MrTemporal

Several people have asked me if Yosemite was a a national park at the time it was dammed. The answer is yes. Sorry, but San Francisco cannot claim that the damming or the plans to dam the Hetch Hetchy valley occurred before it became a park. John Muir compared it using the great cathedrals of Europe as giant water tanks. IMHO, it's even worse.

heraclitus

People talked up Paris so much that I went there fully expecting to be let down, but to my surprise it lived up to the hype - in my opinion. Charm and delight at nearly every turn.

Glamette

For me it would be Bali. Just did not live up to the hype.

5khours

As someone who lived in Japan for 30+ years, I would have to say you're totally wrong as is the article from the Wilsonian quarterly.

hannisen

I love this thread. I also like the fact that people are defending "their cities," it makes for an interesting discussion. Paris is still my pick, but I am planning on going back to see if my first impression was wrong.

TheTakeOffRush

Random question/open-mindedness check: Anyone have examples of a city you'd written off as overrated, which was then redeemed? (via a local contact, better/different knowledge, a unique experience?)

pinniped

What does this have to do with whether or not San Francisco is overrated?

Proudelitist

I have a few:

New Orleans. Considered cool and jazzy it's really a fetid swamp with an inordinate number of scammers and muggers and drunks running around. It stinks of mold and urine, and you constantly have to watch your back. You are constantly being sized up by opportunists.

Barcelona. Sure, there are some interesting things from an art history perspective, but generally it's a bleak looking place, covered in litter, tagged mercilessly with graffiti, and so bizzarely built that it is very very difficult to navigate because all the blocks look the same on hexagonal intersections. If you like to see dirty laundry hanging out of every window, it's a great place.

Las VegasNot sure why it has the glamorous image..it's a garish wasteland built on cognitive fallacy and greed, repulsively ghetto outside the strip, outrageously priced on most fronts, crowded with ......... wolfpacks and obese bumpkins, and lacks any kind of culture or taste.

cruisr

Agree 100%. I spent 10 days there and it was 9 days too much Dirty beaches, plastic bottles in the water at Jimbaran and Nusa Dua and a town, Ubud, trying way to hard to be zen.

The only thing I thought was good was a rice paddy that my guide brought me to that there were no other tourists at. I got to try my hand at cutting the rice in the paddy as he knew the workers and asked if they would show me how to do it,

backprop

I was going to say New Orleans. I was expecting a fetid swamp full of muggers and scammers and drunks. I found it fun, safe, the people nice, and with plenty to do. But of course:

Jesperss

Prague

BadgerBoi

Why?

Rd3

Funny all the mentions of Vegas/New Orleans--demographics matter in this discussion--as a mid-30's single male, those are 2 of my favorite cities, I'm sure 15 years + 2 kids + a wife from now--I might be singing the same tune as you folks-LOL

NYC is very overrated to me however IMO

pinniped

I think some people consider Prague overrated because of how it was talked up as Paris of the East. I remember backpacking in the 90's...Budapest and Prague were these nirvanas that everybody talked about on trains. We did indeed reach both of them, and quite enjoyed both of them, but I can see where people probably got tired of hearing about Prague.

Brugge is similar. We made a 1-day stop there on the backpacking trip because we felt obligated to. I mean, we couldn't backpack Europe and *not* go to "Venice of the North", right? Enough people talk about it in those terms, and you're just thinking...stop already... (One day was more than enough Brugge for me.)

caverunner17

Bangkok.

After spending 5 days in Chiang Mai, and 3 in Hong Kong, I found Bangkok to be a dump