Oh, I forgot that I've been a good "home tourist" recently. I just went to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, which although is a bastion of Reagan/Republican propaganda, it has the old Air Force One that you can take a tour of, which is pretty darn cool.

I have lived in and around San Francisco (grew up 20 minutes away)almost all of my life, and there are a bunch of things here that I haven't done...the whole it's there and I'll get to it sometime applies.

When I lived in Sevilla, there were several things I didn't do. I kind of regret it now. Since I was living there, I figured I would get around to it at some point...plus I didn't want to seem like too much of a tourist.

I've only gone to Alcatraz once in my life (we never even did it on field trips)...it is awesome. I've never gone to the Coit Tower. Never been to Muir Woods/Stinson Beach. Didn't really go across the Golden Gate Bridge until I was an adult (east bay folks have little use for it); didn't walk across it until I was in a race a few years ago. I tend to avoid the Haight Ashbury like the plague.

I keep waiting for someone to come here so they can tell me what they'd like to see, so I know what is popular with the tourists and what I should also see.

ETA: I was thinking about this thread as I walked around today, as well as cherie's thread about being guilty about traveling. When people are traveling, they are often encouraged to buy local, only go to local shops, etc. But I wonder if people do the same in their own locale? Buying only small shop/local produce, small clothing shops, etc. Or is there a different standard?

I thought I was a pretty good one, until I read the Lonely Planet Philadelphia guidebook.

I have yet to see many good things there, though I've seen the biggest.

The ones I keep saying I will visit?:

The Muller Museum
An auction house for high class items
A real soup kitchen

The Barnes collection(In my defense, it needs a car. I don't have one)

Hmmn.. I have seen most of what I wanted to see.

That's not to say there aren't great things to see, I've just seen most of the featured items.

Also, I show people around the city on occasion, which helps.

I live in Scottsdale AZ, and have been to most of the typical tourist sites in AZ, Four Corners, Grand Canyon, Canyon de Chelly, Montezumas Castle around the state, in Scottsdale there's really not a whole lot touristy things to do, we used to have Rawhide up north which was a recreated western town, but that moved to Queen Creek about an hour south. I used to like going there once a year or so with relatives. But the thing is, unless it's a changing place, why bother going there more than once unless it has special meaning for you?

I have to admit, I don't tend to visit any of the local attractions anymore, because the cost is so prohibitive. When I was in primary school, through school excursions I went to Soverign Hill, Healesville Sanctuary, Melbourne Zoo etc. I haven't been back to any of them since I was a child, though, and am probably not likely to.
There's just a different feeling in visiting an attraction overseas, as opposed to visiting an attraction in your own Country/State.

The typical attractions in Toronto aren't really a heaping wad of fun after you've seen them once (example: CN Tower, the ROM).

However, I still get excited about being able to spend a day or two just browsing around Toronto's cultural hotspots. I don't think I'll ever get bored or playing tourist in China Town, or Greek Town, or Little Portugal, The Annex, or biking around Toronto during The Fringe. I still have that sense of wonder here -- but maybe that's just because I'm really from the suburbs.

quote:

There's just a different feeling in visiting an attraction overseas, as opposed to visiting an attraction in your own Country/State. - Kzel81

I completely agree. It's kind of silly really, but it's so true. I wonder where that dividing line of "novelty" is drawn? Meaning - how far from home do you have to be before you find Place X in a State Other than Your Own that much more interesting than A Similar Place X in Your Hometown. I live in Rhode Island. If I travel to Boston or to Connecticut, it still has too much of a feeling of home. Yet if I drive to Maine or NYC (a few hundred miles further), it's like being in another country and I'm that much more excited to stop and see the World's Biggest Ball of Twine, etc.

I live in New Jersey, very close to NYC. I've yet to meet someone other than a tourist that has been to the Statue of Liberty.

Ironically, I saw someone post about places in Adelaide they've never been to. I spent a week there and saw 4 out of 5 of them.

Perhaps this is just a good reminder that when you travel somewhere and only see the big tourist spots, you are probably missing out on what that place is really about.

What a great topic - I was just talking about this with my friends from NYC that visited me here, in my new "hometown" of Chicago. While in NYC I was a regular at the museums but even though I lived with a view of the Statue of Liberty from my window I never actually went to Ellis island (although I did take the Staten Island Ferry a few times - all with out of town guests - and highly worthwhile - it's free so there really is no excuse not to go) which I still regret. Ah well, next time I visit my old city I can go - since I'll be a tourist - haha!

Moving to a new city following three months of Pacific Rim travel has been refreshing for me in the sense that it has allowed me to continue the travel mentality even as I've relocated and settled in. Taking my enthusiastic traveler's research-and-explore approach, even as I was unpacking boxes, I scheduled all the free museum nights, mapped out the hip neighborhoods to explore, "best of" Chicago restaurants, and made a list of "top Chicago sights". However, although I checked a couple off the list within that first month (Art Institute - will be a regular, though, not merely a 'tourist attraction', Navy Pier, the lake - duh, Millenium Park/The Bean/Frank Gehry's contributions) it wasn't long before I settled into a routine here of: work/stumble home/collapse/eat/sleep/do it all over again with the occasional after-work drinks or night out at a restaurant and maybe a club and all of the above evaporated like so much tourist ephemera. It actually took two rounds of guests to visit over the holidays before I made it to the King Tut exhibit at the Field museum - on its beyond most crowded LAST DAY - and I've been here since September!!

(this is probably the best reason to have guests visit - you get free license to be a tourist in your town!)

I live in Minneapolis, and have only been to the Mall of America two or three times in my life.

I'm from NJ and there are no tourist attractions in my hometown, but I've been to plenty of touristy stuff in my state: Atlantic City, Newark PAC, Delaware Water Gap, a bunch of local NJ tourist areas like Seaside Heights, Asbury Park. And there is a lot of Revolutionary War stuff around Morristown: Washington's camp at Jockey Hollow and many other old fortifications.

And I've seen a couple of the Weird NJ (it's a magazine, website, and book about unusual places in NJ) things like Tripod Rock and the junk on top of the telephone poles. But that's just because I happened to be in the area. I've never seeked out any of it.

And of course I've done basically all the typical NYC tourist stuff, museums, etc. and some of the less typical as well. If people come visit from other places I would have plenty of things to show them.

I am also guilty of this. I lived in South Carolina for three years and never went see the Biltmore Estate which is the largest privately owned home in the US.

We try to go to museums or exhibits every couple of months but that's kind of different.

Today though, we finally went on a guided walking tour around the first district. It's something we've wanted to do for a while and it really was a great way to spend a sunday afternoon. There are different tours with specialized themes, and we'll try to do more. I think next up is one about the city's red light districts through the ages (they changed locations a time or two), then the canal system and then the one about it's legal history (various court houses and places of execution).

The Guinness Storehouse? Talkabout bring up a bad memory!!

Some background info, I am an avid fan and subscriber almost investor in guinness I have drank waaay too much of the good stuff. To myself and my closest friends we are happiest when in each others company after a hard days work suppin on a creamy pint in one of the many fine pubs that are spread across our city. One place we have never been to is the Guinness store house, the journey down the quays to queue to get into the place always played against the whole idea, but it has always been something that we were going to do.

So to the story, my mates girlfriend just started working with a large multinational pharmaceutical company here in dublin, she didn't know anyone going to her xmas party but had 4 passes and invited us to go along with her - the party you've guessed it was in the Guinness Storehouse, and it was free all night. Yes ladies and gentlemen, the motherlode, charlie and the chocolate factory stuff this...
So in order to gear ourselves up for it in nervous anticipation we decided to warm up for the event of a lifetime in our local pub with a few pints the night before. Things were going grand, or so we thought - the girl who was bringing us had a stomach ulcer and wasn't fit to drink - she sat there listening to us rabbit on about all n sundry, when we went to leave one of the lads heads up to the bar and orders a full bottle of jameson whiskey, his exact words 'none of that 700 ml s**t, give me a litre'
We went back to my house and stupidly made a rather large dent in the whiskey - saturday morning we woke to my mate and his girlfriend having one of their fights, it ending with her walking out saying she would rather spend the night at home with a book than us fools (can't blame her really)... and thats the story of me and the guinness factory

tis tragic

I've been to most of Duluth's tourist spots at least once in my lifetime, save the Great Lakes Aquarium.

I've sadly never been to the BWCA up north or on the North Shore north of Schroeder, two of the places Duluth is thought of a gateway to. I should go there, though.