Miscellaneous Travel Resources

World’s Worst Places For Me: Places I Don’t Want To Go

The Grand Canal, Venice

 The World’s Worst Places For Me

Most travellers will have a bucket list of the places in the world they would like to go. This is usually ‘everywhere’, but is there anywhere that you don’t want to go or just doesn’t appeal to you that much? Here are my choices for the World’s Worst Places

 

South Sudan/Iraq/Somalia/Syria/Afghanistan

Syrian Refugee

Syrian Refugee

South Sudan is the worlds newest country and also one of the least peaceful.

Civil war in Iraq has led to thousands of people being displaced and over 20,000 people being killed per year.

In Somalia, civil war and famine have dogged the country for years, with approximately 500,000 deaths since 1991. There’s also the pirate/kidnap risk to worry about.

The current civil war in Syria has has caused over 50,000 deaths a year and millions of people to be displaced.

One of the longest ongoing wars is taking place in Afghanistan. 14,000 people died in 2014. In 2015, this has increase to over 30,000.

 

New York

New York City

New York City

A large city, with an English speaking population. If I wanted that I could go to London and for a lot less than flying across the Atlantic. When people in the UK go to New York, it is usually for one reason, shopping. I hate shopping!

 

Dubai

World's Worst Places

Dubai Marina

I just don’t get the fascination people have with Dubai. To me it just seems like such a fake place, built on steel and glass. It’s got a tall building, big shopping centres and man made beaches. Sounds wonderful.

 

Ilha da Queimada Grande a.k.a Snake Island

This is an island off the coast of Sao Paulo that the Brazilian government has banned people from going to. Why? Because the island is home to the golden lancehead viper snake, one of the most deadly snakes on the planet. Their venom contains a fast-acting poison that melts the flesh around their bites.

There are two stories told by people in the coastal towns near Queimada Grande, so should probably be taken with a pinch of salt. The first is about a fisherman who lands on the island and gets bitten. He returns to his boat and dies due to the bite and is later found on the deck in a pool of his blood.

The second is of the final people to live on the island, the lighthouse keeper and his family. During the night, some snakes are able to enter the lighthouse via a window and bite the man, his wife and their three children. Trying to escape to their boat, they are bitten by even more snakes in the trees.

Yeah, I think I am going to pass on that one thanks!

 

Paris & Venice (Not to be taken seriously!)

The Sacre Coeur in Paris

The Sacre Coeur in Paris

Before closing the page bear with me on this one. I have been to both Paris and Venice and enjoyed both places (I prefer Paris in case you are wondering).

I do not have a problem with Paris or Venice. What I don’t like is places being called ‘The Paris of the East’ or ‘The Venice of the North’. To me it seems to be a lazy way of describing somewhere. Just because a place has rivers/canals and bridges, that doesn’t mean you need to compare it with Venice.

Here are some of the major culprits:

Paris of the East includes Baku, Budapest, Bucharest, Hanoi, Manila, Prague, Riga, Saint Petersburg and Warsaw.

Paris of the West includes Buenos Aires (sometimes also in the South), Montreal and San Francisco.

Venice of the North includes Amsterdam, Bruges, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Saint Petersburg (Lucky Saint Petersburg gets to be both Venice and Paris!) and Stockholm.

I have been to many of these places and some of them are actually better than Paris or Venice, in my opinion.

 

 

I know I am being a little unkind to some of these places and I am certain that I will visit them at some stage in my life but for now there are places which rank higher for me. So where would be in your list of ‘World’s Worst Places’?

 

Photo credit: Bengin Ahmad via Foter.com / CC BY-ND

Photo credit: Vikram Vetrivel via Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Photo credit: kemalkestelli via Foter.com / CC BY-ND

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16 Comments

  • Reply
    Therie
    March 25, 2017 at 09:51

    Interesting insight. I feel the same towards Dubai, I don’t see the hype though I’d love to visit Burj Khalifa but then I heard the fees are quite steep.

    • Reply
      Damien
      March 28, 2017 at 19:51

      Yeah I really don’t get the hype either! Surely there are better ways to spend travelling the world than looking at a building? It might be over simplifying things, but that’s how i see it

  • Reply
    Liesbeth
    January 19, 2016 at 19:02

    The shopping in NY isn’t just a UK thing. Iwent there last summer and before going everybody was asking me what I was going to buy. I was like? Euh… other than tickets to some museums and the Statue of Liberty and things like that… Nothing!! They looked at me as if I was a crazy woman. But there’s so much to see and do in New York, it would be too bad to never go there! (and I’m really not a big city girl!!)

    • Reply
      Damien
      January 19, 2016 at 20:01

      Haha you are the sensible woman if you ask me!

  • Reply
    Castaway with Crystal
    January 17, 2016 at 12:20

    I agree with pretty much all of this list. I also probably wouldn’t want to head to Kongo, and on the other hand probably Las Vegas. Gross.

    Crystal recently posted… How to Kill a Man with Your Bare Hands

    • Reply
      Damien
      January 17, 2016 at 21:58

      Yes! Perhaps Las Vegas would have been a better choice over New York in hindsight. I am sure it has its good points though.

  • Reply
    Jon
    January 17, 2016 at 11:55

    Interesting choices! I agree with you on the Paris / Venice thing — I’m in Hanoi right now and I can confirm it is nothing like Paris.

    • Reply
      Damien
      January 17, 2016 at 21:56

      Haha thanks Jon, glad im not on my own in this!

  • Reply
    Grietje | TravelGretl
    January 16, 2016 at 11:48

    Oef, an island with snakes like that? Count me out! And I did not actually enjoy Venice all too much, so don’t think I’ll ever return there 😉

    • Reply
      Damien
      January 17, 2016 at 21:55

      Interesting, what was it about Venice that you didn’t like?

  • Reply
    Natrice
    January 13, 2016 at 20:36

    I have not visited Dubai yet, but I am wondering if it lacks the history that other cities have since everything appears to be so new and shiny.

    • Reply
      Damien
      January 17, 2016 at 21:39

      Yes exactly. Especially if you compare to somewhere like Petra, for example.

  • Reply
    Kimberly Erin
    January 13, 2016 at 17:13

    while I understand your concept regarding this list…I kinda want to dissagree…..call me a hippie or what ever…but I am pretty sure that everywhere in the world is very unique and interesting….the middle east has some of the greatest history in the world, new york is fabulous for its art, its brodway, its new yorkers, everyone loves a new yorker and their cawfees. Dubai is a modern architectural dream…spectacular creation by man kind…I mean.. I would love all of these places….

    • Reply
      Damien
      January 17, 2016 at 21:38

      I 100% understand what you mean. Different people travel for different reasons and have different tastes. If we all liked the same things, how boring would that be!?

  • Reply
    Marvin Sowers
    January 5, 2016 at 20:18

    Interesting list. I would disagree with New York….so much to do there; I like to go there every year and I don’t shop. Same goes for Paris. Places I don’t want to go are primarily war-torn like Syria, Yemen, etc. Hopefully, some day peace will come to the region and I can put them on my “to-do” list.

    • Reply
      Damien
      January 5, 2016 at 20:55

      Thanks Martin. Yes I am being harsh on New York but I really mean it when I say people from the UK seem to only want to go for the shopping. It’s all you hear just before Christmas in fact which is probably what made me think of it for this list. I would love to go there and actually see the beneath the exterior with a local via couchsurfing sometime. It’s a shame there are countries with so much history that aren’t really safe to travel in as well.

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