OT: Worst Vacation
sinclair
Strip Club Nation
Where is the worst place you have ever gone on vacation?
For me it was Cancún. It was the "place to go" when I was a youngin, so I gave it a try. I ended up hating every day of being there. I am not much of a beach guy and prefer to wander versus being stuck at a resort for an entire week. Many of the "Americans" down there seemed to be first/second generation Eastern European types that were very rude to the hotel and restaurant staff. You could drink as much beer as you wanted for free, but to keep costs down, there were only like four brands of beer served. The only American one was Coors Light. The resort would not let you bring girls you met at the night clubs back to your room because of the all-inclusive thing. The Mexican police had a thing for arresting gringos late at night who appeared drunk, were caught urinating, or were drinking beer on the street, which is illegal there. I would buy a 40 ouncer of Sol at 7/11 each night and chug it as I walked to the night clubs with my head on a swivel looking for the policia to roll up on me. You also have taxis constantly rolling up on you and asking you if you want "company". They then take out a portfolio of pictures of naked women to show you, which are all local prostitutes. I assume they get a referral cut if they take you to one of the hooker's pads. The women in the Yucatan are more indigenous looking than northern Mexico. The only good-looking women were the güera types from Cuidad de Mexico and a small fraction of American women on vacation. On the beach, I constantly had to shoo away Mexicans trying to sell me everything from blankets, pinatas, and sombreros to cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. When you reject the drugs, they then think they can at least get you to buy some Cuban cigars. Also, the weather was miserably hot and humid. I would never go back.
I have asked this question to several people at work, and they all said the same place: Jamaica. One was robbed in Jamaica. Others complained how Jamaica is so ghetto and everyone wants to sell you marijuana. Another person told me how a woman at her hotel got raped by a Jamaican guy who climbed over the fence into their resort. Ya Mon!
Bonus question: Have you ever gone on vacation somewhere that you thought would suck, but ended up having a great time?
For me it was Cancún. It was the "place to go" when I was a youngin, so I gave it a try. I ended up hating every day of being there. I am not much of a beach guy and prefer to wander versus being stuck at a resort for an entire week. Many of the "Americans" down there seemed to be first/second generation Eastern European types that were very rude to the hotel and restaurant staff. You could drink as much beer as you wanted for free, but to keep costs down, there were only like four brands of beer served. The only American one was Coors Light. The resort would not let you bring girls you met at the night clubs back to your room because of the all-inclusive thing. The Mexican police had a thing for arresting gringos late at night who appeared drunk, were caught urinating, or were drinking beer on the street, which is illegal there. I would buy a 40 ouncer of Sol at 7/11 each night and chug it as I walked to the night clubs with my head on a swivel looking for the policia to roll up on me. You also have taxis constantly rolling up on you and asking you if you want "company". They then take out a portfolio of pictures of naked women to show you, which are all local prostitutes. I assume they get a referral cut if they take you to one of the hooker's pads. The women in the Yucatan are more indigenous looking than northern Mexico. The only good-looking women were the güera types from Cuidad de Mexico and a small fraction of American women on vacation. On the beach, I constantly had to shoo away Mexicans trying to sell me everything from blankets, pinatas, and sombreros to cocaine, ecstasy, and marijuana. When you reject the drugs, they then think they can at least get you to buy some Cuban cigars. Also, the weather was miserably hot and humid. I would never go back.
I have asked this question to several people at work, and they all said the same place: Jamaica. One was robbed in Jamaica. Others complained how Jamaica is so ghetto and everyone wants to sell you marijuana. Another person told me how a woman at her hotel got raped by a Jamaican guy who climbed over the fence into their resort. Ya Mon!
Bonus question: Have you ever gone on vacation somewhere that you thought would suck, but ended up having a great time?
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38 comments
I visited Cancun several times and always had good experiences.
From what I've heard from others, Cancun is similar to a non-stop Spring Break, so one would probably have to be in their 20s and enjoy that kinda scene - w.r.t. Jamaica, seems like the kinda place where one can only spend their vacation mostly in the resort b/c it's either not safe to be freely out-and-about or maybe not much worthwhile to do outside the resort? I guess if I lived in a cold-climate w/ no/limited access to the beach, then a week in a resort might appeal to me.
In the end, a lot of these places have high rates of poverty and desperation where corruption is often rampant and people often get-by by doing things on the down-lo, thus tourists and their dollars are often gonna attract a lot of unwanted attention.
I agree with you that strip clubs are better than vacations.
nothing compares to a sexy woman.
Every restaurant I went to sucked, I went to the beach one day and got eaten alive by bugs, the next day I went I couldn't go in the water because there were 2 shark sightings and out of the 4 days I was there it rained 3 of them, all day.
Runner up would be the Bahamas. Unless you're staying at Atlantis or Baha Mar, don't bother going.
BONUS -
One of the places I went that I thought would suck but was great was Grenada. Locals were friendly food was decent beaches were great.
yeah, I've been to a million restaurants in Florida that were to die for, but even you couldn't find a "good" there either!!! I have family in Florida and have spent a lot of time it Ft Laud, Naples, Macro, Keys, even some time in Jacksonville, but didn't like Augustine. Yeah I took the carriage ride, went to the fort, the distillery and all that shit but not really my thing.
Second worst vacation was when I went back to Vegas when I was 21 and lost almost $5k of student loan money. On the bright side the other 20-25 trips I have taken to Vegas since then have been fun and I have a trip booked for December unless 2020 finds more ways to shit on our lives before then.
I've been twice since June and it is pretty much a graveyard now. I teased a buddy that works for the state that the latest outbreaks were because of him. He was tasked, as part of his group, to make the rules for opening in June. A lot of cases started in Casinos in Vegas.
The word is bars will open under stricter rules in a couple of weeks. What that means? I don't know. I just know the two times I've been there I was glad work was paying.
I'm with Papi on this one. After travelling to some countries, behind the scenes its a lot of very poor people working for tourism. Their living conditions are horrible and it feels weird to go be a 'rich foreigner' in hotels along the beach. Sure this gives them jobs etc, so I'm not trying to go into the economics of it...just not interested in participating anymore.
I'm speaking mostly of the APAC region.
My son said he got robbed his first day he was in Nassau and I had to wire him money, but he was young and wild, so who knows.
Place I thought I’d hate but loved was Disneyworld. Never went as a kid, but went for the first time with a gf when I was 23 and was very impressed and had a great time.
I won’t relate any of my personal bad experiences but will share the winner of the absolute “worst” place IMO. The entire country of India is nothing but an open sewer. Horrible place with horrible people living on top of eachother. That they could live like that along with thinking the caste system is natural and maybe it’s just me but bathing in raw sewage, regardless of caste, is just fucking wrong. Even Bangladesh which is a poorer version of India has the advantage of annual monsoons flushing the shit out to sea. Not India. Unless you want to open a call center, book your trip to anywhere else.
BONUS –
I’ve been going to Spain for close to 40 years and was there in early 2019 when I decided to go north to Galicia where I had never before ventured. Not that I thought it would suck by any means but I liked it so much that instead of a few days I ended up staying for about six weeks hiking through most of it. Beautiful country, green, fresh air, simple honest hardworking friendly people living a largely rural agriculture based life. It was kind of like the land that time forgot. So for me it was weeks of no phone, no TV, no internet. Before anyone books a trip you should know that there are also no strip clubs though in one city my cab driver did offer to take me to where the prostitutes were working the streets. Not my thing so I passed and can’t comment on the quality on offer one way or the other.
Every person told us - it never rains for more than a day here. The second day it was - it never rains for more than two days here. By the fifth day - I was ready to strangle anyone who told me that!
I enjoy the irreverent British humor - and I loved Benny Hill as a kid - but I had enough of their jokes while sitting in the hotel bar and restaurant as I watched it pour outside!
Every time we left the hotel - holding an umbrella - I would step off the curb directly into traffic - as I couldn’t get the idea of looking in the other direction first!
I enjoyed the trip and culture, but the last place I'd want to go back to is India. The merciless heat and humidity, the sprawling crowds, the garbage, and human and animal waste everywhere. On the train from Delhi to Agra, I saw dozens of men shitting right by the tracks. Mumbai had disgusting poverty next to incredible wealth. "Home" is an 8 x 8 PVC shack with no protection from the elements. Oh, and getting horrible out-both-ends food poisoning on my last day didn't help either.
Best unexpected places were South Africa and Scotland. Former had amazing natural beauty, and if you have a soul you can't not be touched by the apartheid museum and Mandela story. Latter, gorgeous countryside, loved the distilleries, and Edinburgh is an underrated city and home to a couple of my best lap dances ever.
You need to go back to Edinburgh for Hogmanay (New Years Eve) sometime if you haven’t already been. It’s a real medieval festival and just fucking awesome.
And though I shouldn’t say it here but one of the traditions is kissing strangers in the streets with abandon.
What part of South Africa did you visit - did it seem/feel safe? Are you white and if so did you feel treated differently bc of it?
We were in Jo'Burg and Cape Town, and kept to well-off areas.
For me, few things can spoil a vacation worse than crappy weather. I'd had several good prior vacations/getaways to Phoenix, but was not to be so this year. Only 2 days of this 6 day trip got above 70 degrees, other days rainy, or barely broke 60 with windy conditions. To add insult to injury, I caught a cold, and took 45 minutes (with heater/defrost running) to break/scrape ice from my car when I got back. Ironically, I was considering going to FL, but I said, nah, I haven't been to Phoenix in a while. Temperatures in FL were mostly 80ish that week.
Cancun was "meh". One day shore excursion for a cruise.
Worst would have been Orlando. Worst to drive in, worst to stay in, worst fellow tourists. You can find a couple of decent restaurants, but they are jam packed and overpriced.
Best is Hawai'i. Expensive, but you can snow covered peaks and snorkel coral reefs in the same day. Local Hawaiians are cool, but the expat community sucks.
The expats suck in comparison to the natives, or even in comparison to stateside Americans? If it's the latter, can you elaborate?
--2 weeks in a rented motor home. Wouldn't have mattered if I'd gone someplace different than I did. That trip resulted in lifetime aversion to RV ownership. Might consider a sprinter van or something small like that later in life but that rented RV was too long and a pain in the ass to park.
--Not a vacation per se, but had to stop in Dallas, TX in August for a wedding on return trip from a vacation. That was miserable. 95*+ after 9PM. Jumped in the pool thinking to cool off and the pool was high 80s (median ambient temperature). Even if Texas had negative state income tax (instead of zero) and gave me a rebate for simply residing in Dallas I never would even if had lifetime free admission to Baby Dolls. Plus I hate the Cowboys.