I try to find the good in each place that I visit. Life is what you make of it.

WELL SAID! Katherine~

Doesn't that beg the question, Katherine? It's lovely to find the good in each place you visit, but surely you use some judgement to decide which places to visit or return to, unless they're chosen at random or assigned by your company.<BR><BR>I'm fascinated by the differences in opinion on this thread. The travel experience is so very subjective.

My list of do-withouts:<BR><BR>1. Vegas-tacky<BR>2. Atlantic city-tacky and dirty<BR>3. Bensalem, PA-drug addict pedophiles and garbage everywhere<BR>4. Pforzheim Germany-serious racism<BR>5. Frankfurt, Germany-Bosnian gypy theives everywhere

I want to go everywhere - just once - so that I can justifyably condemn it. I refuse to listen to anybody criticise a place they've never been. I want to go to Japan, China, India, Thailand, Nepal, Tibet, Australia, New Zealand EVERYWHERE. You know why? Because it's important to understand why you don't like something instead of just passing judgement because of some preconceived notion of distaste. I HATE Las Vegas. It's tacky, bizarre, ridiculous and full of old tacky people gambling like zombies. However, I've been there, and I can appreciate it for its kitsch and personality. I don't know. I just hate reading these posts and hearing about the places that people DON'T want to go. It's so close-minded.

Skylar, that is a great philosophy you have, but how many people have the time and money to go "EVERYWHERE", or even CLOSE...One must make choices and judgements. Unless the travel destinations are determined on "Pin the Tail on the Spinning Globe" one must make judgements based on secondhand information.

When some people return from a trip they will say they didn’t like this or that place, and would not revisit some other spot. We don’t remember anyplace in France, or in any of our travels, that we wouldn’t gladly revisit tomorrow. It’s not that we are Pollyannish about our travels, we enjoy our journey, and are happy to visit or re-visit most anywhere.<BR><BR>We also remember it’s “their home,” and we won’t try to change it. If we don’t like a certain place, we don’t have to be there, we can go home. While it would be nice to travel to all parts of the world, the cost to do so is out of our reach. There are thousands of places to (re)visit throughout Europe, and we will never see enough to satiate our travel appetite.

I'm surprised to see people mentioning New Orleans as a place they can do without. Of course anyone over 25 can do without Bourbon Street, but there is so much more to New Orleans, and to the French Quarter.<BR><BR>New Orleans is also...riding a streetcar down St. Charles Ave and marvelling at the beautiful Garden District mansions, dining at a 100-year-old restaurant that excels at French-influence Creole seafood, window-shopping as you stroll past the antique shops on Bourbon Street. <BR><BR>I absolutely love New Orleans, and have found it a totally different city now that I'm an adult and stay off of Bourbon Street!

Malta! It's as close to the middle east as I ever want to come!

I can not be tempted to return to:<BR><BR>Birmingham, England<BR><BR>Saltcoats, Ayrshire Coast, Scotland<BR><BR>Tillamook, somewhere on the US west coast (Washington State?)<BR><BR>Debrecen, Hungary

I agree with Skylar, maybe in reality,most of us are unable to actually visit Everywhere! but the thinking is good, you can visit places with an open mind, not taking into account others personal opinions..you can make your own judgements..you can appreciate the good things and ignore the bad...you can learn instead of judging...otherwise, might as well stay at home! and I for one would never let another persons opinions on a place determine whether I would travel there or not!

Dee: Just curious as to why you could do without Tillamook when you don't even know where it is, and so obviously have no idea what it is like.

I myself live in Tillamook, and could quite easily do without it, but that comes from living here and gaining a knowledge of the area. Though I don't care for the town itself, we are little more than an hour from almost anything you could want to do, and many of the surrounding areas are quite beautiful.

Interesting thread. It makes me stop and think why it is that some people (including myself) can find one place so attractive and another so repulsive, or somewhere in between. Geographical or cultural upbringing? Financial status? Education? Timidity or boldness? I'm really curious.

While traveling almost anywhere is my favorite thing to do, I must admit that there are some places I like more than others. For instance, I've been in all 50 states and I've found I love most of places I have been, with the rare exception of a few places like Bakersfield, CA and Houston, TX. There were simply no redeeming qualities that I could find in either of those cities. Unlike a lot of posters, I've enjoyed myself in New Orleans (the food particularly) and Las Vegas.

Similarly, with a couple of exceptions, most of the places I have visited in Great Britain, Canada, France and Italy were fantastic. To a slightly lesser degree, I enjoyed myself in Spain. Mexico can be a lot of fun, but its still sad to see all that poverty surrounding the tourist areas. I've never been interested in seeing Russia, except maybe St. Petersburg - can't say why. Similarly, I know I didn't like Germany very much, but I can't really put my finger on why. I kind of felt the same way about Switzerland, although, like Austria, it was quite beautiful, and I have been back a second time.

I spent several weeks in Greece and the Greek Islands a couple of years ago. I loved every moment that I was there, except for the last two days I spent in Athens. Turkey was fantastic, especially Istanbul. Morroco was primitive in many ways, but a lot of fun. Eqypt - it was worth seeing the pyramids, but I would never go back. South Africa was beautiful - reminded me a lot of California. The rest of Africa was something I should have seen 25 - 30 years ago, but I don't think it worth visiting now.

Japan and China were worth seeing once, but I wouldn't go there again. I spent a year a long time ago in Vietnam and remember it being a beautiful country. I've always wanted to go back under different circumstances. I think I'll be visiting there soon now that it is opening up again. I spent my R&amp;R in Australia and had a great time - fun people. I'd definitely go back there again someday, probably when I can visit Vietnam and New Zealand at the same time.

Like Catherine, I never went anywhere that I didn't like while I was there - even including Athens! But there are places I've been to that I'm less keen to revisit than others, and there are places I haven't been to that are not as high on my priority list as others.
Among the former various South East Asian counties like Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia etc. Among the latter are most of the other S.E.Asian countries (China, Korea etc) plus Russia (except St Petersburg), and some of the south and east African counties.
Among the latter are Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia

ignore the last line in my above. i thought i had edited it out.

Now that I've been, I will never feel the need to return to Vienna. We went to Vienna on our way from Prague to Budapest and in comparison to the other two, Vienna was ostentatious and vapid. The best of Vienna could easily be outshone by either Prague or Budapest and cheaper to boot.
I'll always remember Vienna as the ultimate in rip offs starting with the terribly dry Satchel Torte and ending with that box they call a palace. You know the one, it's distinguished from the other boxes in Vienna because it's bigger and sits on some land.
Never will I forget the Secession Museum. It promised to be a lovely Art Deco museum and only after they had charged us full price did they tell us there was only one room open. The room was bare except for a mural by Klimt, who in my opinion, painted the same picture over and over again. Boring boring. Two nights there was one too many.

LONDON!

I imagine Satchel Torte WOULD be rather dry and tasteless.

Well, I will have to admit that I loved my Sacher Torter (I'm assuming that this is what we are talking about...)! I loved Vienna but I loved the deserts even more! I really enjoyed my time in Vienna, and hope to go back when its warmer (I was there in February with snow).

As far as my list of places I have no desire to go back to, they would be:

Los Angeles (okay but a letdown)
Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge, Tennessee (what the heck was I thinking...touristy tacky and then some!)
Houston
Cozumel/Cancun
Pisa
Atlantic City
Pittsburgh

I will not add to this list places that I haven't been, because I refuse to judge places before I've been there. Sure, there are places that I don't care to visit, but until I actually experience them I think its unfair to critize them.

Wow! This thread has been going on forever!

Tracy

No mentions of the DMZ in Korea?
It's so lovely during monsoon season!