5 Worst Tourist Traps That I Have Been a Part of

I happened to stumble upon an article, while browsing through the internet, about the worst tourist traps that people have ever experienced in their life. My mind automatically wandered to some of the tourist destinations, that turned out to be a trap for me. I work as a travel blogger for Tours in Abu Dhabi.com and often go on tours at popular as well as isolated places to find out more about the places, and this is how I had some of the worst experiences in my life so far.

Here are some of the craziest tourist traps, experienced by me, that will help you stay away from such places.

1. Plymouth Rock

The whole thing about Plymouth Rock being the landing place of the pilgrims is a lie and one you should definitely avoid. The area near Provincetown on the tip of Cape Cod is the real area and as soon as I discovered the great figure of the rock, I thought about not being bothered and having fun nonetheless. The town, however, tried to unfortunately conspire against me and decided to treat me badly, overcharge me and in the end tried to get on my nerves. If you are planning to visit this place for the sake of history, you will be heavily disappointed, as there is nothing at this place. It is fake and the whole industry of opportunists throng this place to gouge tourists and loot them.

2. Hollywood Walk of Fame

One of the most surreal tourist traps of America, Hollywood Walk of Fame is swarmed by tour guides, locals, street vendors, grown adults that are dressed as famous movie characters, while the tourists are eager to experience their dream world that they have spent their lives watching on screens. This Hollywood Boulevard is a land shark, which I have experienced, that simply swallows credit cards. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get to meet a member of One Direction or George Clooney. If you want to get anything done in the Chambers of Commerce on a daily basis, you will have a nightmarish game of bureaucracy or flag football. Hollywood Walk of Fame was nominated as being one of the world’s biggest disappointments, according to a thread from Reddit. This response further confirms my claim of the place being extremely depressing after constantly being in the news for one thing or the other.

3. Salem, Massachusetts

At first I thought it would be really interesting to visit this place as it presented a trip through time about witchcraft and witches. The place was not as crowded as I expected it to be seeing that we were in the Salem Witch Village. As we began with our tour it all looked like a set up to me and an extremely bad attraction. The props were very poor and one could easily make out that the mannequins were anything but scary. The trip, which I visited via a guide, seemed to rip us all of our cash in the name of showing us through the village and telling us about the village.

4. The Tower of London

Anything that is related to the British royal history tends to act like a magnet for tourists from all over the world, including me. I happened to visit the Tower of London for the same purpose but all I got to do was stand in the queue for a long period of time, rather than being inside the structure. There’s a lot of hype surrounding the tower but if you visit the place for real, you will be disappointed and will curse yourself for not skipping this place. It is very much like a tourist trap which you all should avoid visiting at all costs.

5. The Space Needle
An 800-pound tourist trap which you should avoid while visiting Seattle. Space Needle is a beautiful and a quirky city mascot but it is a choice that is totally uninspired. I visited the place and had to pay $11 for general admission, already making it a terrible attraction with so many non-touristy attractions to go for. If you are an out of town resident and want to experience an entertaining attraction you don’t have to visit the Space Needle. There are plenty of other tourist offerings in Seattle that are ready to explore for many popular reasons.