Had a couch surfer stay with us a while in Kuwait. He’d been everywhere. He said that, of all places, Moldova had no redeeming qualities. Granted, things might have changed in 10 years. Does anyone care to weigh in?
The capital cities. If you want authentic Europe, find the weird local festivals where people chase cheese down a hill or celebrate local culture or something. That’s real Europe. Fuck the big cities and their galleries and museums.
https://www.egremontcrabfair.com/
https://airguitarworldchampionships.com/en/home/
https://www.latomatinatours.com/
https://www.theshed.co.uk/independent
https://cipc.pipeclubs.com/events/british-pipe-smoking-championship-2/
https://www.visitvoss.no/en/smalahovetunet
https://www.sbf.se/sportgrenar/folkrace
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinkensport
https://eukonkanto.fi/en/front-page/
https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/news/cheltenham-news/man-shatters-toes-winning-world-8977482
These are a few things off the top of my head mostly northern and western Europe because it’s what I’m familiar with. Also if you want to see something bizarre, go to Finland on free bucket day. But seriously Europe is full of unusual things to do. Or you could go to yet another gallery and pretend to be interested in paintings.
Bude. Don’t go to Bude. There is nothing to see there.
Berlin
Gelsenkirchen and Duisburg are kinda famous atm.
Dublin is a kip, you have far better options throughout Ireland, if you want a city go to Cork or Belfast. Galway is a bit boring to me but could be your scene. After that there are loads of little spots with loads going for them. The entire west coast is great.
Dont rent a big car, I mean big by irish sandards.
Olten
Usa
Eastern Ukraine isn’t an ideal tourist spot at the moment.
But the minefields are a banger scnr
The internet has broken my brain.
scnr is a new one on me and in an attempt to figure it out, my brain did not land on the now rather obvious “sorry, could not resist” but “skibidi cap no rizz” as some kind of ironic initialism
I’m gonna go and find some grass now
skibidi cap no rizz
our brains are mush fr 😭
I only git as far as SNCF, the French railway company. Just a transposition and a single pen stroke away.
git commit -m “Zoomer/alpha humor acronym database extended with new entry for scnr”
I read it as scenario ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I read it as scenery. Probably because the thread is about travel.
“smoke copium, non-resident”?
Russia in general also.
Here’s what I would avoid when traveling to Poland:
- Zakopane, it’s overpriced and very crowded. If you want to visit the area the town is in your better off staying in smaller villages, unless you have to use public transit.
- Szczecin --not an ‘avoid at all cost’ but more of a ‘there are better cities to visit’-- this-or-that part of the city is always being remodeled/reconstructed and there’s no ‘old city’ with day and night life focused between two shoping centers and some roundabouts in the city center. If you want to go sight-seeing Kraków, Wrocław or Gdańsk are much better choices.
- Mazury lake district, beautiful lakes and decent nightlife, shit infrastructure - roads are narrow (two bigger cars can’t pass eachother without going offroad) and often lacking sings and other markings
- Podlaskie Voivodship, even worse infrastructure than Mazury, it’s rural, mainly towns and villages with nothing a tourist might want to see. You might think it’s a good place to go star-gazing but Bieszczady are a lot better for that (Tho you should probably go to a Dark Sky Site for that, there’s one close to Bieszczady, in Slovakia)
- THE SEASIDE, it’s crowded, expensive, the sea is cold and it’s fumcking wimdy, go to like Italy, Croatia, Portugal or Spain instead
Also in general avoid capital cities, they are often the worst of major cites in a given country.
Depends. Are you white? Would you be recognizable as a “foreigner”? In the latter case avoid all of Germanys provinces, especially in the former East. Do not travel alone and be wary of the cops. They are usually the same groups as the local Neonazis.
Canary Islands. Great place, but the mass tourism is actually killing them, provoking skyrocketing rent and shortages of power and water.
Indeed. My girlfriend lives there, last time I was over we went to the big demonstration against mass tourism. I felt a bit sick at the airport listening to all the north European pensioners talking about how they rent a place year round for 800€/month just to spend the odd week now and then there. While many locals working in tourism make minimum wage, around 1300€/month I believe.
Hey that’s exactly what my rent / wage split was in the UK last year. The only reason anything got better is that minimum wage went up while my rent hasn’t yet.
Dude that’s Afrika
how is rent related to tourism?
Think about it for a second, no, half a second and see if anything occurs to you.
Airbnbs/rentals drive up the cost of housing.
They should just make short renting of apartments illegal.
I assume because demand outstrips supply, the “value” of the rental units is inflated and landlords can charge more, pricing out locals
France is becoming a far right country on two weeks. Do yourself a favor and stay as far as you can.
Common tourist places during tourist season are usually the worst. I took a 10 day trip to Paris one summer and it was a mix of the most popular tourist places (Louvre, Eiffel tower, etc) and some underground shit my sister found.
Every tourist place was jam packed with annoying tourists, costly and had tons of scammers surrounding it. Every less known place was really awesome, aside from one sketchy neighborhood we had to walk through where we were followed for a while.
I’d also say that Northern Europe has generally been much more pleasant to travel through, for me.
As a European from elsewhere in Europe, I’m never going back to Milan. Maybe it’s fine if you’re into fashion, but if you’re not there’s not much to look at except a cathedral which resembles every other cathedral, and it’s impossible to get a photo of it without also having a friendship bracelet scammer in the frame, actively harassing you.
All tourist locations in Italy and France have people trying to scam you (and some non-scammers just trying to sell you cheap toys), but Milan is the only place I’ve been to where they’re straight up harassing you non-stop. Go to Pisa instead, it’s super relaxing there and you can marvel at their past mistakes in structural engineering. A far better deal.
Scammers abroad: Troll with randomness. Laugh at inappropriate times. Nod at them while making the eating food gesture. Randomly start pointing down a street like you’re trying to give directions but just shrug. Pick a random sports team name and say, “Gooooo EAGLES!” while nodding and dancing. Basically pick some random thing, pretend they said it, and you’re going along with it.
If they’re pointing to friendship braclets, you say “9 o’clock.” even though it’s 1:30. If they keep doing it, you just laugh, nod, and clap.
My favourite is pretending I’m deaf and making up signing. When they start gesturing, I repeat the gesture in shock. When they nod, I act disgusted like they’re sick in the head.
They will very quickly move on since you’re a waste of time. The more awkward you make it, the better, especially if you’re drawing looks from others.
I’ve used very similar techniques on men in bars who don’t think no is a complete sentence.
I’m well past the age for shame. I will make a fool of myself if it means some twerp will think twice about harassing a woman who’s repeatedly turned them down
I’d never considered doing the same for scammers - great idea! I’m just overly polite and that makes me seem like a target I think.
I have personally yelled, “Fuck off! No means no you fucking creep!” at the top of my lungs in a crowded bar. It was genuine, but over the top so every other person would turn and see them, ruining their chances of “picking up” at that establishment, forcing them to leave.
“Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah I’m fine. That guy just needed to learn a fucking lesson.”
That is hilarious but too much effort. A simple ‘Fuck off’ should suffice.
That does work too, but not on the ones that put shit on you and demand payment, usually operating as 2+. Their tactic is intimidation and drama—playing the victim to you—but it can not be beaten if you’re playing the role of a happy idiot, providing random or exact opposite behaviour to what they’re attempting.
One of these guys walked up and gave me a handful of birdseed, prompting a flock of pigeons to come perch on my arms. I most certainly did not hand over the money they wanted for the experience I didn’t ask for and was somewhat disgusted by.
I’d imagine stealing your passport or wallet would be the real goal there.
I just don’t engage. You don’t have to talk back and they get the hint rather quickly that there are more rubes nearby.
Funny you should say that; I went to Florence some years back and we took a day trip to Pisa and had to deal with the worst, most aggressive scammers I’ve ever experienced.
We may have just gotten lucky. I also had a great time in Venice once by wandering off randomly and ending up somewhere I can only assume tourists don’t normally go. We bought some fruit off a boat which was both delicious and very affordable, so I assume the target demographic was not tourists. I’m pretty sure that’s not the universal experience of Venice either.
Pisa is bad too, it is just the tower and crazy tourist prices.
How about Venice?
Venice kind of has a Disneyland vibe.
There aren’t any scammers, the place is filled with history, and is relatively well kept and run. The flip side to it is that feels like a theme park at times.
It also has Disneyland prices.
I was in Venice pre-covid. I spent a day walking around and soaking in the sights and sounds. Sat by myself for an hour listening to some guy play the chello. It was beautiful. Never got harassed by street peddlers or scammers unlike in Milan. The architecture was beautiful like nothing else. Its a city trapped in the Renaissance era.
Terrible, not a real city, like the other person said, feels more like a theme park for tourists. Already did 20 years ago, last time i’ve been, never going back.
Pisa has a few other places, but you can see the city in a day and not miss anything.
We were in the mood for a chill day, so it was nice to just chill in a park and walk through some random old neighborhoods until we stumbled across a restaurant. There’s nothing chill about Milan, though, at least not where a clueless tourist would find it.
I liked the middle finger statue
I really enjoyed visiting Cimiteiro Monumentale in Milan. A historic cemetery with lots of lavishishly designed huge tombs. Very few tourists there and no scammers whatsoever.
