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Article created by: Rūta Zumbrickaitė
As an avid traveler, I quickly realized that it’s no less addictive than any other illegal substance. Don’t get me wrong, but just the thought of planning my next trip sends adrenaline rushing through my veins, but not all things on my to-do list turn out to be rosy.
Some activities are just tourist traps disguised as daydreams, and I am sure I am not the only one who did them for the hype. When Reddit user ihave22nicetoes asked, “What’s one tourist activity you did out of FOMO that you regretted?” The number of people who responded is quite staggering!
More info: Reddit
20 years ago I rode an elephant in northern Thailand and couldn’t wait to get off. It did not seem like they treated them well, and the elephants had to be coaxed to walk. I regretted it a lot and never did animal tourism again.
A capybara cafe in Japan. It was the saddest thing. The poor capybara was completely disinterested in the hoard of humans and cats surrounding it (I think they cheaped out on getting a capybara buddy and subbed in a litter of cats instead). It is never taken out of the small cafe and never will be for its entire life.
I really wanted to believe that it could be ethical but the experience confirmed that any wildlife experience that allows you to touch the animals does not have the welfare of the animal in mind. & yet, as upsetting as it is, this still isn’t as cruel as how we treat cows, pigs, and chickens in the animal agriculture industry.
Going on a cruise. My ex always wanted to go but I was reluctant. The boat was nice, food and drinks were great, still felt like I was trapped in a mall for a week.
About 20 years ago, I visited the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi, Thailand. I’d seen something about it on TV and it claimed to be a sanctuary dedicated to animal conservation and that sort of thing.
I regretted going almost immediately. Got there and the tigers were very obviously [intoxicated]. I know the temple denied any accusations of [intoxicating] the animals, but the way those tigers slept through being manhandled and posed for pictures was not natural.
Years later, it came to light that the temple was involved in the illegal animal trade, amongst other things. It was shut down in 2016. If there’s one touristy thing I’ve done I wish I could take back it’s giving my money to that place.
Feeding a baby elephant in Bangkok city centre 🥺 was young and stupid and possibly drunk. Feel bad about it to this day. Anything with animals now I’ll just avoid.
Has anyone mentioned Plymouth Rock yet? I love the look on tourist faces when they see it 😆😆😆😆😆.
NYE at Times Square. Had to get there at like noon to get a good spot and just stood there all day. After a few hours you can barely move, let alone go to the bathroom or get food.
I paid extra $ for the freak show at a real life circus (probably earlier than 2008) or maybe a fair? and got to meet the littlest person alive – her name was joyti amge and she was just sitting there on a little pedestal smiling at everyone and she seemed so sweet. I felt horrible as a lookey loo because I legitimately thought the freak show would be like a Ripleys with taxidermy and not actual real people.
90€ for a 25 min ride with Gondola in Venice. Yeah, maybe I should have listen to all the people that said take it either too early or during the sunset, and not on “highways” but small canals. I did it out of FOMO and really regret it. Too much “traffic”, not relaxing at all, and nothing special.
Next day, I took the vaporetto at night, and it was way more cool experience for a fraction of cost of a gondola ride.
Four corners monument in the USA. We had just started our RV trip around the US/Canada and everyone told us it was a must see. It was not. It’s not even across the four actual corner state lines which it claimed to be (Arizona/Colorado/New Mexico/Utah).
Ate FUGU sashimi in Osaka. Fugu is poisonous and a chef needs to have 7 years of experience before they are licensed to serve it. The regret was it tasted like overcooked squid and sooo not worth the money and the mental effort.
Long neck tribe in northern Thailand. Oy, talk about feeling exploitative.
In Iceland in early April at thingviller we had booked the snorkel swim between the tectonic plates – so we were at that park for a different thing a few days before our booking and saw some very cold and miserable looking snorkel swimmers returning from their tour shivering in their wetsuits and I’m realizing that in my own ten layers of extremely warm specialized clothing I’m still so freezing that my eyeballs felt like freezer burned ice cubes and I’ve never cancelled a booking so fast.
Bali.
In general.
Been to three dozen countries, wish I would have gone anywhere else in Indonesia. What a touristy, littered, stew pot. Maybe my least favorite place I’ve ever traveled.
Visited South Beach one day during an otherwise great trip to the Keys and Everglades etc. It was like the nasty stepchild of LA and Vegas and I hated every moment of it. .
Did a food tour and ate fermented shark in Iceland. The rest of the tour was great but the bit of shark that tasted like it was left on a dirty restroom floor for a week was not the highlight of said tour.
Mount Rushmore is legitimately so disappointing. I don’t understand how they keep tricking people to go see it.
Normally any excessively busy place I go to, I regret it. Unless it’s really something special.
For example i still really enjoyed Machu Pichu, because that place is amazing, and at least they limit daily visitors.
Recently I went to Kyoto and I went to the signature places – awful.
Driving the loop around Maui. We were staying in Wailea and having a good time there – there was plenty to do and I was mostly there for the beach. We somehow were convinced that we had to do the road trip around the island. We hired a car for it and most of it was pretty boring. It took a very long time and there were some extremely treacherous and scary sections. It took almost a whole day. I would have preferred to have skipped the loop really. .
We went to Universal Studios in Osaka, for Nintendo Land. It was maybe the worst day of our holiday. None of the food or drink places opened until three hours after the park did, and there were no where near enough places for people to sit, so the walk ways around the park were just full of people just sitting on the ground.
And in Nintendoland itself, there were maybe three times as many people as there was space. And we couldn’t really do any of the attractions.
The whole park had the vibes of somewhere that had just opened and had no idea how to deal with so many people.
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Edvinas Jovaišas
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