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

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

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

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!)

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