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"Very few people take me up on this part of the recommendation: get out of the cities if you are here for more than a week in your life." Same situation for vi
by pyb 4y ago
"Very few people take me up on this part of the recommendation: get out of the cities if you are here for more than a week in your life."
Same situation for visitors to the UK. I've given up trying to tell tourists to get out of London, they never listen.
- simondotau 4y agoMy new rule of thumb for travel is that if I’ve heard of the city, it probably sucks.
- hk__2 4y agoHow does it work in Italy?
- the_af 4y agoRome is amazing, so straight off the bat that piece of advice will not work for everyone. And I have more examples: Cinqueterre is out of this world. In same cases it's true though: Florence left me unimpressed, but I think it was the fault of the huge influx of tourists and peddlers that ruined everything.
- simondotau 4y ago“Probably” does a lot of heavy lifting in my aforementioned rule of thumb. There are some major cities that are worth visiting despite the tourists. In some cities, like London, the rule applies fractally. Avoid anywhere listed in tourist guides and there are lots of great suburbs to explore. Whereas a city like Paris, great as it is to lay eyes on the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triumph, the city is ultimately a dilution of its former self. These days most major cities are very same-same.
- hk__2 4y agoIMHO if you want to visit Paris the city (vs. Paris the symbol), you can ignore the Eiffel Tower and the Arch de Triumph, which are monuments that have not much to do with the history of the city itself, and instead wander around in Montmartre / Saint-Germain / le Marais / islands de la Cité and Saint-Louis / along the Seine and the canal Saint-Martin.
- mlindner 4y agoThe same situation for people visiting the US and they only ever go to some major US city like New York City or Los Angeles. Visit some place that's more than 100 miles from the ocean and isn't an urban downtown center.
- Trasmatta 4y agoIf you're only going to one US city though, it might as well be NYC.
- oska 4y agoI've known practically all my life that I never want to visit NYC. I would like to visit a city like Pittsburgh though, or Charleston, or Milwaukee (and other US cities and towns smaller than these three too).
- Trasmatta 4y agoNYC is an amazing place. What about it makes you want to never visit?
- oska 4y agoNever attracted me and the aesthetics of the city and its surrounding immediate environment put me off. (I would still like to visit other parts of New York state though.) There's a weirdness to the city, at least how I see it from afar and, to be fair, I'm sure in a somewhat distorted manner through media. Movies and TV shows set there put me off (even Seinfeld which I enjoy). Only The Pushcart War by Jean Merrill and The Chosen by Chaim Potok have shown me some charm in the place, and the music of New York native Suzanne Vega. I appreciate that it's an important city, has many cultural attractions and many people love the place. But for me it's too big, too chaotic and, as I say above, too weird, and I would prefer to stay away from it entirely.
- amrocha 4y agoHard disagree. Most US cities outside the coasts are awful places to visit. What's someone gonna do in Phoenix or Denver?
- kissiel 4y agoI'm 3 days away from my return flight after spending a month in Japan (I'm here for the first time). I regret leaving the cities. Now I'm back in Tokyo and I feel back at home. My trip was: Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Hiroshima, Miyakojima, Tokyo. Miyakojima, except being tropical "paradise-like island" made me _finish_ two games on my phone.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- zztop44 4y agoSounds like you went to five cities and Miyakojima. And yeah if you don’t like tropical islands (in winter) then it’s not surprising Miyakojima wasn’t your tea.
- CPLX 4y agoFor context I’m an American born to a British expat who has family from Birmingham down to London, Exeter, Reading and Cornwall. I have been to the UK 30-40 times and spent considerable time (spans of weeks) in England outside London both in other cities as well as countryside over the last 40+ years. I’d tell tourists to start with and stay in London unless they’re on an unusually long trip. It’s the second greatest city in world history and all, the rest of the country is pretty drab by comparison. Assuming we are talking about England. Scotland and Ireland are another story.
- pyb 4y agoThe countryside around Reading is incredible. Did you explore it ? In contrast with the city itself, which is pretty generic.
- wyclif 4y agoThis is quite true, I've found. I have a very extensive pinned map of the UK that I share with people and most of the really interesting places are outside of London.
- ianpenney 4y agoBrighton is SO COOL. No sarcasm. Really loved it.