Cities you'd never return to

AlanS181824 · 21-04-2014 06:02PM

Barely There wrote: »

We should never have sex then.

That comment + your user name... Reasons why I love Boards

Censorsh!t · 21-04-2014 06:05PM

Nelspruit in South Africa. I only took two day trips but from what I saw, it was boring, dangerous and too hot.

homemadecider · 21-04-2014 06:09PM

AlanS181824 wrote: »

New York, way too many people in such close conformity for me. Great place yes but the constant bumping and loud noises really got to me.

What? Do you mean 'close proximity'?

thelad95 · 21-04-2014 06:13PM

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Cardiff isn't too bad actually, especially around the dock area. I'd agree with you about Swansea.

True, the city centre in Swansea is actually nice enough as well but the suburbs of both are horrific.

thrashmetalfan · 21-04-2014 06:24PM

I went to Miami last year. service in bar's and restaurants was crap. a could not care less attitude was on display everywhere, saying that little Havana was very nice, good food served in a restaurant by friendly Cubans. lots of snobby white American's who wont talk to you if you do not display vast sums of wealth.

in the hotel people were posing by the pool and not swimming in it.

went to a fairly hip bar just up the street from the hotel. the polish staff were friendly the American staff were stuck up. went to a more normal and regular joe type of sports bar elsewhere and the girl who served me told me she did not like Miami either and found the people rude. she was from Michigan and she was only there a year.

lots of other American's on vacation there who were not so nice. asking me for directions and when I told them I did not know about certain places they got quite snippy and rude.

even went to a strip club and the American dancers were so rude while the Russian and Romanian girls that danced there were quite open and talkative.

met a couple from Ballymena on their honeymoon who were great craic, the Haitian taxi drivers were friendly and some of the hotel staff were nice too.

wont be going back though.

have to admit as well the city is quite dirty and scruffy in places even the beach. not as nice as Honolulu which is another story.

21-04-2014 06:25PM

LA

Son Of A Vidic · 21-04-2014 06:26PM

lufties wrote: »

Cities you'd never return to.

Limerick..........................................and she certainly was not a lady.

BuilderPlumber · 21-04-2014 06:49PM

I've been in all Irish and many world cities. Some are lovely (Prague, Rome, Paris, etc.), some are boring (Geneva, Zurich) and some are just ok but there was no place worse than Lagos, Nigeria. Violent, dirty, too humid, fake, cultureless, crime ridden. It is full of scammers of the type you meet on the net but meeting them in person is my idea of hell.

I won't be going to many other cities let alone returning to them: ones like Baghdad, Kabul, or Bangui, Central African Republic for example!! If I hear a city I plan to visit is regarded as 'another Lagos', I will not go there either.

thrashmetalfan · 21-04-2014 06:49PM

rarnes1 wrote: »

LA

don't like L.A. either. hard to get around and again scruffy and dirty. vegas was alright to visit once but not too bothered about going back there either.

Barely There · 21-04-2014 06:56PM

Ciudad del Este in Paraguay, even the security guards in the shopping centres carried automatic rifles.

thrashmetalfan · 21-04-2014 07:02PM

not a city but me and my father (RIP) stopped off in kells on the way to a wedding. not much there to be honest. we were disappointed.

Pearlstone · 21-04-2014 07:45PM

Miami. Got lost there twenty odd years ago. Took a wrong turn just ten minutes from the airport and ended up spending nearly an hour trying to get out of what can only be described as the scariest place I have ever travelled through.

whisky_galore · 21-04-2014 07:47PM

ivytwine wrote: »

Perth in Australia is worth a visit but don't stay there longer than a week. If you do, you'll swiftly realise:

Time has stopped somewhere around 1975, and for all the pretty skyscrapers you have a city centre that is roughly the size of Limerick, and is run by the most narrow-minded of the emigrants who got their 10 shilling tickets from Southampton in the 1950s.

I think things have changed slightly from when I was lived there, but late-night opening and daylight savings were the twin evils threatening the status quo in 2009. If you realised you didn't have milk after 5pm you were screwed, unless you wanted to pay a Chinese grocer $10 for a souring carton (IF he was open).

Whereas every Ballygobackwards in Ireland has a Centra that opens til 10!

£10 not 10 shillings, hence the term '10 Pound Poms'.

I am pie · 21-04-2014 07:48PM

Pearlstone wrote: »

Miami. Got lost there twenty odd years ago. Took a wrong turn just ten minutes from the airport and ended up spending nearly an hour trying to get out of what can only be described as the scariest place I have ever travelled through.

20 years ago! It may have changed.

I was there for work recently, thought it was OK. Decent food & drink, clean enough in the centre. Not awful.

KCC · 21-04-2014 08:11PM

I love this thread - it's very informative!

As a rule, I try never to return to the same place twice if I can, but the following are some cities I didn't like or understand the hype about:

I found Melbourne to be small and boring.
Canberra seemed like a retirement village although I was on a very quick visit so perhaps I'm wrong
I was disappointed at how unromantic Paris was. It's huge and traffic is crazy.
I found Berlin to be boring and of all the places I really never wish to return there. I don't see what it has going for it at all.
I was on a very quick visit to Glasgow recently and thought it was a kip.
We went on a day trip to Tijuana when visiting San Diego - all the Americans we met told us we were crazy to have went there. It was totally bleak and empty, a ghost city. I've never felt so sorry for the shopkeepers - we only saw two other tourists besides ourselves. There was a terrible air of danger about the place and there were "pharmacies" everywhere. We visited in 2009 and I think that the drug cartels were causing huge trouble at the time but it may have improved since then.

I'm surprised at how many times Prague has been mentioned on this thread. I loved it. We went in late November almost ten years ago and I have lovely memories of drinking mulled wine outdoors on St. Wenceslas Square while the snow was falling softly. It was like stepping back in time (I'm fairly sure there were gas street lamps which contributed to that).

BuilderPlumber · 21-04-2014 08:26PM

Pearlstone wrote: »

Miami. Got lost there twenty odd years ago. Took a wrong turn just ten minutes from the airport and ended up spending nearly an hour trying to get out of what can only be described as the scariest place I have ever travelled through.

From watching Miami Vice, I automatically associate Miami with drug dealers and yes you will find and see a lot of this in this city!! Colombian, mafia and Cuban dealers set up shop there and it is a handy entry point for the coke trade into the US.

Now, with Love/Hate, I get the same feeling going to Dublin! I am always feeling that I'd be meeting up with Nidge and Fran in some parts of it!

ivytwine · 21-04-2014 08:26PM

whisky_galore wrote: »

£10 not 10 shillings, hence the term '10 Pound Poms'.

Damn! Ah it was all before my time anyway

JohnMearsheimer · 21-04-2014 08:50PM

I wouldn't be in a mad dash back to Bratislava. The old town was nice but I found it a bit boring. We spent the last day of our trip in Vienna as it was only anhoyr away by train.

Philadelphia is another place I wouldn't be rushing back to. It was nice but not nice enough for me to want to go back. I saw the Rocky steps when I was there. The steps lead to a big art museum. More people were I interested in the steps than the art museum haha. South Bend,Indiana is quite possibly the most boring place in the planet. Me going there was like an American tourist going to Banagher.

ManofStraw · 21-04-2014 09:43PM

Edmonton ... First place I have visited that I really have no desire to go back to. No city as such just a collection of strip malls. Grim place really.

Naid23 · 21-04-2014 09:46PM

Kuala lumpar was probably my most hated city of my travels. Spent 2 nights there coning back from a 3 month trip around south east asia and was easily the worst place ive been.
Gangs of men standing round the streets all day- really intimidating! 2 men tried to drag me into a shop until 2 local women fought them off and walked me back to my hostel- i didnt leave it again much after that til i flew home

C14N · 21-04-2014 09:51PM

Well there's lots of cities I probably won't return to but ones I wouldn't be too eager to return to:

Las Vegas. It's really a kip. Everything costs too much, service is poor, weather is too hot, there's almost nothing to do besides giving money to casinos and hiring illegal prostitutes. There's a real atomosphere of "everyone here is trying to wring as much money out of you as possible". It looks alright at night but again, not that much to do unless you're over 21 and into expensive clubbing. Anything else you can do can be done better elsewhere. Only recommended for having good shows and being the nearest big city to the Grand Canyon.

Miami. It was okay but it seemed like a kind of poor city.

Paris. I was a kid when I was there but it wasn't particularly interesting to me. It's the only major world city I've been to that I'm just not that interested in going back to.

Skuxx · 21-04-2014 09:58PM

For me it's Belfast! Just back from a long weekend there with the missus and couldn't wait to pack up the car and leave! Certainly won't be heading back anytime soon!!

road_high · 21-04-2014 10:10PM

Skuxx wrote: »

For me it's Belfast! Just back from a long weekend there with the missus and couldn't wait to pack up the car and leave! Certainly won't be heading back anytime soon!!

A day or two is more than enough in Belfast alright. What we did was a day in the city, a day at giants causeway.
Didn't get the shopping attraction. Clothes expensive as hell and quite dowdy as well. Dublin is leagues ahead IMO.

road_high · 21-04-2014 10:26PM

Frank Lee Midere wrote: »

The tax rate is one thing. The animosity towards foreigners is another. We have problems with scumbags in Dublin being racist but they are equal opportunity scumbags and attack everyone verbally. Up north they burn the Polish fleg.

Really stood our for me about Belfast...the lack of African or Asian people....they just don't live there. Dublin (and even rural ireland!), is a virtual melting pot by comparison. It says a lot about the place really.
So no I can't ever see the Googles etc flocking there. They won't attract international talent to that backwater.

DoctaDee · 21-04-2014 10:28PM

A long story but Kingston Jamaica in the "neighbourhood" was my only wtf moment abroad

darkdubh · 21-04-2014 10:31PM

I met the rudest woman ever in Valencia Spain.I bought a T-shirt off her at a market,she diden't say a single word during the transaction and fixed me with this look of complete contempt the whole time.I wasen't drunk or anything and was polite,you'd swear I'd personaly insulted her by buying the bloody thing off her.

Banjo String · 21-04-2014 10:40PM

CptMackey wrote: »

I'd say Malaga. People weren't the nicest. Found Stuttgart a lovely place op. Maybe because I was there for the beer fest. Also didn't think much of Sydney

Dyslexic prev here.

Tell me more.

purplecow1977 · 21-04-2014 10:42PM

The thread title is 'cities youd never return to'

Majority of comments are about one person in that particular place looking sideways at them,or getting the wrong change,or a bad smell,or a broken sign post! Ie all very minor things and not really reasons for not wanting to return to a place!

I've travelled a bit and enjoyed and would revisit pretty much everywhere I have been-if it weren't for the fact that there are so many other wonderful places yet to visit!

colman1212 · 21-04-2014 10:45PM

Manila. Travelled about 10 countries in south east Asia and this was the only place I had some serious culture shock. Strange city.

smurgen · 21-04-2014 10:45PM

Tijuana, was held at gunpoint there in a nightclub when I was on j1.don't go to the place at all.You're taking your life into your own hands there,most menacing place ive been to.weird people looking out of doorways and alleys and you constantly feel like you're being observed.it looks lawless.it's like that movie mad max past the thunderdome.

As regards normal places I didn't like I'd say avoid Pisa in Italy,looks as if the place is stuck in a 1970's time warp and food is woeful.

Cities you'd never return to

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