Well… maybe it isn’t beauty in EVERY direction
August 20, 2015 11:33 AM Subscribe
Basically, hell is other people?
As an alternative, build a better bucket list.
The elephant one is really disturbing. I don't imagine the dolphins are too happy about being on so many bucket lists, either
posted by notyou at 11:40 AM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
As an alternative, build a better bucket list.
The elephant one is really disturbing. I don't imagine the dolphins are too happy about being on so many bucket lists, either
posted by notyou at 11:40 AM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
I'd never heard of Santorini, but now I kind of want to build it in Minecraft.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:40 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:40 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Eiffel Tower - buy tickets online, avoid the queue, don't expect solitude. It is worth it.
Swim with dolphins - don't go to a zoo for that, maybe? Go to the northern Abacos and leave it up to serendipity.
Angkor Wat - do the sunrise tour, there are fewer people and it is actually magical. Also, explore the other temples which are far less crowded.
Take An Elephant Ride - yeah, don't. I did that at age 10 on St. Lucia and got chased into the water by the angry beast, which later gored someone.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:41 AM on August 20, 2015 [13 favorites]
Swim with dolphins - don't go to a zoo for that, maybe? Go to the northern Abacos and leave it up to serendipity.
Angkor Wat - do the sunrise tour, there are fewer people and it is actually magical. Also, explore the other temples which are far less crowded.
Take An Elephant Ride - yeah, don't. I did that at age 10 on St. Lucia and got chased into the water by the angry beast, which later gored someone.
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:41 AM on August 20, 2015 [13 favorites]
Abbey Road crossing has a webcam, it's interesting to watch the people jump in front of cars to pose for pictures.
posted by Laura in Canada at 11:49 AM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by Laura in Canada at 11:49 AM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
Yeah, if you hire a decent guide at Angkor, you'll barely notice the tour buses -- they're all on fixed schedules to fixed destinations, and a decent guide will know exactly when the swarms will descend. He'll also know their exact routes through the various ruins, and take you by other paths. There are a bunch of temples in that area, just say you're trying to avoid crowds and they'll work something out. Been there twice. Granted, it was far less crowded in 2000, but even so it was still pretty good when I went back recently.
As for Santorini, well, go in the off-season. The weather turns on you a bit, but put on a jacket and you'll be fine.
Great Wall, don't go near Beijing.
Eiffel Tower, don't go up, observe from below. You can get views of the city from elsewhere.
Elephants & dolphins: just don't.
posted by aramaic at 11:51 AM on August 20, 2015 [16 favorites]
As for Santorini, well, go in the off-season. The weather turns on you a bit, but put on a jacket and you'll be fine.
Great Wall, don't go near Beijing.
Eiffel Tower, don't go up, observe from below. You can get views of the city from elsewhere.
Elephants & dolphins: just don't.
posted by aramaic at 11:51 AM on August 20, 2015 [16 favorites]
Thanks for the advice on Angkor Wat grumpybear69 (and on preview aramaic); that one was really depressing.
posted by Laura in Canada at 11:52 AM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Laura in Canada at 11:52 AM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Point made and worth making, but it's the same point over and over and it's pretty lazy.
There's a more thoughtful article to be written about mass tourism and the damage it -- and the whole industry that caters to it -- does to valued places, that goes far beyond "look at all these unsophisticated people getting in the way of your sophisticated self". We're talking about things actually being destroyed, not just crowded. There's another article to be written about what it's like when you don't have an organized and sometimes regulated local tourist industry to shepherd such huge numbers of people through. "Oh no I went to the place that everybody's heard of and everybody was there" isn't much of an expose.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2015 [15 favorites]
There's a more thoughtful article to be written about mass tourism and the damage it -- and the whole industry that caters to it -- does to valued places, that goes far beyond "look at all these unsophisticated people getting in the way of your sophisticated self". We're talking about things actually being destroyed, not just crowded. There's another article to be written about what it's like when you don't have an organized and sometimes regulated local tourist industry to shepherd such huge numbers of people through. "Oh no I went to the place that everybody's heard of and everybody was there" isn't much of an expose.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2015 [15 favorites]
Maybe I missed it somewhere in the article, but it's like the author never heard of high and low seasons.
posted by romakimmy at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2015 [28 favorites]
posted by romakimmy at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2015 [28 favorites]
I sense a recurring theme of "OMG cities are crowded with PEOPLE!"
posted by indubitable at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by indubitable at 11:53 AM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yeah, aside from the horrible Elephant one, this is mostly like, "you expect the postcard but once you get there other people are also doing what you were, and fuck them, right?"
posted by Navelgazer at 11:55 AM on August 20, 2015 [12 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 11:55 AM on August 20, 2015 [12 favorites]
More fun than the Eiffel Tower, if you are in Paris, is one of the many hour-long booze cruises you can take. They are relatively inexpensive and, at night, give you great views from the Seine. And you get to drink!
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:58 AM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 11:58 AM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
This is why my bucket list is just a list of famous buckets I'd like someday to see:
the peach basket James Naismith used to create the first basketball hoop;
the plastic pail that belonged to that "I Has a Bucket" walrus;
the bronze KFC bucket containing the ashes of Colonel Sanders...
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:59 AM on August 20, 2015 [63 favorites]
the peach basket James Naismith used to create the first basketball hoop;
the plastic pail that belonged to that "I Has a Bucket" walrus;
the bronze KFC bucket containing the ashes of Colonel Sanders...
posted by Atom Eyes at 11:59 AM on August 20, 2015 [63 favorites]
As an alternative, build a better bucket list.
There was no one else around when I visited the H.P. Lovecraft grave site in Providence, for instance. I got to have a little private cry and everything.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:05 PM on August 20, 2015 [17 favorites]
There was no one else around when I visited the H.P. Lovecraft grave site in Providence, for instance. I got to have a little private cry and everything.
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:05 PM on August 20, 2015 [17 favorites]
My complete disinterest in travel to ~exotic~ places has paid off apparently.
posted by griphus at 12:06 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by griphus at 12:06 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also there's a stunning wealth of images if you Google image search "giza pizza hut"
(Gizza Hut?)
posted by griphus at 12:08 PM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
(Gizza Hut?)
posted by griphus at 12:08 PM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
"Pizza Tut"
posted by notyou at 12:10 PM on August 20, 2015 [51 favorites]
posted by notyou at 12:10 PM on August 20, 2015 [51 favorites]
There was no one else around when I visited the H.P. Lovecraft grave site in Providence, for instance. I got to have a little private cry and everything.
When was this? We could have seen each other! My father's entire family is buried there (well, the dead ones, anyway).
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:10 PM on August 20, 2015 [22 favorites]
When was this? We could have seen each other! My father's entire family is buried there (well, the dead ones, anyway).
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:10 PM on August 20, 2015 [22 favorites]
Hey, my Trevi Fountain moment was magical. You just have to stumble upon it, totally lost, at 3 in the morning after a night of eating too much tiramisu and drinking too much vino. Nobody else was there.
posted by Elly Vortex at 12:10 PM on August 20, 2015 [26 favorites]
posted by Elly Vortex at 12:10 PM on August 20, 2015 [26 favorites]
About Angkor, it was in 2008 so don't know how it is now... but there were some temples where there was basically NO time where there wouldn't be loads of buses and people (mostly the main impressive ones). That sunrise picture of Angkor Wat, forget about being alone, will not happen. Beng Melea on the other hand was almost deserted when I went, and you can play Indiana Jones all you wanted because it's not officially part of Angkor. Even with the people it's still an awesome thing to see.
Wisely decided avoid trying to do #7 when I was there, seemed like a ripoff.
posted by coust at 12:12 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Wisely decided avoid trying to do #7 when I was there, seemed like a ripoff.
posted by coust at 12:12 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
When was this? We could have seen each other! My father's entire family is buried there (well, the dead ones, anyway).
A couple months ago. Swan Point is magnificent, huh?
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:14 PM on August 20, 2015
A couple months ago. Swan Point is magnificent, huh?
posted by Lentrohamsanin at 12:14 PM on August 20, 2015
Huh, I expected reality to be a bunch of "request denied" stamps on PTO forms and maybe some screen shots of how much the flights cost.
Guess I'm not the target demographic.
posted by Gygesringtone at 12:15 PM on August 20, 2015 [12 favorites]
Guess I'm not the target demographic.
posted by Gygesringtone at 12:15 PM on August 20, 2015 [12 favorites]
Eiffel Tower, don't go up, observe from below. You can get views of the city from elsewhere.
Yup, the tower itself is an astonishing, almost fractally-complex object. It's plenty impressive from the ground. Besides, the rooftop view you really want is from the Montparnasse Tower: it's the only view of Paris that doesn't have the Montparnasse Tower in it.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:16 PM on August 20, 2015 [16 favorites]
Yup, the tower itself is an astonishing, almost fractally-complex object. It's plenty impressive from the ground. Besides, the rooftop view you really want is from the Montparnasse Tower: it's the only view of Paris that doesn't have the Montparnasse Tower in it.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:16 PM on August 20, 2015 [16 favorites]
I had a boyfriend who was like this guy, far too "sophisticated" for anything. Then I forced him to wait an hour in line to see the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, and he had to admit that sometimes famous sites are famous for a reason..
We ended up going a lot of interesting places - mostly out of season
posted by mumimor at 12:19 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
We ended up going a lot of interesting places - mostly out of season
posted by mumimor at 12:19 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
Who knew London would be so big and spread out?
Someone's never been to Tokyo or Los Angeles.
posted by chimaera at 12:20 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
Someone's never been to Tokyo or Los Angeles.
posted by chimaera at 12:20 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
I always get a kick out of pics like these, because tons of travelers don't do any research and just show up when their tour brings them, so of course there are going to be nightmares on festival days, or on the busiest day of summer.
I have lovely pics of Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu, Tikal, Sagirya taken with few other tourists about. Go off season, go early in the day, pay local guides rather than going by bus, don't go during festivals etc.
I actually had the reverse experience on safari in Tanzania -- I imagined a boxcar line of suv's dustily bouncing across the plains until someone saw an animal and then all of the vehicles circling up for a photo op. In reality we were often the only vehicle in the area, wildlife was omnipresent and the whole experience was unhurried and far exceeded expectation. and inexpensive.
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:20 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have lovely pics of Angkor Wat, Machu Picchu, Tikal, Sagirya taken with few other tourists about. Go off season, go early in the day, pay local guides rather than going by bus, don't go during festivals etc.
I actually had the reverse experience on safari in Tanzania -- I imagined a boxcar line of suv's dustily bouncing across the plains until someone saw an animal and then all of the vehicles circling up for a photo op. In reality we were often the only vehicle in the area, wildlife was omnipresent and the whole experience was unhurried and far exceeded expectation. and inexpensive.
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:20 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
There was no one else around when I visited the H.P. Lovecraft grave site in Providence, for instance.
I once went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord Mass. to pay my respects to Henry David Thoreau. To my surprise, I learned that he is buried with a a few yards of both Louisa May and Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. If you guys had Poe and Whitman there too, that would be most of the high points of 19th-century American letters in a space about the size of my backyard.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:20 PM on August 20, 2015 [13 favorites]
I once went to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord Mass. to pay my respects to Henry David Thoreau. To my surprise, I learned that he is buried with a a few yards of both Louisa May and Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Ralph Waldo Emerson. If you guys had Poe and Whitman there too, that would be most of the high points of 19th-century American letters in a space about the size of my backyard.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 12:20 PM on August 20, 2015 [13 favorites]
Yeah- instead of the Eiffel Tower, go to the Parc des Buttes Chaumont. You get a gorgeous panorama of the city, it's way less crowded, and there's an old urban legend that people would be so moved by the view that they would fling themselves from the peak.
Then you can get drunk on good wine in the park.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:21 PM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
Then you can get drunk on good wine in the park.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 12:21 PM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
Eiffel Tower - buy a baguette, some cheese, and a bottle of wine and enjoy a simple dinner by the Seine at sunset instead.
posted by plinth at 12:22 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by plinth at 12:22 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
This reminds me of when I visited Jigokudani (the monkey park with the natural hot springs) and spent more time taking pictures of Japanese people taking pictures of the monkeys than I spent taking pictures of the monkeys, but that was awesome and I loved it, especially when the monkeys tried to steal a lady's tripod.
posted by sunset in snow country at 12:23 PM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
posted by sunset in snow country at 12:23 PM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
We were just in Paris in May, and I have to say it seemed insanely crowded even compared to the last time I was there a few years ago. Surprisingly, though, we had no trouble getting in to any of the attractions we were interested in. We even stumbled in to Notre Dame with absolutely no wait - only because (we found out once we were inside) that it was the evening mass.
We tried hanging out by the Eiffel Tower, but the park was swarmed with these guys wandering around trying to sell overpriced bottles of cheap wine to tourists having picnics.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:25 PM on August 20, 2015
We tried hanging out by the Eiffel Tower, but the park was swarmed with these guys wandering around trying to sell overpriced bottles of cheap wine to tourists having picnics.
posted by backseatpilot at 12:25 PM on August 20, 2015
I actually liked Trevi fountain precisely because there were so many people there. I sat to one side and just watched people - there is something incredibly endearing about watching every single tourist there, people who'd clearly come from all over the world, all doing the same "hey here's me throwing a coin in the fountain" selfie photo, all of them with huge giggly "omigod I'm actually doing this" grins.
I'd add "seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre" as a thing - I haven't done it (yet), but my mother did recently; she was grumbling about how many tourists there were. Then when my friend's dad made the same complaint on facebook I responded with an offer to introduce them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:26 PM on August 20, 2015 [12 favorites]
I'd add "seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre" as a thing - I haven't done it (yet), but my mother did recently; she was grumbling about how many tourists there were. Then when my friend's dad made the same complaint on facebook I responded with an offer to introduce them.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:26 PM on August 20, 2015 [12 favorites]
"Pizza Tut"
(Nitpick) Tutankhamun was entombed in the Valley of the Kings, which is hundreds of miles south of Giza and the Pyramids. (/Nitpick)
posted by aught at 12:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
(Nitpick) Tutankhamun was entombed in the Valley of the Kings, which is hundreds of miles south of Giza and the Pyramids. (/Nitpick)
posted by aught at 12:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
"Pizza Tut"
Has a deep-dish baked on stone-a.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:28 PM on August 20, 2015 [24 favorites]
Has a deep-dish baked on stone-a.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:28 PM on August 20, 2015 [24 favorites]
I can't wait to see all these tourist sites. But, of course, not like a tourist.
posted by thelonius at 12:28 PM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 12:28 PM on August 20, 2015 [9 favorites]
(Nitpick) Tutankhamun was entombed in the Valley of the Kings, which is hundreds of miles south of Giza and the Pyramids. (/Nitpick)
When "Pizza Valley" opens we can update the pun.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:28 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
When "Pizza Valley" opens we can update the pun.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:28 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
One's Bucket list should be more personal! Last year I found All The Dead Leavitts in Maine and this year I want to find a way to get me and Josph Gordon-Levitt in a photo under a banner promotiing the International Fraternal Order Of Le(a)vitts
posted by The Whelk at 12:31 PM on August 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 12:31 PM on August 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
If you want a special experience, don't try to take the same picture that's on all the postcards. If you want the picture that's on the postcards, just buy a postcard.
Also, don't be surprised when there's other people at the biggest tourist attractions in the most populated parts of the world.
posted by aubilenon at 12:31 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Also, don't be surprised when there's other people at the biggest tourist attractions in the most populated parts of the world.
posted by aubilenon at 12:31 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
This reminds me of my friend who visited Paris about 10 years ago. After fighting the crowds to get in front of the Mona Lisa, she snapped a selfie (back before they were called that). It consisted of the top of her head with a blurry image of the painting in the background. It was magnificent.
posted by dirigibleman at 12:35 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by dirigibleman at 12:35 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
John Finnemore has something to say about these kinds of lists.
posted by poe at 12:37 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by poe at 12:37 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I totally forgot Rome - no idea what the author has a problem with there. It is amazing! Trastavere at night is something to behold, and there are tons of places to walk where tourists don't normally wander. My wife and I stumbled upon a Punch-and-Judy-styled puppet show on top of a hill. Ancient churches exist around every corner. And the carbonara is unbeatable. The only issue with Rome is the siesta, which can severely hamper your activities.
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:39 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 12:39 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I'd add "seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre" as a thing - I haven't done it (yet), but my mother did recently; she was grumbling about how many tourists there were.
Yes, it's always mobbed, and it's a very small painting in addition to that. Fortunately the Louvre is full of much more interesting things to look at.
In general this list is a cautionary tale against traveling to cliched tourist destinations, particularly during that location's high season.
Also, I break out in hives when people start babbling about fucking bucket lists.
posted by aught at 12:40 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Yes, it's always mobbed, and it's a very small painting in addition to that. Fortunately the Louvre is full of much more interesting things to look at.
In general this list is a cautionary tale against traveling to cliched tourist destinations, particularly during that location's high season.
Also, I break out in hives when people start babbling about fucking bucket lists.
posted by aught at 12:40 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Swan Point is magnificent, huh?
It is! It's only about a mile from my parents' house and it's absolutely beautiful and surprisingly big and has a bunch of great hills and ponds and paths so we used to go there to ride our bikes. As I got older I would go and sit by my family's section of plots because I felt like I had the right to be there and it was calm and peaceful and gorgeous and a really lovely place to go when you were a teenager who needed alone time to sit and read where people weren't going to hassle you. It's also one of the places my uncle taught me to drive!
After I got my driver's license I got into other car-related mischief in that cemetery because we couldn't figure out where else to park so if "hooking up with someone you just met in the cemetery where H.P. Lovecraft is buried" was on your bucket list, it's a shame you didn't know me in high school!
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:40 PM on August 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
It is! It's only about a mile from my parents' house and it's absolutely beautiful and surprisingly big and has a bunch of great hills and ponds and paths so we used to go there to ride our bikes. As I got older I would go and sit by my family's section of plots because I felt like I had the right to be there and it was calm and peaceful and gorgeous and a really lovely place to go when you were a teenager who needed alone time to sit and read where people weren't going to hassle you. It's also one of the places my uncle taught me to drive!
After I got my driver's license I got into other car-related mischief in that cemetery because we couldn't figure out where else to park so if "hooking up with someone you just met in the cemetery where H.P. Lovecraft is buried" was on your bucket list, it's a shame you didn't know me in high school!
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 12:40 PM on August 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
i have already seen all of these locations and mostly enjoyed doing so, so my bucket list is just one full 24h period without any chronic physical pain.
i guess it would be okay to re-see a lot of these places without being hungover
posted by poffin boffin at 12:44 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
i guess it would be okay to re-see a lot of these places without being hungover
posted by poffin boffin at 12:44 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yeah, the tourist destinations nobody else even thought of have lots of unexpected fun. I swear the guy I found living in the house that John Dillinger was captured in had no idea, he was just all, "WTF are you doing in my house, I'm calling the cops". Good times.
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:46 PM on August 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 12:46 PM on August 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
I was at Machu Picchu this last summer and they're having serious thoughts about closing it to tourists.
Apparently the number of tourists has increased exponentially over the past decade or two, to the point where the sheer number of footsteps is literally pulverizing the site.
posted by Avenger at 12:47 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Apparently the number of tourists has increased exponentially over the past decade or two, to the point where the sheer number of footsteps is literally pulverizing the site.
posted by Avenger at 12:47 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Huh. Yeah, low-season travel is where it's at, judging from my experiences with a few of these places.
It IS weird that the pyramids are pretty much just outside the city; I had imagined them out in the middle of the desert, too. It's not like Pizza Hut is obligatory. Still the only Fuddrucker's I've ever been to was in Cairo, though. There weren't any other tourists there.
The Taj Mahal did pretty much look like that when I saw it, because it had been regularly over 110 degrees (fahrenheit) every day when I was there, so I showed up around sunrise. Still maybe had to wait for 2 other people before I could take an obnoxious selfie in THAT SPOT.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 12:47 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
It IS weird that the pyramids are pretty much just outside the city; I had imagined them out in the middle of the desert, too. It's not like Pizza Hut is obligatory. Still the only Fuddrucker's I've ever been to was in Cairo, though. There weren't any other tourists there.
The Taj Mahal did pretty much look like that when I saw it, because it had been regularly over 110 degrees (fahrenheit) every day when I was there, so I showed up around sunrise. Still maybe had to wait for 2 other people before I could take an obnoxious selfie in THAT SPOT.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 12:47 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
My two life goals (I hate the phrase "bucket list") were to be called up on stage with the Whose Line gang and to hug a Muppet. I have since assisted Jeff Davis and Greg Proops with "Moving People" and hugged Oscar the Grouch. Frankly I have nothing left to live for.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:50 PM on August 20, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:50 PM on August 20, 2015 [17 favorites]
Faint of Butt, if you have not seen MONOTRONA then there is one thing left.
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:56 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 12:56 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
The dolphin one reminds me of what happens in Cocoon when all the old folk jump into the pool to frolic in the radiating energy of the eggs. I imagine somewhere there's a poor husk of a dolphin swimming loopy because humans stole all its dolphin charms.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 1:03 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 1:03 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
As of 2012, 90 percent of the climbers on Everest are guided clients and most lack basic climbing skills.
Is the part about lacking basic climbing skills true? I know about the guides, and I know that money allows less experienced climbers to buy added (not guaranteed) safety, but I assumed that Everest is still a no go for rookies, that true novices either die or fail to reach the top.
posted by Beholder at 1:04 PM on August 20, 2015
Is the part about lacking basic climbing skills true? I know about the guides, and I know that money allows less experienced climbers to buy added (not guaranteed) safety, but I assumed that Everest is still a no go for rookies, that true novices either die or fail to reach the top.
posted by Beholder at 1:04 PM on August 20, 2015
I, too, have yearned to be groped by Greg Proops.
posted by griphus at 1:07 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by griphus at 1:07 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
My first reaction was that these were unimaginative items for a bucket list, and more originality would pay off - but that misses the point, doesn't it? For a bucket list it's always the iconic thing, the famous place. You might have a better experience at that undiscovered little place in the back streets, but it's never going be the place you always wished you'd been.
posted by Segundus at 1:07 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Segundus at 1:07 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
@Beholder I think most tourists just climb to Base Camp, not the top.
I've been to Santorini, Paris and Rome and they were all really nice and not as crowded as the photos... though granted that was about 10 years ago.
Hong Kong remains the most crowded place I have ever been, but those are local crowds i.e. they are really really good at not bumping into each other or you.
posted by subdee at 1:09 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've been to Santorini, Paris and Rome and they were all really nice and not as crowded as the photos... though granted that was about 10 years ago.
Hong Kong remains the most crowded place I have ever been, but those are local crowds i.e. they are really really good at not bumping into each other or you.
posted by subdee at 1:09 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
...but the discongruity of the Pyramids being right, you know, there is part of the joy. Also because hopefully it makes you remember that these are part of an ongoing, living culture - like having a castle or a cathedral or a Colosseum in a city elsewhere - and that the only reason it phases you is possibly because you've, you know, Orientalised Egypt and Egyptians and you need to think a bit about yourself, and about your ideas of civilization or so on.
Also, swim with dolphins off a boat in the Bay of Islands or similar in New Zealand, not in a zoo ffs, and visit Venice in spring when it's clean and relatively empty.
This guy's an idiot. He's right about Everest though.
posted by AFII at 1:14 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also, swim with dolphins off a boat in the Bay of Islands or similar in New Zealand, not in a zoo ffs, and visit Venice in spring when it's clean and relatively empty.
This guy's an idiot. He's right about Everest though.
posted by AFII at 1:14 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
One good thing about visiting very personal Major Sites is that you usually have them to yourself
posted by The Whelk at 1:16 PM on August 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 1:16 PM on August 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
the best time to visit Venice is in the dead of winter where you can pretend to be a vampire.
posted by The Whelk at 1:17 PM on August 20, 2015 [8 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 1:17 PM on August 20, 2015 [8 favorites]
I've done like none of these things (except the Eiffel tower and, well, Rome) and I consider myself pretty well-traveled. We usually have the opposite problem. We tend to follow our more obscure interests and are always frustrated that the out-of-the-way church we want to see is only open alternate Tuesdays.
We went to Florence and hardly ran into crowds. It sounds impossible but I went with two people who were really really into Art History. So of course we went to the Uffizi like everyone else. But the rest of the time was in tiny churches around Florence, ones where nobody else seemed to be. We even went to the Brancacci chapel, which I thought would be crowded, but it was just us and maybe 5-6 other people. This was at the height of summer!
From what I could gather, everyone else goes to Florence to mill around the Duomo a bit and have a gelato.
posted by vacapinta at 1:18 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
We went to Florence and hardly ran into crowds. It sounds impossible but I went with two people who were really really into Art History. So of course we went to the Uffizi like everyone else. But the rest of the time was in tiny churches around Florence, ones where nobody else seemed to be. We even went to the Brancacci chapel, which I thought would be crowded, but it was just us and maybe 5-6 other people. This was at the height of summer!
From what I could gather, everyone else goes to Florence to mill around the Duomo a bit and have a gelato.
posted by vacapinta at 1:18 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I went to Yellowstone last year and it was great. We went the week before Memorial Day and we practically had the place to ourselves. Mammoth Hot Springs had, maybe, half a dozen tour buses spread over the whole enormous place.
I've been to the Pyramids in the winter, had the place to myself.
I've been to Trevi Fountain, once again in the winter. Hardly anybody there.
So, yeah, go in the off season, the Pyramids don't shrink in the winter, they'll still be just a mind boggling huge when it's a little cool out.
I also used to live near DC. I would go to the Smithsonian on rainy Tuesday in February. Being the only visitor in the Air & Space Museum is awesome.
Off seasons are the best if you can stand a tiny bit a a chance of being cold or wet.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 1:29 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've been to the Pyramids in the winter, had the place to myself.
I've been to Trevi Fountain, once again in the winter. Hardly anybody there.
So, yeah, go in the off season, the Pyramids don't shrink in the winter, they'll still be just a mind boggling huge when it's a little cool out.
I also used to live near DC. I would go to the Smithsonian on rainy Tuesday in February. Being the only visitor in the Air & Space Museum is awesome.
Off seasons are the best if you can stand a tiny bit a a chance of being cold or wet.
posted by Confess, Fletch at 1:29 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I'd add "seeing the Mona Lisa at the Louvre" as a thing - I haven't done it (yet), but my mother did recently; she was grumbling about how many tourists there were.
I saw it just a couple weeks ago!
Anyway, the Louvre in August is hot - whose fucking idea was to build a glass pyramid anyway? You step in the door and you're out of 38 degree heat into what must be 45 degree heat under that fancy greenhouse. Thankfully as you descend the escalators air conditioning and the fact that hot air rises both help you out and now it's merely that Parisian indoor lukewarm temperature.
So you figure out where the Mona Lisa is and start making your way there but it's a little like trying to get a hot Christmas toy on Black Friday at WalMart although the decor is better.
As you go you're bodychecked repeatedly by tourists in groups. They're mostly Chinese but I don't think there's anything specific to Chinese people generally about this behaviour. They're following a tour guide why holds a sign above her head so they can follow her through the crowds. But they're looking at the sign and not at other people. And the guide has a wireless headset on so they can hear her when they're 20 feet back in a crowd but they can't hear anyone else through their earbuds so when you mention "HEY" after being bodychecked, they're the only people who don't turn around to look as they can't hear you. But they probably don't speak English (I don't speak Chinese so I'm not going to hold it against them) so it's not like you could really discuss the protocols around body-checking people in the Louvre anyway.
Finally you get to THE ROOM and it's like a Manhattan subway platform at 5 PM - you're a hundred feet or more back from the surprisingly tiny yet famous painting where people circulate as if in a mosh pit trying to take a selfie with Ms. Lisa. Thankfully I'm tall so I can see over the crowd but my wife insists on getting closer so that she can actually see it. We wade through the crowd - it's a little like Lollapalooza (yes, I am old) but with less mud. As you approach the painting any happiness you feel about actually seeing it is tempered by the fact that you know you're blocking about a hundred other people from seeing it regardless of where you stand. And just like in a concert the security people are letting a few tired people who are about to collapse out through the front so they don't make things worse by dying, which would be awkward, as medics wouldn't be able to retrieve the body until after closing time and it's Thursday when the museum is open until 9 PM.
Anyway it is a nice painting but yes, there are nicer ones there too.
posted by GuyZero at 1:33 PM on August 20, 2015 [10 favorites]
I saw it just a couple weeks ago!
Anyway, the Louvre in August is hot - whose fucking idea was to build a glass pyramid anyway? You step in the door and you're out of 38 degree heat into what must be 45 degree heat under that fancy greenhouse. Thankfully as you descend the escalators air conditioning and the fact that hot air rises both help you out and now it's merely that Parisian indoor lukewarm temperature.
So you figure out where the Mona Lisa is and start making your way there but it's a little like trying to get a hot Christmas toy on Black Friday at WalMart although the decor is better.
As you go you're bodychecked repeatedly by tourists in groups. They're mostly Chinese but I don't think there's anything specific to Chinese people generally about this behaviour. They're following a tour guide why holds a sign above her head so they can follow her through the crowds. But they're looking at the sign and not at other people. And the guide has a wireless headset on so they can hear her when they're 20 feet back in a crowd but they can't hear anyone else through their earbuds so when you mention "HEY" after being bodychecked, they're the only people who don't turn around to look as they can't hear you. But they probably don't speak English (I don't speak Chinese so I'm not going to hold it against them) so it's not like you could really discuss the protocols around body-checking people in the Louvre anyway.
Finally you get to THE ROOM and it's like a Manhattan subway platform at 5 PM - you're a hundred feet or more back from the surprisingly tiny yet famous painting where people circulate as if in a mosh pit trying to take a selfie with Ms. Lisa. Thankfully I'm tall so I can see over the crowd but my wife insists on getting closer so that she can actually see it. We wade through the crowd - it's a little like Lollapalooza (yes, I am old) but with less mud. As you approach the painting any happiness you feel about actually seeing it is tempered by the fact that you know you're blocking about a hundred other people from seeing it regardless of where you stand. And just like in a concert the security people are letting a few tired people who are about to collapse out through the front so they don't make things worse by dying, which would be awkward, as medics wouldn't be able to retrieve the body until after closing time and it's Thursday when the museum is open until 9 PM.
Anyway it is a nice painting but yes, there are nicer ones there too.
posted by GuyZero at 1:33 PM on August 20, 2015 [10 favorites]
There are thousands of kilometres of Great Wall! Even within transit distance from Beijing, you can find sections where you'll see very few people.
posted by ssg at 1:37 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by ssg at 1:37 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
the thing is , if you turn around from the Mona Lisa you have the MASSIVE Wedding At Cana pretty much all to yourself.
The D'Orsay is a better museum in my opinion, it tells the history of European modernism from salon experiments to the 20th century with lots of context and background. The Louvre is for seeing one or two Big Things and then getting out before the crowds mass. (Unless you REALLY REALLY need to see 300 examples of french nobility medals)
posted by The Whelk at 1:40 PM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
The D'Orsay is a better museum in my opinion, it tells the history of European modernism from salon experiments to the 20th century with lots of context and background. The Louvre is for seeing one or two Big Things and then getting out before the crowds mass. (Unless you REALLY REALLY need to see 300 examples of french nobility medals)
posted by The Whelk at 1:40 PM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
I got to have a little private cry and everything.
Shub-Niggurath is always with you, my son.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:41 PM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
Shub-Niggurath is always with you, my son.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:41 PM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
Old Faithful is often very crowded. Best way to enjoy Old Faithful is to ignore the geyser, stay in the grand old lodge, and take this tour.
posted by Ber at 1:42 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Ber at 1:42 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've done the Mona Lisa thing.
It was EVERYTHING I expected it would be.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:44 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
It was EVERYTHING I expected it would be.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:44 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
I did Paris in low season, did not have a tourist problem at the Eiffel Tower. (Also, it's cheaper and less crowded to not go all the way to the top - the two lower levels have great views of the city also, plus a close up of the tower itself.)
But the other thing is being open to the things you didn't know or didn't expect. Go to Paris for the checklist items, sure. But one of the moments I'll remember most is the first evening when I turned a random corner and found myself facing the (unknown to me) Hotel de Sens, stopped in my tracks and thought "holy shit, I'm in PARIS!"
Also, re: the Louvre. Go on Wednesday when it's open late. Then stay into the evening, when most of the tourists are gone, and wander in the lesser known halls. I was in a room with a whole collection of paintings - I forget the details and Google is failing me, I think it was like a series commissioned for some 18th century empress. Whole huge room, huge paintings. All by myself.
posted by dnash at 1:45 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
But the other thing is being open to the things you didn't know or didn't expect. Go to Paris for the checklist items, sure. But one of the moments I'll remember most is the first evening when I turned a random corner and found myself facing the (unknown to me) Hotel de Sens, stopped in my tracks and thought "holy shit, I'm in PARIS!"
Also, re: the Louvre. Go on Wednesday when it's open late. Then stay into the evening, when most of the tourists are gone, and wander in the lesser known halls. I was in a room with a whole collection of paintings - I forget the details and Google is failing me, I think it was like a series commissioned for some 18th century empress. Whole huge room, huge paintings. All by myself.
posted by dnash at 1:45 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
You know who else found the correct spot for an Eiffel Tower selfie?
It is actually the best place to get the pic: go to the Trocadero area/Palais de Chaillot across the river. It's a quick walk over the bridge. Crowds are likely to be more spread out, and the picture with both you and the tower in it is a lot more manageable.
Eiffel Tower - buy tickets online, avoid the queue, don't expect solitude. It is worth it.
I've commented before about my experience being the only person to buy an online ticket on the day/time I visited a couple of years ago, and how I got to jump to the very front before hundreds of hot, sweaty, envious people in line. It was stunningly marvelous.
posted by gimonca at 1:48 PM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
It is actually the best place to get the pic: go to the Trocadero area/Palais de Chaillot across the river. It's a quick walk over the bridge. Crowds are likely to be more spread out, and the picture with both you and the tower in it is a lot more manageable.
Eiffel Tower - buy tickets online, avoid the queue, don't expect solitude. It is worth it.
I've commented before about my experience being the only person to buy an online ticket on the day/time I visited a couple of years ago, and how I got to jump to the very front before hundreds of hot, sweaty, envious people in line. It was stunningly marvelous.
posted by gimonca at 1:48 PM on August 20, 2015 [6 favorites]
(Amendment to previous comment: A ha! It was the Rubens Marie de Medici gallery that I had all to myself for a while that night.)
posted by dnash at 1:53 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by dnash at 1:53 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Venice can be even worse than he says. Two things: sometimes it floods and large parts of the city have a foot of water on the walkways.
And sometimes the place gets completely overwhelmed by swarms of insects.
The big problem with Venice is that humans have no control over the water in that lagoon.
I compare that to the canals in Amsterdam. Dutch engineers have complete control over that water; it's on a river and there are gates above the city and below. So they completely flush the canal water six times a week with water from the river, and so it doesn't get grotty and it doesn't flood.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:54 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
And sometimes the place gets completely overwhelmed by swarms of insects.
The big problem with Venice is that humans have no control over the water in that lagoon.
I compare that to the canals in Amsterdam. Dutch engineers have complete control over that water; it's on a river and there are gates above the city and below. So they completely flush the canal water six times a week with water from the river, and so it doesn't get grotty and it doesn't flood.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 1:54 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
In Florence, I actually went up the bell tower for the Duomo rather than going up to the cupola. Partly because tickets to the cupola were closed by then, but also partly because I realized that I'd have exactly the same view, only I could actually have the cupola itself in some of my pictures. And - the bell tower was cheaper!
I did, however, learn that there is a reason why the bell tower is cheaper and less popular an option - it's because there is no elevator like there is to the cupola, the only way up is on foot. All 414 steps. There's a little room right at the top with benches before you go out to the observation deck, and to a person all the other people who came up after me did exactly what I did when they first reached the top - collapsed onto one of the benches and sat there for about 3 minutes, just panting in big "eeeee-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA eeeee-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA eeeee-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" gasps.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:00 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
I did, however, learn that there is a reason why the bell tower is cheaper and less popular an option - it's because there is no elevator like there is to the cupola, the only way up is on foot. All 414 steps. There's a little room right at the top with benches before you go out to the observation deck, and to a person all the other people who came up after me did exactly what I did when they first reached the top - collapsed onto one of the benches and sat there for about 3 minutes, just panting in big "eeeee-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA eeeee-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA eeeee-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" gasps.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:00 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
The Taj Mahal did pretty much look like that when I saw it, because it had been regularly over 110 degrees (fahrenheit) every day when I was there
I don't even remember how many other people were around when I saw the Taj Mahal, I just remember turning a corner and literally gasping with surprise when I first saw it. It's fucking beautiful. Sometimes you can get so jaded about the experience of Tourism that it's like a gut punch how attractive some of the things that attract crowds of people can be.
(Plus, when the item in question is Really Big, like the Taj is, no matter how many people are around you're going to have a great view of it.)
(Plus plus, sometimes the postcard-view of a site is kind of boring and it's more fun to take pictures of crowds of people all trying to take the same picture.)
posted by psoas at 2:00 PM on August 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
I don't even remember how many other people were around when I saw the Taj Mahal, I just remember turning a corner and literally gasping with surprise when I first saw it. It's fucking beautiful. Sometimes you can get so jaded about the experience of Tourism that it's like a gut punch how attractive some of the things that attract crowds of people can be.
(Plus, when the item in question is Really Big, like the Taj is, no matter how many people are around you're going to have a great view of it.)
(Plus plus, sometimes the postcard-view of a site is kind of boring and it's more fun to take pictures of crowds of people all trying to take the same picture.)
posted by psoas at 2:00 PM on August 20, 2015 [7 favorites]
Besides, the rooftop view you really want is from the Montparnasse Tower: it's the only view of Paris that doesn't have the Montparnasse Tower in it.
To me, *the* view of Paris I will never forget is from the steps of Sacré-Cœur on Montmarte. Bring your sweetie and be there at sunset. If you don't fall in love again, you weren't actually in love. Then walk back through the evening streets.
posted by eriko at 2:05 PM on August 20, 2015 [10 favorites]
To me, *the* view of Paris I will never forget is from the steps of Sacré-Cœur on Montmarte. Bring your sweetie and be there at sunset. If you don't fall in love again, you weren't actually in love. Then walk back through the evening streets.
posted by eriko at 2:05 PM on August 20, 2015 [10 favorites]
You have to wake up at 4am since the only hostel you could afford was an hour-long metro ride from the city center.
What? Has this person been to Paris? Cheap hotels abound in all but the most central arrondissements, and you're never more than 10 minutes walk from a Metro station.
posted by desuetude at 2:05 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
What? Has this person been to Paris? Cheap hotels abound in all but the most central arrondissements, and you're never more than 10 minutes walk from a Metro station.
posted by desuetude at 2:05 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
Maybe it's an indicator of growing up (or growing old), or the reduced financial circumstances of my second career, but my impossible daydreams revolve around a 4-day backpacking trip with my dog.
posted by workerant at 2:07 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by workerant at 2:07 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Our Taj Mahal experience was made very uncomfortable by this guy who followed us everywhere around and "helped" by showing us "beautiful" spots from where we could take photos. "Look, here in this puddle, you see the majesty of the Taj Mahal reflected on the ground, with the sky in the background. Yes, yes, take a photo." "Look, here by this tree, you see this flower with the Taj Mahal in the background. Yes, yes, take a photo." He asked for money eventually, for his photo guide service. I don't remember if we paid him or not, but it's worth the trip to see what these artisans were able to do by hand in the 17th century.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 2:07 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 2:07 PM on August 20, 2015
Still maybe had to wait (at the Taj Mahal) for 2 other people before I could take an obnoxious selfie in THAT SPOT.
You mean, the one that crops out all the garbage?
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:09 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
You mean, the one that crops out all the garbage?
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:09 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
The Great Wall one made me laugh. But yeah, the juxtapositions got a bit old.
And yeah, maybe he should decouple his "it's so crowded, nobody goes there anymore" complaints from the actual animal abuse complaints.
But really, when you go to the super-crowded mega cultural places, mostly I find people are pretty nice about making room and scooting over and trying to let everyone get a chance to get a view. There are worse things in life than being with 100 or even 1000 other people all excited about seeing the same culturally significant artifact.
Confess, Fletch: "I would go to the Smithsonian on rainy Tuesday in February."
I take my kids to the zoo ALL THE TIME in the winter. They can't CLOSE THE ZOO because they have to feed the animals, and they have to shovel the paths because they have to feed the animals, so you can go when there's 12" of snow on the ground and everything else is closed, and the zoo is open and shoveled and around here it's FREE from December to February because there is literally no one there. Bundle up and your kids can run around and have the whole zoo to themselves. And the BIG FURRY ANIMALS who are adapted to cold climates are partying down. Lots of the animals that are lazily hanging around napping in the summer (Siberian tigers, Sichuan takins) are playing and partying in the winter. Plus we got to know every keeper who worked there and they used to give us special sneak peeks of stuff because we were the only people there, ever.
We had a whole route mapped out for days when it was below 20 degrees where we'd walk around the large outdoor animal exhibits, then go into the tropical house just before our noses fell off from the cold, and then walk around a second smaller set of outdoor exhibits until our toes hurt, pop in the insect house, and then do the last set of outdoor exhibits ... optimized for the frisky winter animals, of course, and skipping the summer animals who were off exhibit to keep warm.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:19 PM on August 20, 2015 [22 favorites]
And yeah, maybe he should decouple his "it's so crowded, nobody goes there anymore" complaints from the actual animal abuse complaints.
But really, when you go to the super-crowded mega cultural places, mostly I find people are pretty nice about making room and scooting over and trying to let everyone get a chance to get a view. There are worse things in life than being with 100 or even 1000 other people all excited about seeing the same culturally significant artifact.
Confess, Fletch: "I would go to the Smithsonian on rainy Tuesday in February."
I take my kids to the zoo ALL THE TIME in the winter. They can't CLOSE THE ZOO because they have to feed the animals, and they have to shovel the paths because they have to feed the animals, so you can go when there's 12" of snow on the ground and everything else is closed, and the zoo is open and shoveled and around here it's FREE from December to February because there is literally no one there. Bundle up and your kids can run around and have the whole zoo to themselves. And the BIG FURRY ANIMALS who are adapted to cold climates are partying down. Lots of the animals that are lazily hanging around napping in the summer (Siberian tigers, Sichuan takins) are playing and partying in the winter. Plus we got to know every keeper who worked there and they used to give us special sneak peeks of stuff because we were the only people there, ever.
We had a whole route mapped out for days when it was below 20 degrees where we'd walk around the large outdoor animal exhibits, then go into the tropical house just before our noses fell off from the cold, and then walk around a second smaller set of outdoor exhibits until our toes hurt, pop in the insect house, and then do the last set of outdoor exhibits ... optimized for the frisky winter animals, of course, and skipping the summer animals who were off exhibit to keep warm.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 2:19 PM on August 20, 2015 [22 favorites]
Yeah, there's too many people everywhere. That's the thing. See if you're like me, I was born in 1962, you look around and you say to yourself "damn, there's people everywhere! It seems like there's twice as many people everywhere I go than there used to be."
Why's that? It's not because I'm (just) old & grumpy, it's because it's TRUE. There are twice as many people as there used to be, if you're my age.
Go during the off season/rainy season. Get up super-early in the morning. Ask the locals what's cool. You can still see sights if you figure out when the majority of tourists aren't there, & maybe you suffer some weather. Me, I love getting rained on in the tropics, so I'm fine with May/June in Mexico or Puerto Rico. (Pro-tip -- there are a LOT of non-tourists in Puerto Rico. It's a lovely island, but it is already crowded, even if you're the only tourist there. Some places just don't include solitude. The phosphorescent bay is overrated, but just barely. The Rio Camuy caves though are amongst the world's finest. You have to be out by noon in the wild sections though, because it may flood if it rains in the afternoon)
You want some solitude, go hiking in western Alberta or the Yukon. (don't I wish)
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:26 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Why's that? It's not because I'm (just) old & grumpy, it's because it's TRUE. There are twice as many people as there used to be, if you're my age.
Go during the off season/rainy season. Get up super-early in the morning. Ask the locals what's cool. You can still see sights if you figure out when the majority of tourists aren't there, & maybe you suffer some weather. Me, I love getting rained on in the tropics, so I'm fine with May/June in Mexico or Puerto Rico. (Pro-tip -- there are a LOT of non-tourists in Puerto Rico. It's a lovely island, but it is already crowded, even if you're the only tourist there. Some places just don't include solitude. The phosphorescent bay is overrated, but just barely. The Rio Camuy caves though are amongst the world's finest. You have to be out by noon in the wild sections though, because it may flood if it rains in the afternoon)
You want some solitude, go hiking in western Alberta or the Yukon. (don't I wish)
posted by Devils Rancher at 2:26 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
What makes people think the Mona Lisa is, or ought to be, bigger? Is that an American thing?
posted by Segundus at 2:27 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by Segundus at 2:27 PM on August 20, 2015
it's because there is no elevator like there is to the cupola, the only way up is on foot. All 414 steps.
there is a faster way up but you need special assassin training
posted by poffin boffin at 2:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
there is a faster way up but you need special assassin training
posted by poffin boffin at 2:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [11 favorites]
Venice can be even worse than he says. Two things: sometimes it floods and large parts of the city have a foot of water on the walkways.
STREETS FLOODED STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
STREETS FLOODED STOP PLEASE ADVISE STOP
posted by ricochet biscuit at 2:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have very mixed feelings about the tiger temple in Thailand, but I have it on very good authority that the cats aren't sedated. Two started play fighting about five feet from me!
posted by peppermind at 2:29 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by peppermind at 2:29 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
go hiking in western Alberta or the Yukon.
That actually is on my bucket list. Then again, so is Yosemite, so...mixed bag, tourist-wise.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:31 PM on August 20, 2015
That actually is on my bucket list. Then again, so is Yosemite, so...mixed bag, tourist-wise.
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:31 PM on August 20, 2015
There are thousands of kilometres of Great Wall! Even within transit distance from Beijing, you can find sections where you'll see very few people.
I was swindled by a crafty Chinese bus driver and taken to one of the second string Great Wall tourist access points. I got to go up to see it on a marvellously rickety chair lift and slide back down it on a toboggan.
You could walk about 100 metres along the top and be on a deserted, unrestored section of wall, just like the first picture.
posted by grahamparks at 2:33 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I was swindled by a crafty Chinese bus driver and taken to one of the second string Great Wall tourist access points. I got to go up to see it on a marvellously rickety chair lift and slide back down it on a toboggan.
You could walk about 100 metres along the top and be on a deserted, unrestored section of wall, just like the first picture.
posted by grahamparks at 2:33 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
we went to the jinshanling section on a frozen rainy late afternoon in november and the entire place was deserted aside from some mongolian trinket sellers cooking kebabs over a 50 gallon drum trash fire who eventually rescued us with their iphone flashlights when we couldn't find our way down in the pitch black new moon nighttime after climbing waaaaay too far.
posted by poffin boffin at 2:36 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by poffin boffin at 2:36 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
What makes people think the Mona Lisa is, or ought to be, bigger? Is that an American thing?
They have a permanent crowd barrier maybe 15 feet away from the painting, so even if you go when it's not busy you can barely see it. It's beautifully absurd.
posted by grahamparks at 2:38 PM on August 20, 2015
They have a permanent crowd barrier maybe 15 feet away from the painting, so even if you go when it's not busy you can barely see it. It's beautifully absurd.
posted by grahamparks at 2:38 PM on August 20, 2015
go hiking in western Alberta or the Yukon.
Probably my first experience of the "omg! there are so many tourists! tourists everywhere! where did they all come from!?" was in Banff in the summer time. Growing up my family only went to Banff to go skiing and while Banff is busy in the winter time it pales in comparison to the madness that is Banff in the summer. I was downright shocked as I honestly expected winter to be the high season, I mean there's only so many places you can go skiing but you can go camping or hiking anywhere right?
But yes there is plenty of delightful desolation in Alberta, both in the mountains and not, and even in the mountain parks if you are willing to walk a bit further.
posted by selenized at 3:00 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Probably my first experience of the "omg! there are so many tourists! tourists everywhere! where did they all come from!?" was in Banff in the summer time. Growing up my family only went to Banff to go skiing and while Banff is busy in the winter time it pales in comparison to the madness that is Banff in the summer. I was downright shocked as I honestly expected winter to be the high season, I mean there's only so many places you can go skiing but you can go camping or hiking anywhere right?
But yes there is plenty of delightful desolation in Alberta, both in the mountains and not, and even in the mountain parks if you are willing to walk a bit further.
posted by selenized at 3:00 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
So....Venice in the off season means it's best to pack rubber boots and waders?
posted by brujita at 3:04 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by brujita at 3:04 PM on August 20, 2015
I went to Italy on one of those high school EF bus tours in 1999. Bit of advice: Don't visit Italy in 1999.
Imagine the same crowds, but everything everyone's there to see is obscured by scaffolding because Millennium!
And that's on top of being in an awful, rushed bus tour with your gym teacher.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:10 PM on August 20, 2015
Imagine the same crowds, but everything everyone's there to see is obscured by scaffolding because Millennium!
And that's on top of being in an awful, rushed bus tour with your gym teacher.
posted by Sys Rq at 3:10 PM on August 20, 2015
oh hey I went up Eiffel just today, talk about coincidence. Waited forty minutes in line, about three minutes for the elevator, got to the top and it wasn't crowded. People were all giddy and polite.
Also, Great Wall of China, yeah, best to go to the less touristy parts. Went to Mutianyu and there was practically no one, as you can see.
On the other hand, the gondola ride in Venice? Yeah, not that great.
feeling spoiled by life now
posted by MarionnetteFilleDeChaussette at 3:31 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Also, Great Wall of China, yeah, best to go to the less touristy parts. Went to Mutianyu and there was practically no one, as you can see.
On the other hand, the gondola ride in Venice? Yeah, not that great.
feeling spoiled by life now
posted by MarionnetteFilleDeChaussette at 3:31 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
I don't know why other people are so lazy and sheeplike in their tourism. Personally I've found that the only valid way to see a culturally significant place is to reincarnate and be born within a block of it, its just so much more authentic and you can get really close with an entire lifetime dedicated to one item.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 3:47 PM on August 20, 2015 [17 favorites]
posted by the agents of KAOS at 3:47 PM on August 20, 2015 [17 favorites]
I don't know why other people are so lazy and sheeplike in their tourism. Personally I've found that the only valid way to see a culturally significant place is to reincarnate and be born within a block of it, its just so much more authentic and you can get really close with an entire lifetime dedicated to one item.
You joke, but people crowd around the Mona Lisa while Ain Ghaza, which is NINE FUCKING THOUSAND YEARS OLD, is basically alone with no one around.
Although I'm not one to talk as I seem to have missed The Raft of the Medusa which is immortalized in some of the best art of all time.
posted by GuyZero at 4:01 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
You joke, but people crowd around the Mona Lisa while Ain Ghaza, which is NINE FUCKING THOUSAND YEARS OLD, is basically alone with no one around.
Although I'm not one to talk as I seem to have missed The Raft of the Medusa which is immortalized in some of the best art of all time.
posted by GuyZero at 4:01 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Old Faithful is often very crowded. Best way to enjoy Old Faithful is to ignore the geyser, stay in the grand old lodge, and take this tour.
Or you could just visit the lower-rent Old Faithful of California. Bonus: Tennessee fainting goats.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:32 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Or you could just visit the lower-rent Old Faithful of California. Bonus: Tennessee fainting goats.
posted by mudpuppie at 4:32 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've only been to a few of these places but my impression from tourist attractions generally is that the crowds ebb and flow. This could be due to tour groups, meal times or whatever. If you have the time then you'll be able to get some decent quiet times at most places. Of course that means sacrificing other potential items off your bucket list in order to better experience one of them.
For a place like the "Beach Island" in Koh Phi Phi that means renting a smaller boat so that you can stay as long as you want, and at Angkor I had the best time when I rented a bicycle and just rode around. Yes, the sunrise at the main temple will be crowded, but you bike a bit more into the complex and you'll have the whole place to yourself. Hell, if you walk around the complex for more than 30 minutes you'll probably end up in a place all to yourself as well.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:38 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
For a place like the "Beach Island" in Koh Phi Phi that means renting a smaller boat so that you can stay as long as you want, and at Angkor I had the best time when I rented a bicycle and just rode around. Yes, the sunrise at the main temple will be crowded, but you bike a bit more into the complex and you'll have the whole place to yourself. Hell, if you walk around the complex for more than 30 minutes you'll probably end up in a place all to yourself as well.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:38 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
I've seen my share of "bucket list" places that didn't live up to the hype, but some of these wouldn't make that list. We should start a new list of "bucket list places that travel writers say are ruined but are really still awesome."
These have all been mentioned before, so I'll just add my me-too to:
- The view of the Eiffel Tower in the evening from the Champs de Mars. It's quite beautiful and dramatic.
- The Trevi Fountain late at night.
- The Pyramids at Giza. You have Cairo on one side, and vast expanses of desert on the other. The only crowds I remember were along a sidewalk looking over the Sphinx, where everyone was jockeying for space to take silly photos of themselves.
I did get a kick out of his rule of thumb: If bottomless-pockets Oprah isn’t able to visit somewhere without avoiding herds of tourists, then you won’t be able to either.
posted by kanewai at 4:41 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
These have all been mentioned before, so I'll just add my me-too to:
- The view of the Eiffel Tower in the evening from the Champs de Mars. It's quite beautiful and dramatic.
- The Trevi Fountain late at night.
- The Pyramids at Giza. You have Cairo on one side, and vast expanses of desert on the other. The only crowds I remember were along a sidewalk looking over the Sphinx, where everyone was jockeying for space to take silly photos of themselves.
I did get a kick out of his rule of thumb: If bottomless-pockets Oprah isn’t able to visit somewhere without avoiding herds of tourists, then you won’t be able to either.
posted by kanewai at 4:41 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
Personally, I didn't find the tourists at the Eiffel Tower a problem. They were delightful. I was holidaying solo, and a nice old man took a photo of me at the top. No, it was a toss-up between the scammers flocking round the queue at the bottom.... And the fact that the staff at the Eiffel Tower had gone on strike, but had thoughtfully not chosen to display that information very prominently, leaving hundreds of people disappointed once they managed to get close enough to see the sign. I was expecting a queue, and God help me, being British, I almost enjoyed it. Who doesn't want to go up the Eiffel Tower if they go to Paris? The crowd was just part of the experience.
The view from up at Sacre-Coeur is very good indeed - a fantastic cityscape - if you don't mind the fact that you can't see the Eiffel Tower because it's blocked by a tree.
posted by Rissa at 4:49 PM on August 20, 2015
The view from up at Sacre-Coeur is very good indeed - a fantastic cityscape - if you don't mind the fact that you can't see the Eiffel Tower because it's blocked by a tree.
posted by Rissa at 4:49 PM on August 20, 2015
Oh yeah, the Taj Mahal is one of those few things that more than lives up to the hype and is just so truly breathtaking that I'm happy I took the time to see it. It was less of a bucket list thing and more of a "if I'm all the way in India from Chicago and I'm in the general vicinity, I'd should go and see it." It was probably about 2 hours out of a 5 week trip. I had developed an obsession with saffron petha and probably spent more time prowling around the sweet shops of Agra trying to find the good stuff.
I still feel a little ambivalent about the elephant ride I took, but it was at least at a sanctuary in a national park and I hope they were treated as well as possible. It was not at all as I imagined, however, and not because of violent training. I ended up sharing an elephant with 2 teenage Chinese girls. I expected a quiet and kind of boring ride through the jungle, but one of them pulled out her cell phone and played this amazing dramatic "jungle" soundtrack complete with chanting and drums for the whole time. It was hilarious and I couldn't even ask her anything about it because I speak zero Chinese.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 5:02 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I still feel a little ambivalent about the elephant ride I took, but it was at least at a sanctuary in a national park and I hope they were treated as well as possible. It was not at all as I imagined, however, and not because of violent training. I ended up sharing an elephant with 2 teenage Chinese girls. I expected a quiet and kind of boring ride through the jungle, but one of them pulled out her cell phone and played this amazing dramatic "jungle" soundtrack complete with chanting and drums for the whole time. It was hilarious and I couldn't even ask her anything about it because I speak zero Chinese.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 5:02 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
lol @ Karl Pilkington in the Egypt one
"Yeah you don't see that on the brochures do you: shitty old nappy whizzing through the air."
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:21 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
"Yeah you don't see that on the brochures do you: shitty old nappy whizzing through the air."
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:21 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
Also :-( @ the tigers and elephants.
Ugh. Fuck all people everywhere.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:24 PM on August 20, 2015
Ugh. Fuck all people everywhere.
posted by turbid dahlia at 5:24 PM on August 20, 2015
I have always been baffled by tourists who complain about the existence of tourists.
posted by kyrademon at 5:26 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
posted by kyrademon at 5:26 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
I totally lucked into the right tour for a hike on the Great Wall (Was it ten miles? Was it five miles? Where was it, more specifically than "about an hour outside of Beijing?" Wouldn't it be great if I could remember these things about my life?). I thought it would be crowded, but the varying hiking abilities of the group led to us spreading out pretty well, and I did end up, pretty much alone, on some only partially restored sections of the Wall. It was hot, and it was a little challenging (for a casual hiker like me), and I was sure I was going to die 200 feet from my destination when I had to cross an old rope bridge, but eight years later, I'm still intensely grateful for that experience.
posted by Catenation at 5:32 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by Catenation at 5:32 PM on August 20, 2015
Echoing the recommendation to visit the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall.
Partly because you get to take cable cars up the hillside, and then have the option of sledding your way back down the hill.
Which is, for the record, amazingly super-fun and conducive to shouts of "whee!" directed at the plethora of staff seemingly situated at every turn of the track.
posted by The Outsider at 5:49 PM on August 20, 2015
Partly because you get to take cable cars up the hillside, and then have the option of sledding your way back down the hill.
Which is, for the record, amazingly super-fun and conducive to shouts of "whee!" directed at the plethora of staff seemingly situated at every turn of the track.
posted by The Outsider at 5:49 PM on August 20, 2015
and then there's that moment when you're strolling across the main Louvre courtyard (with the pyramids), just having crossed over from the other side of the river, and you hear someone say "yeah, like the Da Vinci Code," and you curse Dan Brown's name for all eternity. it's been TWELVE YEARS since it came out, can we never forget this global shame?
posted by Ragini at 5:52 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Ragini at 5:52 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I have always been baffled by tourists who complain about the existence of tourists.
So I'm not an idiot (mostly). It's a question of magnitude. I know Paris is popular with tourists. So is New York. But New York doesn't have nearly the same vibe of being so overrun with them, although perhaps I simply avoid those parts of New York when I go there. And one has this romantic notion of what a great European museum is like and that generally doesn't involve a crushing crowd, kinda the opposite.
I have this vision of tourism as this refined thing where a tiny little group of people are trying to see the world and you don't even realize you're on this terrible crowded Baatan death march of sightseeing until you're so deep into it that you can't get out and you question why you even want to see Notre Dame at all since you're an atheist and why would you want to stand in the blazing August sun for hours and where did these people even come from where else could you possibly go we paid so much to get here that we can't possibly not see all these huge sights and I just want one photo would everyone please clear out for just a second it doesn't even matter if it's well composed I'd settle for something with less than twenty people in it at this point but perhaps next year I'll go camping, I only have to book camping spots twelve months in advance in California so if I get on my phone while I'm in line here maybe by this time next year I can be somewhere peaceful and idyllic like Yosemite Valley and oh god no it's going to be like this but with ticks isn't it.
posted by GuyZero at 5:53 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
So I'm not an idiot (mostly). It's a question of magnitude. I know Paris is popular with tourists. So is New York. But New York doesn't have nearly the same vibe of being so overrun with them, although perhaps I simply avoid those parts of New York when I go there. And one has this romantic notion of what a great European museum is like and that generally doesn't involve a crushing crowd, kinda the opposite.
I have this vision of tourism as this refined thing where a tiny little group of people are trying to see the world and you don't even realize you're on this terrible crowded Baatan death march of sightseeing until you're so deep into it that you can't get out and you question why you even want to see Notre Dame at all since you're an atheist and why would you want to stand in the blazing August sun for hours and where did these people even come from where else could you possibly go we paid so much to get here that we can't possibly not see all these huge sights and I just want one photo would everyone please clear out for just a second it doesn't even matter if it's well composed I'd settle for something with less than twenty people in it at this point but perhaps next year I'll go camping, I only have to book camping spots twelve months in advance in California so if I get on my phone while I'm in line here maybe by this time next year I can be somewhere peaceful and idyllic like Yosemite Valley and oh god no it's going to be like this but with ticks isn't it.
posted by GuyZero at 5:53 PM on August 20, 2015 [5 favorites]
But on the plus side both my kids had something to talk about in their first day of high school French, about France, in French, so mission accomplished I suppose.
posted by GuyZero at 5:55 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by GuyZero at 5:55 PM on August 20, 2015
Don't bother visiting the Mutara Nebula now. Just all kinds of tourist starships slamming into each other because their goddamn sensors don't work in there and passengers all saying shit like "Z minus 10,000 meters Mr. Sulu" and "from hell's heart I stab at thee"
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:56 PM on August 20, 2015 [15 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:56 PM on August 20, 2015 [15 favorites]
I highly recommend Paris in August, if you're willing to put up with the closure of a lot of shops and restaurants (Henri Le Roux is open, and that's all that matters!). There are fewer tourists (and fewer Parisians too, of course). The city just seems calmer and more conducive to spontaneity instead of cattle herding.
posted by Ragini at 6:02 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by Ragini at 6:02 PM on August 20, 2015
"I would go to the Smithsonian on rainy Tuesday in February."
10 AM Sundays Nov - early March. You get the place to yourself until about noon, when the off-season tourists start trickling in.
posted by COD at 6:04 PM on August 20, 2015
10 AM Sundays Nov - early March. You get the place to yourself until about noon, when the off-season tourists start trickling in.
posted by COD at 6:04 PM on August 20, 2015
I highly recommend Paris in August ... There are fewer tourists
Having just been there I do not want to see Paris the rest of the year then. It was pretty darn busy.
posted by GuyZero at 6:29 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Having just been there I do not want to see Paris the rest of the year then. It was pretty darn busy.
posted by GuyZero at 6:29 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
Ha. Fair. I meant mostly compared to June and July, which are worse, but August is still high season, so you're right that it wasn't like...deserted. (I just got back too!)
posted by Ragini at 6:36 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by Ragini at 6:36 PM on August 20, 2015
I mostly go to the Louvre for the Northern Renaissance painters and the Diane de Gabies.
The only thing I could think of to put on a "bucket list" would be dancing on Adam Smith's grave, so...done that.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:55 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
The only thing I could think of to put on a "bucket list" would be dancing on Adam Smith's grave, so...done that.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:55 PM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]
I've never been to Abbey Road, but I once thought it would be cool to recreate the famous cover of Nirvana's Nevermind. Talk about crowds! Goddamn tourists ruined the whole thing. I won't show you the photo I got.
posted by rlk at 6:55 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by rlk at 6:55 PM on August 20, 2015
Partly because you get to take cable cars up the hillside, and then have the option of sledding your way back down the hill.
wait, you actually went on those rusty rickety soviet era deathtraps? TELL ME MORE
posted by poffin boffin at 7:03 PM on August 20, 2015
wait, you actually went on those rusty rickety soviet era deathtraps? TELL ME MORE
posted by poffin boffin at 7:03 PM on August 20, 2015
The only issue with Rome is the siesta, which can severely hamper your activities.
Obviously the only way around this is to see Rome like a native and not like a tourist, and make the siesta prime among your activities.
posted by katemonster at 7:15 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Obviously the only way around this is to see Rome like a native and not like a tourist, and make the siesta prime among your activities.
posted by katemonster at 7:15 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
The only issue with Perugia is all the sexy killer American girls with their sexy murder sex games of sex and murder because they all do that and it's totally real and not made up by a laughably dodgy suspect willing to say whatever the police are willing to hear during a long, leading interrogation or anything like that.
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
posted by George_Spiggott at 7:27 PM on August 20, 2015 [4 favorites]
he main Louvre courtyard (with the pyramids), just having crossed over from the other side of the river, and you hear someone say "yeah, like the Da Vinci Code," and you curse Dan Brown's name for all eternity. it's been TWELVE YEARS since it came out, can we never forget this global shame?
Dan Brown's most recent book - which had a DIVINE COMEDY thing - had just come out when I was in Florence and the fucking thing was on sale everywhere. Even in the Uffizi.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:51 PM on August 20, 2015
Dan Brown's most recent book - which had a DIVINE COMEDY thing - had just come out when I was in Florence and the fucking thing was on sale everywhere. Even in the Uffizi.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:51 PM on August 20, 2015
Well, maybe his next novel will have a commedia dell'arte theme, and you will justifiably be able to hit those people with a sort of bat or inflated sheep's bladder.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:08 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 8:08 PM on August 20, 2015 [3 favorites]
Hiked the Great Wall about four weeks ago, Jiankou to Mutianyu, and it was one of the highlights of our trip. Saw hardly anyone else the first 10km. Totally like the first picture. By the time we reached Mutianyu in the late afternoon it was relatively uncrowded, for China.
It is summer, and it is China. Of course there are going to be crowds. Jiuzhaigou was crowded-- and breathtaking. Sometimes it's worth it, and sometimes you just have to plan a bit more carefully.
@Marionette, those large worms/caterpillars/whatever on the wall were pretty cool, weren't they.
posted by dougfelt at 8:33 PM on August 20, 2015
It is summer, and it is China. Of course there are going to be crowds. Jiuzhaigou was crowded-- and breathtaking. Sometimes it's worth it, and sometimes you just have to plan a bit more carefully.
@Marionette, those large worms/caterpillars/whatever on the wall were pretty cool, weren't they.
posted by dougfelt at 8:33 PM on August 20, 2015
The Jinshanling to Simatai section of the Great Wall has a lot fewer tourists than Mutiyanyu for a reason. Parts of it are just loose stones and many are more like a ladder than a path. And there's a really dodgy zip line at the Simatai end.
posted by the duck by the oboe at 10:11 PM on August 20, 2015
posted by the duck by the oboe at 10:11 PM on August 20, 2015
The only issue with Rome is the siesta, which can severely hamper your activities.
Rome has never had as much of a siesta issue as say Spain or some smaller towns, and over the years what siesta hours there were are progressively vanishing. Sundays used to be forced relaxation because nothing was open but that too is falling by the wayside.
The only thing I can think of which visitors might be mistaking as siesta would be restaurant hours which by and large are not continuous. There'd be mutiny if staff had to hang around for possibly one table between the lunch and dinner influxes.
Pro tip for visiting Rome in the off season: Make sure there's not some hoohah happening across the river at Vatican that will see a shitload of religious pilgrims flooding a normally low period. And if the Pope dies or steps down during your visit, sorry, you're screwed. Go with the flow.
posted by romakimmy at 10:39 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
Rome has never had as much of a siesta issue as say Spain or some smaller towns, and over the years what siesta hours there were are progressively vanishing. Sundays used to be forced relaxation because nothing was open but that too is falling by the wayside.
The only thing I can think of which visitors might be mistaking as siesta would be restaurant hours which by and large are not continuous. There'd be mutiny if staff had to hang around for possibly one table between the lunch and dinner influxes.
Pro tip for visiting Rome in the off season: Make sure there's not some hoohah happening across the river at Vatican that will see a shitload of religious pilgrims flooding a normally low period. And if the Pope dies or steps down during your visit, sorry, you're screwed. Go with the flow.
posted by romakimmy at 10:39 PM on August 20, 2015 [1 favorite]
This is why my picture of the sign at the Cape of Good Hope is on the Afrikaans side. Damn were the people pushy waiting for the English side, when the Afrikaans side is right there!
posted by susiswimmer at 12:19 AM on August 21, 2015
posted by susiswimmer at 12:19 AM on August 21, 2015
Huh.
This is something that I'm curious about, actually - maybe I can ask some of you who have actually had the opportunity to travel.
I can understand some of the anti-tourist sentiment pretty well. Large crowds can be a pain to deal with, and they can change a place for the worse; I'll never forget going to Times Square and seeing all of the chain restaurants there. But a lot of anti-tourist sentiment seems to be wrapped up in a notion of authenticity, which is really exaggerated in the author's fanciful descriptions of what these places should be like. You don't want to be a tourist, you don't want to see tourists, because it makes your experience .... inauthentic.
Is this some unique cultural hang-up? I know a lot of tourists don't care, but it seems like people in my age bracket do. What do the members of these crowds think about their experiences - are they just happy to be there, or are they all wishing they were there alone?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:56 AM on August 21, 2015
This is something that I'm curious about, actually - maybe I can ask some of you who have actually had the opportunity to travel.
I can understand some of the anti-tourist sentiment pretty well. Large crowds can be a pain to deal with, and they can change a place for the worse; I'll never forget going to Times Square and seeing all of the chain restaurants there. But a lot of anti-tourist sentiment seems to be wrapped up in a notion of authenticity, which is really exaggerated in the author's fanciful descriptions of what these places should be like. You don't want to be a tourist, you don't want to see tourists, because it makes your experience .... inauthentic.
Is this some unique cultural hang-up? I know a lot of tourists don't care, but it seems like people in my age bracket do. What do the members of these crowds think about their experiences - are they just happy to be there, or are they all wishing they were there alone?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 2:56 AM on August 21, 2015
I don't know if it's "inauthenticity" that is being grumbled about, so much as "god-dammit I had this idea about what this would be like and it's not like that". Maybe the people with these ideas will tell you it's "inauthentic," but really, if you look at all of the "fantasies" about what it would be like to see these things, they're more....romanticized, and drawn from either movies or travel brochures.
There are some travel things I've done where I wished that the crowds would get the fuck out of my way, but I get that way in crowds in general. And, sometimes the crowds end up adding to my experience, the way they did at the Trevi fountain. Or when I was crammed in with a whole bunch of people looking at the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, and right when I was about to shove back at someone behind me, I then heard a college-age kid in the crowd totally losing his shit because "omigod, that's the actual Rosetta Stone, and I'm looking at it," and it was adorable and I then felt all sappy and embrace-your-fellow-man.
It could be what you're seeing is a combination of a wish for exclusivity, more so than authenticity, and combined with some kind of rigidity of plans, and maybe a bit of a lack of self-delusion; there are people who want to see the picturesque things they've seen in the movies, but they're expecting it to match what they saw in the movies, on a day when there were guys on the set chasing the crowds away and trying to make it look as splendid as possible. I admit that one reason I sought out the Piaza Navona in Rome was because of a scene in Angels and Demons, but I didn't think it was a disappointment that Tom Hanks wasn't wandering around there or anything.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:50 AM on August 21, 2015
There are some travel things I've done where I wished that the crowds would get the fuck out of my way, but I get that way in crowds in general. And, sometimes the crowds end up adding to my experience, the way they did at the Trevi fountain. Or when I was crammed in with a whole bunch of people looking at the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum, and right when I was about to shove back at someone behind me, I then heard a college-age kid in the crowd totally losing his shit because "omigod, that's the actual Rosetta Stone, and I'm looking at it," and it was adorable and I then felt all sappy and embrace-your-fellow-man.
It could be what you're seeing is a combination of a wish for exclusivity, more so than authenticity, and combined with some kind of rigidity of plans, and maybe a bit of a lack of self-delusion; there are people who want to see the picturesque things they've seen in the movies, but they're expecting it to match what they saw in the movies, on a day when there were guys on the set chasing the crowds away and trying to make it look as splendid as possible. I admit that one reason I sought out the Piaza Navona in Rome was because of a scene in Angels and Demons, but I didn't think it was a disappointment that Tom Hanks wasn't wandering around there or anything.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:50 AM on August 21, 2015
Oh! I had another one for the list - the Blarney Stone. The Stone in question is up at the top of a tower, on the outside of a wall, and the only way to kiss it is to lie down on your back, dangle down through a hole, and then crane your neck up to the underside of this wall. There are a pair of iron bars for you to hold onto for dear life, the ground is 80 feet below, and there's a guy whose job consists of holding your legs for some degree of safety. The rest of Blarney Castle is pretty much just a tower, and the shop connected to the castle has the worst fake-Irish Muzak I've ever heard.
I mean, yeah, I did the whole kiss-the-stone thing and it was gloriously goofy. But I'm sure some people have been disappointed.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:55 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I mean, yeah, I did the whole kiss-the-stone thing and it was gloriously goofy. But I'm sure some people have been disappointed.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:55 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
EmpressCallipygos: A photo I took of the Rosetta stone, shortly before the museum closes. This wasn't off-season. It is just everyone has the same idea of going early or right after lunch.
posted by vacapinta at 5:10 AM on August 21, 2015
posted by vacapinta at 5:10 AM on August 21, 2015
Kutsuwamushi: "ut a lot of anti-tourist sentiment seems to be wrapped up in a notion of authenticity, which is really exaggerated in the author's fanciful descriptions of what these places should be like. You don't want to be a tourist, you don't want to see tourists, because it makes your experience .... inauthentic."
Sometimes the combination of much-improved curation of cultural sites (even just in my lifetime) and more accessible travel (= larger crowds) can make it feel like High Culture Theme Parks, in a way where things you're trying to appreciate for their beauty and importance are as commodified as diet soda. (And, the flip side, that YOU'RE as commodified as diet soda, just another tourist dollar to be processed.) Even when you recognize that as necessary (to protect the sites/objects while exposing them to as many people as possible, while ensuring that local communities can earn money that help make those sites and communities long-term viable) it can give you an ambivalent feeling, especially if the curation of the site is either too slickly-packaged in a theme-parky/movie blockbuster way, or if it's too obviously only interested in extracting your money, because that really highlights the idea of culture as something to be bought and sold, rather than shared and loved.
A second point is that some of these places -- the Mona Lisa is the paradigmatic one -- you learn more about tourists than about art. As people above noted, you go to all the trouble to see the thing because it's the most famous painting in the world and you're going to learn something about painting and what makes that one the most famous, but you can barely see the darn thing because there are so. many. other. people. who also want to see it and understand why it's the most famous painting in the world. And so instead of learning something about beauty and art and painting, you learn something about how things are famous for being famous and about how your fellow man really will go to great lengths to try to understand beauty and art and fame. To me, seeing the crowds (and interrogating my own shocked/bemused reaction -- this was before the internet and in the first wave of world-wide Japanese tourism when Japanese tourists with fancy cameras were a constant media trope, so having been to urban art museums I had seen crowded famous paintings before, but not Mona Lisa crowded, and I had not seen internet pictures of the crowds, it was like WHOA) was fully as interesting and informative as seeing the painting itself -- moreso, really, since the Mona Lisa looks pretty much exactly like excellent reproductions you've seen of it your whole life, and you're so far back it might as well be a poster anyway. You go expecting to learn what the big deal about it is, but instead you learn that everyone else wants to know the same thing. I thought that in itself was very interesting, but I totally understand how people thinking "Now I will finally understand why this particular painting is so important" come away grumpy and going, "It's tiny and I barely saw it and there were 800 people taking pictures of it, it is like the Kim Kardashian of paintings, I'm sure it's really nice and has many exemplary qualities, but how would I even know, it's just famous for being famous!"
There is definitely a subset of tourists, though, for whom the whole point of high culture is its exclusivity and that it marks you as a person of education and taste who is better than other people, who somehow seem not to notice that the whole reason high culture is high culture is because an awful lot of people think it's good. So they go to Paris thinking, "I will be the ONE PERSON who appreciates the beauty of the Mona Lisa," and then are pretty upset to discover that, no, you are one of 6,000 people appreciating it JUST TODAY. These are the same people who only listen to bands so obscure you haven't heard of them, and as soon as you've heard of them they stop liking them because they're not cool anymore. It's not exclusively American -- I have met these people from many different countries -- but definitely there's a trope in American culture about the exclusivity and inaccessibility of high culture and how appreciating it is a mark of taste and distinction, because the unwashed masses want to go watch Michael Bay movies, so Americans who hang their sense of self-esteem and self-importance on having this very exclusive cultural taste are often quite upset to discover that high culture is also a form of mass culture, or it wouldn't be part of the cultural canon.
I'm not so bothered by big crowds when I'm urban touristing in Europe, because you're in a city and they are full of peeeeeeeople, but I do get a bit grumpy about it when I'm solitude-and-grandeur-of-nature touristing in the US and there are 800 of my closest friends also trying to appreciate the same solitude-and-grandeur-of-nature. But I do recognize this just means I need to get a little farther away from the most iconic views because there is plenty of solitude to be had in the US, it is a big and relatively empty place and going to picture-postcard views is dumb if I'm after solitary communion with the great outdoors.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:06 AM on August 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
Sometimes the combination of much-improved curation of cultural sites (even just in my lifetime) and more accessible travel (= larger crowds) can make it feel like High Culture Theme Parks, in a way where things you're trying to appreciate for their beauty and importance are as commodified as diet soda. (And, the flip side, that YOU'RE as commodified as diet soda, just another tourist dollar to be processed.) Even when you recognize that as necessary (to protect the sites/objects while exposing them to as many people as possible, while ensuring that local communities can earn money that help make those sites and communities long-term viable) it can give you an ambivalent feeling, especially if the curation of the site is either too slickly-packaged in a theme-parky/movie blockbuster way, or if it's too obviously only interested in extracting your money, because that really highlights the idea of culture as something to be bought and sold, rather than shared and loved.
A second point is that some of these places -- the Mona Lisa is the paradigmatic one -- you learn more about tourists than about art. As people above noted, you go to all the trouble to see the thing because it's the most famous painting in the world and you're going to learn something about painting and what makes that one the most famous, but you can barely see the darn thing because there are so. many. other. people. who also want to see it and understand why it's the most famous painting in the world. And so instead of learning something about beauty and art and painting, you learn something about how things are famous for being famous and about how your fellow man really will go to great lengths to try to understand beauty and art and fame. To me, seeing the crowds (and interrogating my own shocked/bemused reaction -- this was before the internet and in the first wave of world-wide Japanese tourism when Japanese tourists with fancy cameras were a constant media trope, so having been to urban art museums I had seen crowded famous paintings before, but not Mona Lisa crowded, and I had not seen internet pictures of the crowds, it was like WHOA) was fully as interesting and informative as seeing the painting itself -- moreso, really, since the Mona Lisa looks pretty much exactly like excellent reproductions you've seen of it your whole life, and you're so far back it might as well be a poster anyway. You go expecting to learn what the big deal about it is, but instead you learn that everyone else wants to know the same thing. I thought that in itself was very interesting, but I totally understand how people thinking "Now I will finally understand why this particular painting is so important" come away grumpy and going, "It's tiny and I barely saw it and there were 800 people taking pictures of it, it is like the Kim Kardashian of paintings, I'm sure it's really nice and has many exemplary qualities, but how would I even know, it's just famous for being famous!"
There is definitely a subset of tourists, though, for whom the whole point of high culture is its exclusivity and that it marks you as a person of education and taste who is better than other people, who somehow seem not to notice that the whole reason high culture is high culture is because an awful lot of people think it's good. So they go to Paris thinking, "I will be the ONE PERSON who appreciates the beauty of the Mona Lisa," and then are pretty upset to discover that, no, you are one of 6,000 people appreciating it JUST TODAY. These are the same people who only listen to bands so obscure you haven't heard of them, and as soon as you've heard of them they stop liking them because they're not cool anymore. It's not exclusively American -- I have met these people from many different countries -- but definitely there's a trope in American culture about the exclusivity and inaccessibility of high culture and how appreciating it is a mark of taste and distinction, because the unwashed masses want to go watch Michael Bay movies, so Americans who hang their sense of self-esteem and self-importance on having this very exclusive cultural taste are often quite upset to discover that high culture is also a form of mass culture, or it wouldn't be part of the cultural canon.
I'm not so bothered by big crowds when I'm urban touristing in Europe, because you're in a city and they are full of peeeeeeeople, but I do get a bit grumpy about it when I'm solitude-and-grandeur-of-nature touristing in the US and there are 800 of my closest friends also trying to appreciate the same solitude-and-grandeur-of-nature. But I do recognize this just means I need to get a little farther away from the most iconic views because there is plenty of solitude to be had in the US, it is a big and relatively empty place and going to picture-postcard views is dumb if I'm after solitary communion with the great outdoors.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 6:06 AM on August 21, 2015 [8 favorites]
Instead of going up the Statue of Liberty, take the Staten Island Ferry, from which you get amazing city views as well as a great view of the statue itself. For free!
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:44 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by grumpybear69 at 6:44 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
First thing in the morning at the Louvres, while everyone was rushing for the Mona Lisa room, we had the Venus de Milo entirely to ourselves. Cross one bridge in Venice, past the cruise ships, and you're drinking spritz with chill locals. Even in tourist traps, transcendence is right there if you look up from your guide and forget your dumb deathbound scavenger hunt.
That said, here's one I crossed out this year: saw one painting by each of the Ninja Turtles.
posted by Freyja at 7:16 AM on August 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
That said, here's one I crossed out this year: saw one painting by each of the Ninja Turtles.
posted by Freyja at 7:16 AM on August 21, 2015 [5 favorites]
I'm sure it's probably been mentioned, but the worst of this I've experienced was the Statue of Liberty viewing deck. It's a terrible amount of hot, cramped stairs to see a very dirty window slice for a few seconds.
Ooh! Ooh! Another item for the "this is actually cool" side of the ledger: I went up to the top of the Washington Monument the day before I left town (after living in DC for some... uh, ten years) and
posted by psoas at 8:14 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
Ooh! Ooh! Another item for the "this is actually cool" side of the ledger: I went up to the top of the Washington Monument the day before I left town (after living in DC for some... uh, ten years) and
- it really does have delightful, unique views of the Mall & beyond,
- since tickets are preordered, they completely avoid ovecrowding, and
- with the post-earthquake repair the NPS really gave everything a good shine.
posted by psoas at 8:14 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
vacipinta - Oh, I don't doubt it. My angst-in-crowds is more a temporary misanthropy rather than any kind of "Oh noes other people are looking at what I'm looking at" kind of thing. It's not a "oh noes I'm not the only person looking at this wildly popular object" thing - it's more of a "god DAMMIT why do people in crowds have to always be JERKS on top of it" kind of thing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:26 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:26 AM on August 21, 2015 [1 favorite]
I do get a bit grumpy about it when I'm solitude-and-grandeur-of-nature touristing in the US and there are 800 of my closest friends also trying to appreciate the same solitude-and-grandeur-of-nature.
Also, my main complaint about tourists is that people in groups are stupid about nature. I'm not talking about enjoying nature in a way I don't (like bringing a tablet camping so you can play angry birds, or the people who complain about having to get out of the bus for the tours on Dinosaur Ridge, where you can touch actual still in the ground dinosaur fossils), but ways that endanger themselves, others, and the nature itself. Like climbing where they shouldn't, or feeding animals, or throwing so much damned trash in Old Faithful that it's actually shifted the schedule of the eruptions.
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:57 AM on August 21, 2015
Also, my main complaint about tourists is that people in groups are stupid about nature. I'm not talking about enjoying nature in a way I don't (like bringing a tablet camping so you can play angry birds, or the people who complain about having to get out of the bus for the tours on Dinosaur Ridge, where you can touch actual still in the ground dinosaur fossils), but ways that endanger themselves, others, and the nature itself. Like climbing where they shouldn't, or feeding animals, or throwing so much damned trash in Old Faithful that it's actually shifted the schedule of the eruptions.
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:57 AM on August 21, 2015
I was actually mixing up Old Faithful's pattern changing, the Morning Glory Pool's color having shifted dramatically because of trash, and the Minute Geyser's destruction all mixed up in my head.
posted by Gygesringtone at 9:20 AM on August 21, 2015
posted by Gygesringtone at 9:20 AM on August 21, 2015
Is this some unique cultural hang-up? I know a lot of tourists don't care, but it seems like people in my age bracket do. What do the members of these crowds think about their experiences - are they just happy to be there, or are they all wishing they were there alone?
I'm not sure I'm in your age bracket, but sure, I think not everyone has this hangup.
What was everyone else in the Mona Lisa room the day I was there thinking? I have no idea.
Some had clearly flown halfway around the world to experience capital-E European capital-C Culture because they were not themselves European. I suspect they were on package tours.
And just as it's the great American tradition to pack the kids into a station wagon to see the Grand Canyon in the summer, there seemed to be a lot of Europeans in the Louvre who were having their own holidays. Heck, there were probably a lot of non-Parisian French people who were doing the equivalent of driving from Boston to DC to take in the Smithsonian because it's close and at some point it gets silly that you live so close to this singular cultural monument and you've never been there. And you have to do something with your holiday.
And like me, some were having A Big Holiday where they had come a long way to see Important Things.
What I do know is that a lot of people clearly thought their vacation was not going to be complete unless they were photographed in front of all these works of art I guess to prove to friends that they had actually been there.
posted by GuyZero at 12:44 PM on August 21, 2015
I'm not sure I'm in your age bracket, but sure, I think not everyone has this hangup.
What was everyone else in the Mona Lisa room the day I was there thinking? I have no idea.
Some had clearly flown halfway around the world to experience capital-E European capital-C Culture because they were not themselves European. I suspect they were on package tours.
And just as it's the great American tradition to pack the kids into a station wagon to see the Grand Canyon in the summer, there seemed to be a lot of Europeans in the Louvre who were having their own holidays. Heck, there were probably a lot of non-Parisian French people who were doing the equivalent of driving from Boston to DC to take in the Smithsonian because it's close and at some point it gets silly that you live so close to this singular cultural monument and you've never been there. And you have to do something with your holiday.
And like me, some were having A Big Holiday where they had come a long way to see Important Things.
What I do know is that a lot of people clearly thought their vacation was not going to be complete unless they were photographed in front of all these works of art I guess to prove to friends that they had actually been there.
posted by GuyZero at 12:44 PM on August 21, 2015
I'd really like to go to Yellowstone, and while Old Faithful is something I'd like to see, I'm honestly more interested in the mudpots and other features, hiking, and maybe some lake boating. I'll probably go off-season, but even off-season it seems the lodges are booked up for years, and honestly I'd rather not have a 25-mile drive just to get to the place.
posted by Blackanvil at 8:22 PM on August 21, 2015
posted by Blackanvil at 8:22 PM on August 21, 2015
The view from up at Sacre-Coeur is very good indeed - a fantastic cityscape - if you don't mind the fact that you can't see the Eiffel Tower because it's blocked by a tree.
Traditionally, in the evening and night, you wouldn't have really seen the Eiffel Tower anyway -- it wasn't lit up, other than the safety beacon on top. Paris was the City Of Lights well before they lit the tower for the millennium.
So, the fact that you can't see La tour Eiffel from Sacre Coeur doesn't really hurt the veiw of the City of Lights -- it's the same view it's always been. Utterly Glorious. Paris, in general, is flat, so the few elevated views all have amazing reach. (Chicago is the same, I prefer the Hancock Skydeck, being located on the Mag Mile, it gives a better view of the Skyline than theWillis Tower Sears Tower skydeck, which is right next to the Loop.)
posted by eriko at 5:29 AM on August 22, 2015
Traditionally, in the evening and night, you wouldn't have really seen the Eiffel Tower anyway -- it wasn't lit up, other than the safety beacon on top. Paris was the City Of Lights well before they lit the tower for the millennium.
So, the fact that you can't see La tour Eiffel from Sacre Coeur doesn't really hurt the veiw of the City of Lights -- it's the same view it's always been. Utterly Glorious. Paris, in general, is flat, so the few elevated views all have amazing reach. (Chicago is the same, I prefer the Hancock Skydeck, being located on the Mag Mile, it gives a better view of the Skyline than the
posted by eriko at 5:29 AM on August 22, 2015
I've been very lucky to spend most of my adult life with so little money that I've had thirty years of immersion training in the art of finding delight wherever I go, and I just feel like the whole notion of separating our desires into units of the glum daily obligatory vs Big Important Things™ makes more of life glum, daily, and obligatory.
I have never seen the Eiffel Tower, but I've reclined ruinously on F. Scott Fitzgerald's nearby grave with a goblet of milk and grenadine, punching through a stretch of personal gloom with some histrionic milk-fueled writing on an ancient portable word processor. I've never seen Alaska and probably won't, unless I hit it big on the awkward stories circuit, but have parlayed my association with a museum of outsider art into an opportunity to climb Watts Towers in stocking feet with a conservator. I've ridden a scooter at full-throttle through a Grand Prix course, had Placido Domingo's sweaty forearm in my mouth, danced at midnight on the top of a twenty-story clock tower built a hundred years ago to advertise a tranquilizer-laden hangover cure, and driven a Citroën DS21 on the beach at Saint Augustine.
None of these things are that important, of course, but I learned important lessons.
We pulled the canoe up on the muddy riverbank under the bridge, and my mother was already getting that slightly knotted look that mean that she was going to have to be the control rod assembly in my father's crazy reactor.
"Cleve, are you sure about this?" she asked, but my father had already gone rogue chimpanzee and had climbed up into the superstructure of the old bridge above. "That does not look particularly safe."
"It's fine, hon. C'mon up, Joe," he said, beckoning from a tangle of late Victorian ironwork. I stood on the bank, caught between my mother's good sense and my father's sense of adventure.
"What if we fall?"
"We'll fall into the river. It'll be fine."
"The river's only like a foot deep here! I'll break my leg!"
"Only if you don't practice due diligence, son."
I headed up the stonework, caught a rusty iron beam, and swung myself up and into the exposed framework of one of last surviving examples of that particular configuration of truss bridge in the country.
I was so used to the joy of elsewhere that the things normal families do was already jarring. We'd go camping in the middle of winter, hiking through foot deep snow in Western Maryland to get to a half-buried cabin, or venture out to Ocean City in mid-September, when the crowds had dissipated and the water was as gorgeously warm as the Atlantic gets 'round here, and would spend summers driving through New England taking rubbings off interesting headstones in overgrown graveyards and indulging my dad's goal of playing Eubie Blake's "Memories Of You" (one of the two songs he knew on piano) on every tracker organ he could find.
Still, we were kids in a society, inasmuch as that existed in the wretched seventies, and we craved the things other people did, like Disney World and summertime beach vacations and trips that didn't require survival skills, but my parents were strong enough to swim against those familiar currents. In '76, we decided that we absolutely had to see the bicentennial fireworks on the Mall, and so we drove way out to the endpoint of the then brand-new and thrillingly futuristic Metro, rode in like hog snout parts stuffed into a thrillingly futuristic casing, and emerged in the midst of the biggest crowd I had ever seen.
The fireworks were fine. They shot actual lasers out of the Washington Monument in a "show" that was basically bright green beams angling out of the observation windows. You could hardly move, the crowd noise nearly drowned out the sound of explosives detonating overhead, and trash was being discarded in a crinkling gale of garbage that crumbled underfoot as he shuffled back to the Metro at the end like the shift workers in Metropolis…and the magic of things that appeal to crowds seemed awfully elusive.
And maybe it's me, because plenty of people find great satisfaction in making a laundry list of things that must be seen and then checking items off like accountants of joy, but I dunno—
I'd like to see Borobudur, I think, and I wouldn't mind poking around the abandoned Buckner Building in Whittier, Alaska or getting an up-close perspective on the gargantuan fascist beach resort of Prora, and I have a lot of memories of traveling in my pyjamas, courtesy of a huge stack of National Geographics, that make me think it would be fun to see some of those things with my own eyes instead of through someone else's Rolleiflex, but right now, cultivating that sort of desire blunts the genuine potential of the here and now.
It's easier to keep a log of one's adventures and maintain the imperative of seeking and finding amazing things within one's reach than to engage in the Western sacrifice of working hard for the promise of playing hard. I inherited a late friend's adventure book two years ago, in a lull when I'd been stunned into a stupor by the promise of middle class comfort, and I've made filling it out a renewed mission.
"I'm bored," my friend said, back in 1983. "What is there to do?"
"Gasoline fight?"
"No, I'm still sore from last time."
"Break into the Applied Physics Lab?"
"I tore my pants running away from the guard."
"Sheesh. You know, we should make a pact to do something we know has never ever been done every day."
"Like what?"
Forty minutes later, we ran through the mall wearing nests of coathangers on our heads like crowns of thorns, singing "The Girl From Ipanema" at the absolute top of our lungs. It wasn't much, but it had never, ever been done before, and may never yet. We followed Liberace on his last tour like Deadheads, got chased off TV's Wonder Woman™ Lynda Carter's lawn in Potomac, Maryland by the foul-mouthed lady herself while carrying a portable organ and two heavy candlesticks, and were banned from Philadelphia for a period of not less than one year by the authorities for an incident having to do with the Liberty Bell and "The Girl From Ipanema."
High-dollar trips abroad are hard. Surrendering to a life of cheap surrealism? Easy.
And yeah, being in bed in a nice mid-level hotel room in Paris at three AM is probably better than finding oneself on the rusting deck of the SS United States in the same wee hours a decade before one can afford a cell phone, having discovered that that way you got up there is way scarier as a way of getting off than you'd anticipated, but life is full of cruel miracles.
So my bucket list comes down to:
1. Try to avoid the bucket
2. Think of new things to do
Maturity helps to anticipate things like the possibility that the train that's barely moving at a walking pace may actually speed up after you climb into a boxcar in a wistful homage to Harry Partch and then not stop again until it reaches Trenton, New Jersey, and the skeptical voice of your mother you hear in the back of your head when pondering such things is often right.
Those points taken, there are hundreds of blank pages in my late friend's adventure book and miles to go before I sleep, and while the money for jet-setting is as far from me as as Tranquility Base, it costs almost nothing at all to honor a whim from thirty-two years earlier and keep a song in one's heart.
posted by sonascope at 6:58 AM on August 22, 2015 [10 favorites]
I have never seen the Eiffel Tower, but I've reclined ruinously on F. Scott Fitzgerald's nearby grave with a goblet of milk and grenadine, punching through a stretch of personal gloom with some histrionic milk-fueled writing on an ancient portable word processor. I've never seen Alaska and probably won't, unless I hit it big on the awkward stories circuit, but have parlayed my association with a museum of outsider art into an opportunity to climb Watts Towers in stocking feet with a conservator. I've ridden a scooter at full-throttle through a Grand Prix course, had Placido Domingo's sweaty forearm in my mouth, danced at midnight on the top of a twenty-story clock tower built a hundred years ago to advertise a tranquilizer-laden hangover cure, and driven a Citroën DS21 on the beach at Saint Augustine.
None of these things are that important, of course, but I learned important lessons.
We pulled the canoe up on the muddy riverbank under the bridge, and my mother was already getting that slightly knotted look that mean that she was going to have to be the control rod assembly in my father's crazy reactor.
"Cleve, are you sure about this?" she asked, but my father had already gone rogue chimpanzee and had climbed up into the superstructure of the old bridge above. "That does not look particularly safe."
"It's fine, hon. C'mon up, Joe," he said, beckoning from a tangle of late Victorian ironwork. I stood on the bank, caught between my mother's good sense and my father's sense of adventure.
"What if we fall?"
"We'll fall into the river. It'll be fine."
"The river's only like a foot deep here! I'll break my leg!"
"Only if you don't practice due diligence, son."
I headed up the stonework, caught a rusty iron beam, and swung myself up and into the exposed framework of one of last surviving examples of that particular configuration of truss bridge in the country.
I was so used to the joy of elsewhere that the things normal families do was already jarring. We'd go camping in the middle of winter, hiking through foot deep snow in Western Maryland to get to a half-buried cabin, or venture out to Ocean City in mid-September, when the crowds had dissipated and the water was as gorgeously warm as the Atlantic gets 'round here, and would spend summers driving through New England taking rubbings off interesting headstones in overgrown graveyards and indulging my dad's goal of playing Eubie Blake's "Memories Of You" (one of the two songs he knew on piano) on every tracker organ he could find.
Still, we were kids in a society, inasmuch as that existed in the wretched seventies, and we craved the things other people did, like Disney World and summertime beach vacations and trips that didn't require survival skills, but my parents were strong enough to swim against those familiar currents. In '76, we decided that we absolutely had to see the bicentennial fireworks on the Mall, and so we drove way out to the endpoint of the then brand-new and thrillingly futuristic Metro, rode in like hog snout parts stuffed into a thrillingly futuristic casing, and emerged in the midst of the biggest crowd I had ever seen.
The fireworks were fine. They shot actual lasers out of the Washington Monument in a "show" that was basically bright green beams angling out of the observation windows. You could hardly move, the crowd noise nearly drowned out the sound of explosives detonating overhead, and trash was being discarded in a crinkling gale of garbage that crumbled underfoot as he shuffled back to the Metro at the end like the shift workers in Metropolis…and the magic of things that appeal to crowds seemed awfully elusive.
And maybe it's me, because plenty of people find great satisfaction in making a laundry list of things that must be seen and then checking items off like accountants of joy, but I dunno—
I'd like to see Borobudur, I think, and I wouldn't mind poking around the abandoned Buckner Building in Whittier, Alaska or getting an up-close perspective on the gargantuan fascist beach resort of Prora, and I have a lot of memories of traveling in my pyjamas, courtesy of a huge stack of National Geographics, that make me think it would be fun to see some of those things with my own eyes instead of through someone else's Rolleiflex, but right now, cultivating that sort of desire blunts the genuine potential of the here and now.
It's easier to keep a log of one's adventures and maintain the imperative of seeking and finding amazing things within one's reach than to engage in the Western sacrifice of working hard for the promise of playing hard. I inherited a late friend's adventure book two years ago, in a lull when I'd been stunned into a stupor by the promise of middle class comfort, and I've made filling it out a renewed mission.
"I'm bored," my friend said, back in 1983. "What is there to do?"
"Gasoline fight?"
"No, I'm still sore from last time."
"Break into the Applied Physics Lab?"
"I tore my pants running away from the guard."
"Sheesh. You know, we should make a pact to do something we know has never ever been done every day."
"Like what?"
Forty minutes later, we ran through the mall wearing nests of coathangers on our heads like crowns of thorns, singing "The Girl From Ipanema" at the absolute top of our lungs. It wasn't much, but it had never, ever been done before, and may never yet. We followed Liberace on his last tour like Deadheads, got chased off TV's Wonder Woman™ Lynda Carter's lawn in Potomac, Maryland by the foul-mouthed lady herself while carrying a portable organ and two heavy candlesticks, and were banned from Philadelphia for a period of not less than one year by the authorities for an incident having to do with the Liberty Bell and "The Girl From Ipanema."
High-dollar trips abroad are hard. Surrendering to a life of cheap surrealism? Easy.
And yeah, being in bed in a nice mid-level hotel room in Paris at three AM is probably better than finding oneself on the rusting deck of the SS United States in the same wee hours a decade before one can afford a cell phone, having discovered that that way you got up there is way scarier as a way of getting off than you'd anticipated, but life is full of cruel miracles.
So my bucket list comes down to:
1. Try to avoid the bucket
2. Think of new things to do
Maturity helps to anticipate things like the possibility that the train that's barely moving at a walking pace may actually speed up after you climb into a boxcar in a wistful homage to Harry Partch and then not stop again until it reaches Trenton, New Jersey, and the skeptical voice of your mother you hear in the back of your head when pondering such things is often right.
Those points taken, there are hundreds of blank pages in my late friend's adventure book and miles to go before I sleep, and while the money for jet-setting is as far from me as as Tranquility Base, it costs almost nothing at all to honor a whim from thirty-two years earlier and keep a song in one's heart.
posted by sonascope at 6:58 AM on August 22, 2015 [10 favorites]
While the description of Venice does include the word "stinky" that doesn't do the wafting aroma of stale piss justice.
On the other hand I've been to Santorini and it was nothing like the second photo. It was stunning beautiful and not particularly crowded. Maybe I went to the wrong/right places.
posted by Justinian at 8:56 AM on August 22, 2015
On the other hand I've been to Santorini and it was nothing like the second photo. It was stunning beautiful and not particularly crowded. Maybe I went to the wrong/right places.
posted by Justinian at 8:56 AM on August 22, 2015
I just feel like the whole notion of separating our desires into units of the glum daily obligatory vs Big Important Things™ makes more of life glum, daily, and obligatory
So true. Thanks.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:13 AM on August 22, 2015
So true. Thanks.
posted by Devils Rancher at 11:13 AM on August 22, 2015
I dunno. The great thing about the 'tourist trail' is that it's so narrow.
Like, the 'packed with tourists' areas are often literally 1 street wide, and as soon as you move a street or two over, it's gone. No crush.
It is often very nice being just adjacent to the tourists routes, where you have the convenient facilities if needed (Drs, 7/11s with all the small essentials, signs and menus translated into English).
Finding out the most popular place, and the most popular time, and then finding somewhere adjacent but not actually on that route can be the best of both worlds.
I had a fantastic time in Koh Phangan in Thailand, which is dominated by a monthly full moon party which very often has devolved to just hordes of drunken 18 year olds in neon souvenir singlets. The hotspot for the party is on the South East side of the island. The Tourist Trail is NARROW. So you go to the North/West side instead.
But the biggest tip is that three quarters of the tourists only go to the island for the single week around the full moon party, and many other tourists who would love it are justifiably disillusioned with going anywhere near it. This means the other three weeks of the month have about a quarter the tourists, but you still have all the accommodation, food, scooters, food, scuba diving schools, food and a-mazing thai massages (to clarify if you don't know what it involves, you wear a pajama like suit, no bare skin or oil, and are basically placed in assisted yoga positions, with physiotherapy style moves, and the hands down best massages I have ever experienced). Going off season, in the off-weeks? Pretty close to my idea of idyllic.
Same goes for most places I can think of to visit. I haven't travelled that widely, but you don't need to go hugely off-route, or blaze new trails if you don't want to. You can just stick to the nice quiet edges of that tourist trail, and all it means is being a few streets over, or an hour away from the most popular beach/etc, or a few weeks off season.
posted by Elysum at 3:39 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
Like, the 'packed with tourists' areas are often literally 1 street wide, and as soon as you move a street or two over, it's gone. No crush.
It is often very nice being just adjacent to the tourists routes, where you have the convenient facilities if needed (Drs, 7/11s with all the small essentials, signs and menus translated into English).
Finding out the most popular place, and the most popular time, and then finding somewhere adjacent but not actually on that route can be the best of both worlds.
I had a fantastic time in Koh Phangan in Thailand, which is dominated by a monthly full moon party which very often has devolved to just hordes of drunken 18 year olds in neon souvenir singlets. The hotspot for the party is on the South East side of the island. The Tourist Trail is NARROW. So you go to the North/West side instead.
But the biggest tip is that three quarters of the tourists only go to the island for the single week around the full moon party, and many other tourists who would love it are justifiably disillusioned with going anywhere near it. This means the other three weeks of the month have about a quarter the tourists, but you still have all the accommodation, food, scooters, food, scuba diving schools, food and a-mazing thai massages (to clarify if you don't know what it involves, you wear a pajama like suit, no bare skin or oil, and are basically placed in assisted yoga positions, with physiotherapy style moves, and the hands down best massages I have ever experienced). Going off season, in the off-weeks? Pretty close to my idea of idyllic.
Same goes for most places I can think of to visit. I haven't travelled that widely, but you don't need to go hugely off-route, or blaze new trails if you don't want to. You can just stick to the nice quiet edges of that tourist trail, and all it means is being a few streets over, or an hour away from the most popular beach/etc, or a few weeks off season.
posted by Elysum at 3:39 PM on August 23, 2015 [2 favorites]
Is this the kind of thing I'd have to own dreams and aspirations to understand?
posted by Theta States at 12:07 PM on August 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by Theta States at 12:07 PM on August 24, 2015 [2 favorites]
If you go to Yellowstone, follow the path by Old Faithful off to the right. There's a path that swings around, goes over a stream and and goes through the area behind Old Faithful. There's a geyser there named Anemone. It goes off about every 5 minutes, and you can sit on the path and watch it go off from about 5 feet. You can see down inside it pretty well, and get a really good idea of what actually happens when a geyser goes off. It's one of my favorites, and I recommend it every time anyone talks about Yellowstone.
posted by stoneegg21 at 9:06 PM on August 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by stoneegg21 at 9:06 PM on August 25, 2015 [1 favorite]
As pretty much a list of rather ordinary things, how else could it end up other than being a list of crowded places where everyone goes?
I thought a bucket list was supposed to be of special things. This bucket list seems more a list of ways to bore yourself to tears.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 3:21 PM on September 6, 2015
I thought a bucket list was supposed to be of special things. This bucket list seems more a list of ways to bore yourself to tears.
posted by nothing.especially.clever at 3:21 PM on September 6, 2015
If you think the Taj Mahal is "ordinary", I'd love to know what you consider "extraordinary".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:34 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:34 PM on September 7, 2015 [1 favorite]
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posted by ricochet biscuit at 11:40 AM on August 20, 2015 [2 favorites]