmos and sty restaurants."
    via u/Djeter998
  • 33
    Human body - [deleted] Plymouth Rock. You've been warned.
    via u/deleted
  • 34
    Font - Packy99 The entire district of Waikiki on Oahu, Hawaii. "Come to a beautiful tropical paradise!" Then rent a horribly overpriced room in a huge hotel, go to Waikiki beach with ten thousand other tourists where its so packed you cant even lay down. Eat at sty tourist "local dining" and swim in a pool you could back at home."
    via u/Packy99
  • 35
    Font - [deleted] The London Eye. My English teacher had a rant last lesson about how awful it is, and I had to agree. You pay to go on a rubbish ferris wheel with not that great views, packed in little pods with random strangers. Also, the Shard. You pay however much to just look out over London at vt-inducing heights, and then you can go to the 'open' balcony where it's ridiculously windy and you can't do anything. Then you go back. You even get a greenscreened picture, which you have to pay fo
    via u/deleted
  • 36
    Cheezburger Image 9813783552
    via u/theytookourjaabs
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    Cheezburger Image 9813783808
    via u/Urgullibl
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    Cheezburger Image 9813784576
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    Cheezburger Image 9813784320
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    Cheezburger Image 9813784064
    via u/BritishyAccent
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    Cheezburger Image 9813784832
    via u/deleted

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