Cancun to Times Square: How to Spot a Tourist Trap

Travel Blog  •  Julia Ross  •  10.23.07 | 3:00 PM ET

imageHow do you know a tourist trap when you see one? Aside from the double-decker buses and fanny packs, I’m usually alerted by a feeling I get: an overwhelming desire to flee mixed with befuddlement. The first time I visited San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf, I remember thinking: I don’t get it. Choosing the world’s top tourist traps is sure to elicit heated debate, but ForbesTraveler.com has weighed in with its own list, nicely illustrated with a slide show and story offering tips for alternative experiences. Skip Times Square in favor of Central Park’s Strawberry Fields, writer Chris Colin recommends, or try the Valley of the Kings instead of the Pyramids at Giza.

The list of tourist traps includes perennial offenders like downtown Cancun (“mother ship to all spring break clichés, unfunny T-shirts and expensive, watery booze”) and the Hollywood Walk of Fame (“There’s a time in everyone’s life when the Hollywood Walk of Fame holds great appeal. It’s around the time that treehouses and action figures do, too”). But I’d have to argue a few of their other picks, including the Forbidden City. When I visited in 2002, I found it breathtaking, Starbucks notwithstanding.

I’d sooner nominate the Great Wall’s Badaling site, which features a bear pit and a go-cart-on-rails that ferries tourists to the top. The experience left me that much more determined to find an isolated spot on the Wall next time around.

Related on World Hum:
* Seven Wonders of the Shrinking Planet
* Nine Great Ways to Get Thrown Off an Airplane
* 10 Greatest Fictional Travelers

Photo by Stig Nygaard via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

Tags: Asia, China, North America, Mexico, United States, New York

Julia Ross is a Washington, DC-based writer and frequent contributor to World Hum. She has lived in China and Taiwan, where she was a Fulbright scholar and Mandarin student. Her writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Plenty and other publications. Her essay, Six Degrees of Vietnam, was shortlisted for "The Best American Travel Writing 2009."


5 Comments for Cancun to Times Square: How to Spot a Tourist Trap

starsea 10.24.07 | 6:05 AM ET

San Francisco has a unique charisma within its 50 square miles. This city offers to their visitors a remarkable number of attractions as museums, shopping, live music and theatre offerings. San Francisco’s people are proud of their home, also well-known for its diverse ethnic and political communities, world-class restaurants, scenic beauty and hilly terrain.

This city is located on the coast of California. It has a very moderate climate with chilly winters and warm summers. During the summertime, AT&T Park is a great place for family. You can sit in the upper deck to see the Bay and some tourist areas of San Francisco.

San Francisco is not a single city, it has many friendly neighbourhoods. The main neighbourhoods are Hayes Valley, Castro, Mission, the Haight, Bernal Heights, North Beach, Noe Valley, and South of Market. Not all of the neighbourhoods are tourist destinations, but all of them contain good shopping, fine restaurants and cute bistros and cafes. San Francisco is home to gay and lesbian population. The main gay neighbourhood is the Castro.
More information,please go on:
http://www.worldtravelling.cn

TambourineMan 10.24.07 | 6:15 PM ET

No doubt some of these traps can be skipped entirely. I could’ve died happy without ever setting foot in Cancun (“Amigo, necessitas mujeres? Mota? I give you cheap.”). But others like Trevi Fountain and Forbidden City are musts. My advice: Go, gawk and get the hell out…fast.

Cancoon 01.14.08 | 1:40 PM ET

Cancun is indeed a tourist trap.  It’s a tacky resort town built years ago by the Mexican government.  There’s so many other great places to visit in Mexico, and on the Maya Riviera coastline, that I’ve no idea why anyone would bother with a vacation in Cancun.

W.E. Reinka 01.17.08 | 6:53 PM ET

But I love tourists traps. I love the kitsch. I lived in SF for years & the only time I went to the Wharf was with visitors but I loved it the first time I saw it. Of course, way back then it still had Fishermen, not just Wharf. This anti-tourist bent, taken to the extreme, reminds me of the couple who “reluctantly” visited the Eiffel Tower on their first trip to Paris because they figured it’d be so touristy. My wife & I do have one rule, to avoid restaurants at Fisherman’s Wharf, Times Square, etc. Tourist areas are generally so bad you’re better off at McDonalds.

doug 03.14.08 | 4:42 PM ET

Hey the double decker buses happen to be cool if you’re a non New York like myself. Especially the ones from http://www.citysightsny.com !

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.