Quebec City?? Which you say is a small town!! No one has heard of the place! This is a thread for OVERRATED CITIES, not TOWNS, not cities that no one has ever heard of, and not cities which generally are not thought of as anything. It is not a thread simply for cities or any old place that sucks. Why is this concept so difficult for many people to understand.

Agree. Despite the hype, Orlando is simply a miserable place. Its Pigeon Forge on steroids and without any pretty natural scenery.

I like Salzburg. Probably one of the prettiest cities I have ever been to.

I think that could be true if you stayed in or close to the bigger cities. The Tuscan countryside was much, much more beautiful than I imagined.

You can keep Florence..........It was pretty (in some respects), but I was very underwhelmed.

It is the "southern capital of the US" in terms of economic production. In terms of Southern culture, I would give the nod to Charleston or Savannah.

I promise you, there isn't a person who lives in the South that thinks Atlanta is some Southern cultural epicenter that can't be missed.

Casablanca!

What a ripoff!

Madrid. Feh.

I would say LA, but LA's many faults seem to be common knowledge, so I can't call it "overrated." It is rated accurately as a sprawling, polluted mess.

Well, just like the LA person who took a swipe at San Francisco, you trash one of the biggest international tourist destinations. It's sprawling, but its pollution (at least in the areas tourists are likely to visit) isn't really that bad any more. Indeed, many visitors have more pollution in their home cities.

Hey, anyone can say any place is overrated -- Paris, San Francisco, NYC, Nepal, Los Angeles -- but if these places really were overrated, they would see big drops in tourism. They don't.

Those cities don't see big drops in tourism because of several factors:

-- Effective tourism promotion by the city government and commercial interests;

-- Media portrayals (How much you wanna bet tourism to Seattle has increased since Grey's Anatomy became a hit?);

-- P.T. Barnum was right; and

-- Americans use so little vacation time, they are particularly loathe to admit they disliked a vacation spot. When I lived in SF, I used to laugh at the Midwest tourists freezing their lardy asses off in June and looking miserable, knowing they would go back to Ohio and tell everyone what a great time they had.

I don't know if this has been covered already here, but my low-light goes to :

Venice

It's basically a Disney World on water without Micky Mouse and rollercoasters, but really only a tourist trap without real live and people.
W

What then explains all of the repeat visits? Are the Ohioans so determined to maintain the pretext that they feel the need to return to the misery?

Repeat visits are easy to explain. If you happen to live in a lovely place such as CLE or FNT, MCO is extremely exotic and the cultural offerings of SFO are probably utterly mindblowing. I think most of us of these boards have been to so many places throughout the world, that we're all fairly hard to impress at this point.

Then again, some folks spend their vacations going to the same place in the Poconos for years and years and seem to enjoy themselves. There's just no accounting for some peoples' tastes.

Well that certainly explains this thread. Just about all of the world's great cities are overrated according to some here.

:eek: Are you serious? You cannot be. Cairo is one of the most unique cities in the world, and it's suited to a myriad of tastes - from history buffs to the shoppers. My family and I spent ~3 weeks in Egypt a few years ago - it's an amazing place. Any reason why?

My opinion - Miami. Stayed for a month on business - never want to go back.

Cape Town ... gets a 5 star billing but deserves 2 stars

The so called stunning location allows for probably the worst urban weather patterns anywhere in the world. There is some stunning post colonial architecture, overwhelmed by swathes of dull mid 20th century urban blight.
Adderley Street, anybody?

Johannesburg ... gets a 1 star billing and is still overrated.

Repeatedly, the pr flacks put out the message that Jozi is coming back, is cool, has a vibe. Repeatedly, the crime rate escalates (as in Cape Town, too). People only put up with Johannesburg to make money. It is still a glorified mining camp, 100 years on.

I think Melbourne, Australia is a delightful city and an amazing contrast to Cape Town, in terms of its economic and social development since, say,
1960. Like Los Angeles, the urban core of San Francisco is better known to visitors than to the majority of its suburban citizens. As a contrast, great cities like Melbourne remain the focal point for their post war sprawl, aided by 10 times the infrastructure of a California metropolis plus frequent high speed trains to every corner of Victoria. Imagine San Francisco connected to its hinterland in similar fashion!

These convention and visitor boards that exist worldwide have a lot to answer for. They effectively bribe journalists to write glowing, misleading reviews of their respective cities.

Ironically, I think that Singapore has it right. They don't want long stay visitors but you are royally treated if you come on a business or shopping trip. The chances that you will be a victim of crime, next to zero.

The poster who described Hong Kong as an overblown Century City has hit the nail on the head for me. What can I say? I love post modern airports so props to HKG, but alighting at the new Kowloon MTR station is truly frightening until you realise it is designed purely as an interchange, not as a locus.

I do find there's a growing dichotomy between cities that are great for hosting trade fairs, business meetings, events and cities that are suitable for tourists or for those seeking a different reality. Hong Kong has re-invented itself and falls firmly into the former category. Bangkok has pretensions to being a serious city but remains the most exotic and chaotic of the Far East.
A boat ride on the Klongs or on the Chao Phraya is real. The Star Ferry has become no more than an intruding curiosity in the great plan of post modern HK.

London is deserving of its own lengthy discussion. Suffice to say as someone who grew up in there in the 60's, I started calling the place The London Experience in the 90's. If looking for the 60's, a little survives in Brighton.