BootsnAll Travel Community

Have you ever dreamed about going to a certain place/country and then when you finally got there you were like...oh ok, it's ummmm ..ok. Nothing special/boring/ not what I expected.

I happened to me for the first time as I'm normally excited about everything, but when I arrived in Rio 2 months ago I thought to myself : is that it? Then in Ilha Grande my friend who barely ever travels was extatic about all the beautiful beaches and lagoons and I just thought: oh well, another paradise.
Brasil is amazing for many people but for me it just didn't do it. I'm not sure whether it was a country itself or just a fact that after visiting x number of countries, seeing this and doing that I might need more thrills, I don't know. Anyone feels the same?

You may find good stories here:
http://boards.bootsnall.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/179090755/m/95810642/p/1

For my trip in 2004, I traced on a world map where you would end up if you just kept going straight east from Antwerp. That turned out to be Nikolaevsk-na-Amure. I got there by taking a boat from Komsomolsk-na-Amure. I had planned it so I would get there on my birthday, and had planned to spend two nights there. Acoording to Lonely Plent, it was an interesting little town, but in fact there was absolutely nothing to see or do there, though the scenery on the way there was spectacular. But the only hotel was full, so they sent me to the student dorm. They didn't really have any room, but I could share a room with an old woman who worked there. She didn't really get the concept of someone not speaking much Russian - whenever I said "I don't understand", she would speak louder, as if I was deaf. It was an interesting experience, so I'm not going to say I regret going there, but it wasn't quite what I expected. In the morning I went back to the hotel but they were still full, so I opted for an overnight boat back to Khabarovsk on the trans-sib railway line. It rained for most of the day, I had nowhere to leave my bag so I had to carry it around all day, and there was absolutely nothing to see or do there so I felt pretty miserable. The night was very uncomfortable too, the boat was all little plastic seats, but luckily I got a seat in the front row so I could place my backpack in front of me and stretch my legs out on it. It took almost 24 hours to get back to Khabarovsk. Looking at it afterwards, it was an interesting trip, and I am proud of myself to making it to a random place I found on the map, but I wouldn't recommend anyone to go there and it would definitely have been more fun to spend more time around lake Baikal instead of going all the way to the far east of Russia just to go to this one place that was nothing like Lonely Planet said it would be.

New Zealand was a let down for me. This thread kind or reminded of that. I've been to NZ 2 or 3 times and I find a lot of the countryside dull, particularly on the South Island where there are lots of sheep. There is a lot of environmental degradation everywhere; whole mountain ranges apparently completely denuded. Additionally, I find the people phlegmatic and sort of country bumkinish, even in the cities.

quote:

Originally posted by disaster:
Have you ever dreamed about going to a certain place/country and then when you finally got there you were like...oh ok, it's ummmm ..ok. Nothing special/boring/ not what I expected?

It's got to be my trip to Florida four years ago. Even though I didn't have great expectactions, I thought the place would be nice, at least.
A friend living in Luisiana had a house there, so it was easy for me to accept her offer to spend two weeks there. After only two days I wanted to get out of the place, but I couldn't disappoint my friend, and it was her birthday during our stay there.
The place was a gated area, where you had to drive in, and there was nowhere to take a walk. It made me feel like in a prison camp, although sort of luxurious. And there were very strict rules - after 10pm we weren't allowed to use the outdoor jacuzzi, and were asked to leave the area, just as we opened the bottle of champagne on friend's birthday.

There were a couple of small towns in the area, worth spending a few hours, and the Everglades. But, on the whole I found it a very boring place.
Also, I thought going to Key West would highlight my visit, but as I browsed the tourist broshures and did some basic research, I gave it up. It all looked terribly commercialized, and all the old charm from Hemingway times, was long gone and nothing was left.

Stonehenge. I've heard of this place since I was in elementary school. I had one teacher that just rambled on and on about this place and it sounded SO fascinating. Naturally, 20+ years later when I found myself living in the UK, I couldn't wait to go. We packed up and figured we'd make a weekend of it, arriving Sat morning and leaving Sunday, midday. Ummm, yeah.
I appreciate that the stones were moved from hundereds of miles away a long time before anything but simple machines were around, but it was a small place that we were able to see in just an hour of leasurly strolling. Then there was the annoyance of not knowing what the hell we were looking at. I like a good mystery as much as anyone else, but I found it rather irritating to be reminded that everything is what we merely "think" it was.
Because I'm a sick and twisted individual, I did find joy in returning there every time someone would visit from the US and would say "Oh I've GOT to see Stonehenge while I'm here--how far away is it?"

The Alamo.

Okay, it wasn't a long trip, just a couple of miles from Lackland Air Force Base, where I was doing basic training, but it was our "town liberty" -- the only day off during the training period. Having heard of the place my whole childhood in history class and of course the famous line "Remember the Alamo!", I'd somehow expected more than a twenty-foot-high mud structure surrounded by tons of tacky souvenir shops.

It DEFINITELY had to be Hollywood. Such a let down. It was so grungy and boring and small and full of tourists. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was hoping for a little more glamour.

I second Hollywood. Totally blah!

I used to go an family vacations to Daytona when I was really young and I always thought that it was a fantastic place.

Over the years however I have been going to Florida's gulf coast instead, but I always thought it would be great to go back and visit Daytona and see if it was still great.

BIG MISTAKE.

I went last year and it was so crappy. The beach was the worst, dirty, lame, decrepit beach I have ever seen. The hotels looked like they were about to fall down. It's really starting to become a ghetto area.

I was so disappointed.