LOURDES, without a doubt.....shops everywhere selling little plastic Virgin Mary bottles with screw off hears so you can fill the bottles with holy water from the grotto. Seemed pretty blasphemous to me.

Carcassonne struck me as touristy at first and then I realized that in the "old" days, it was a commercial center. True, the shops back then weren't selling postcards, but people did come there to shop and gossip and trade, and that put it into perspective for me.

Lindall - I'm laughing so much. I've been all over the world and THAT wins. We got stranded there years ago. I couldn't believe the place. As truck stops are for truckers, South of the border is for tourist. It's only reason to exist is for passing tourists. It has to be the mostly touristy place in the world.

St Thomas, UVI

seasho-simply because you LOVED Angkor Wat, doesn't mean that it's not one of the most overly touristed places in Asia-in fact, great concern is expressed about the resources and the fragility of the area, because it is SO overrun with tourists, touts-, screaming after you to buy everything from Lonely Planet Cambodia to cameras -to hundreds of tourist buses-I didn't like Cambodia, my friends didn't like Angkor Wat-we're glad we saw it- but never again, there's nothing there that interests me in the least-particularly the huge gap between the 5 star hotels for the tourists in Siem Riep, and the poorer than poor river people in their shacks.

OReilly, You are so right. I imagine that Rome would actually be pleasant in winter.

But I would find Las Vegas repulsive, no matter the time of year.

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and fair warning. I'll be going to Neuschwanstein this summer. I'm fully prepared that it will be "touristy," and not medieval. But I am interested in the history of Mad Kind Ludwig and his romantic sensibilities.

My first shot at Rome was also less than great: the popular attractions were way too popular. And this is true of many many places during the main tourism months. My next time to Rome was in Autumn and although there will still many tourists around, it felt like about 30% of the previous crowds - which meant I could see things, first, and also feel the presence of Italians!

This is true in my town, NYC. During the many peak tourism periods (not just summer) you rather avoid certain streets when possible - not out of dislike for tourists, but out of self-preservation. It can be exhausting just to maneuver through them!

I try to keep that in mind when dealing with the locals in Paris, Rome, anywhere the crowds of tourists - me included - sometimes threaten to overwhelm the city.

I am sorry if this offends members, but wake up, we are all tourists!!! Granted, we may be good tourists, kind, try to speak the naitve tongue- but no matter how hard you try we are aliens..... I have a hard time complaining, considering if this is a problem for you- you are the problem.

Like I said I have the urge to complain but how can I when I am there!!!!!

I was going to mention Lourdes; I’ve never been but have heard enough to recognize all that other posters have seen personally.

However, when I was 4 years old, my dear Mother arrived in Lourdes on a stretcher, dying and not expected to survive the journey. The doctors had given up all hope and I was told my Mammy would not come home. She came home in wheelchair, much recovered and went on to have another child and survive until I was 30. She wasn’t the only one. It may be tacky and touristy, but there is something extraordinary about that place. I am grateful that I had 26 years more with my dear Mammy.

OK, I have searched the entire thread and not one mention of what has to be the sleeziest of all tourist traps in the world... Tijauna, Mexico
thereyet

Try the Diamond in Donegal Town on Saint Patrick's Day..

Ayia Napa in August.

I think there's a difference between sights and places that are in and of themselves touristy (e.g., Disneyworld, Legoland), as opposed to sights and places that have a touristy atmosphere because of the number of tourists and the tourism infrastructure that has grown up around them (e.g., Lourdes or Neuschwanstein or Rothenburg).

Thanks to the growth in leisure time in the past decades and the availability of travel, many places seem always to be overrun with tourists. There can't be many of us who haven't at some point looked up and thought it would be nice if about half of "them" would just go home, so the rest of us could enjoy the experience in less crowded and noisy - and more affordable - conditions.

This surely must go back centuries or millennia, if we believe what we read. Vendors and innkeepers have long created traps (not necessarily criminal ones) for tourists and pilgrims in the places everyone "had to" visit.

I remember a line from the film "Summertime", when Katherine Hepburn as Jane Hudson tells the owner of the pensione, "I'm so glad I'm here rather than at a big hotel filled with tourists - like me."

Today one issue is that when a place is made a World Heritage Site it will often be subsumed by tourism, thus helping to destroy, in a way, the very thing meant to be preserved. Some nations and cities do a good job of managing the tourism growth and the alterations it brings to a place. Others less so.

Our innocent desire to see the beautiful creations of man and God constantly threaten their beauty, whether it is hordes trampling a national park or hordes creating a din in a museum or church or ancient temple. One sad example to me is the huge cruise ships allowed into the Venice Lagoon. Not only does their out-of-scale presence wreck the views, and their throngs overfill the piazze, but they can't physically be good for the city's fragile footing on this earth.

Finding a place that hasn't been "spoiled" by either the visitors or the exploiters becomes a goal in itself. Then we feel more chill than thrill when we find our secret place featured in Travel and Leisure magazine or the Sunday newspaper. If the travel writer has found it, can the tour bus be far behind?

I personlly relate to a Noel Coward line that goes something like:
"I am always arriving just AFTER the season, festival, feast day, or national holiday. I find that very pleasant." Truly, for all the excitement that surrounds a hyped event, there can be tremendous pleasure in missing them.

I have to disagree with Robespierre (4/18 @ 12:15) about Ocean City NJ. Yes, there is a boardwalk with touristy-type shops, but it's relatively subdued. The town is dry so there are no bars, and the "Blue laws" keep many shops shuttered on Sundays. If you want to see tacky, go to Wildwood, NJ, about 25 miles south of OC. It's a mini-version of Myrtle Beach, about which enough has already been said.

In the UK- Blackpool, without a shadow of a doubt. If I never had to go there again.....

In the rest of Europe-Malia on Crete. OK. I nver got out of mteh car, but even so, it was just like Blackpool, but with sunshine.

In the other bits of the world I've been to-Seaworld in San Diego. But my experiecnes in other bits of the world are limited.

Dubrovnik in July. Hot, hot, hot. Full of tourists from the many cruise liners visiting. Full of tourist shops selling T shirts, post cards etc. Similar in many ways to St. Marks in Venice during the summer without the rest of Venice to explore.

Yeah, it's Prague and that was several years ago. Traveling late in the year helps a bit with this "problem."

Milan!! After Venice, Florence, Sienna etc, this was a bad experience but fortunately we were off to Bergamo the next day and that made up for everything..

Here is a hint for the complainers among you:

Travel in the off-season!

Don't go to Venice in July and don't go to Angkor in the winter months.

Maybe don't go to Lourdes at all!!

I would bet some of the nay-sayers here would think differently of certain destinations if they paid a second visit to Rome, or Sarlat, to name two European examples, in January.

Niagara Falls.