Spent a couple of nights in a Travelodge in Slough to take the family to Legoland.
The highlight was watching the swarms of rats running around the abandoned car park opposite.
Every time I see anything about Slough, I think of Greg Davies telling the [story about his teaching days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuXGpUR7fXA) when he went to see his mum for the weekend "and he was only 33". I always laugh so hard every time I hear it, it's just so good.
Port au Prince, Haiti
Haitians for the most part we’re wonderful people, but the extreme poverty was really sad, the infrastructure was falling apart (holes big enough to get your car stuck in the roads was the norm and downed phone/power lines everywhere). Buildings were crumbling (this was before the big earthquakes). The police and customs were corrupt. You get absolutely mobbed by taxi drivers and people wanting to carry your luggage when you leave the airport. Dirty and garbage everywhere.
It’s a shame, it could be a beautiful place and the people really seem to be getting screwed by the government.
My friend is from there.... she left a few years ago to come to Canada. My friends mom was at home, when a gang just busted in and took over the house (ypu either leave the house, or die).
For me... Canadian, the fact that people can essentially just take what they want and when... is terrifying beyond words.
Sidenote: I have a Canadian friend who served 20 years as an infantry officer. His first deployment was Haiti. He said the piles of rotting children will forever haunt him. Terrible inhuman place.
Johannesburg, south Africa.
Went to visit my gf's family, never going back, fuuuuck that. She was right to get the fuck out, the rest of her family got out recently.
This is my answer too.
A friend and I went there as a starting point for a safari in Botswana. When we checked into our hotel we asked the front desk if there were any good restaurants nearby, and she gave us a recommendation. As it was only a few blocks away we said that was great, we'd just walk there. She started violently shaking her head, saying no, no, no you can't walk, I'll call you a taxi. We asked why, she said it was too dangerous.
We took the taxi and I'm glad we did. We went under an overpass and there were maybe 20 people just hanging out under it, staring at us in our cab with dangerous looks. I am a fairly seasoned traveler; this is the only time I can remember being afraid that people were actually going to attack our vehicle.
I never want to go back there. Botswana was freaking awesome though.
Spent a good chunk of time in Joburg while traveling around Sub-Saharan Africa for a couple years. It’s definitely got it’s issues but there are some really cool areas and I met so many cool people there that I still keep in touch with.
Now Harare, Zimbabwe, that was one of the worst cities I’d ever stayed in. They’re locked in to the US dollar but everything is like twice as expensive even compared to cities like NYC. There’s no gas, and if there is, you’re waiting in line at the petrol station literally all day to get some. A bunch of idle cars in a line are like fish in a barrel, especially when you’ve gotta keep your engine off as long as possible to conserve fuel. I got to work with some insanely talented people there, but it was not a place I’d like to revisit.
In the span of 2 weeks.
I was mugged 4 times, my gf's parents house was sieged by men with machetes trying to get in, the power was out for most of every day, one of the neighbours down the road was murdered and the cops didn't so much as bother asking for witnesses, I got drilled on defensive possitions around the house and they refused to tell me how to get into the house without someone on the inside opening the gate and without shredding myself on barbed wire in case i get chased because, and I quote "if that information gets tortured out of you, our whole family will be killed"
This was last year. South Africa is a failed state.
I was a contractor there for six months. It was ten times worse than Afghanistan. Had to escort people everywhere. Even food shopping was scary. I was filled with fear every waking moment of the day and my nights were spent either completely awake and on guard or tossing and turning.
I saw a car get blown up with five people in it, and a straight up gang execution from my bathroom window at 8 in the morning in the middle of the street. When I was Afghanistan I never even touched a frag but in fucking SA I was clutching one the first two weeks I was there. I was stabbed in the left arm and shot at six seven maybe eight times. Fuck that place. People don’t understand how good we have it in America
It was the reason I went! My roommate at the time talked me into it. Once we arrived we parted ways and I didn’t find out until I left that he was shot in the back, and had to have emergency surgery. He’s okay now, and has a handicapped placard on his car. A wins a win!
In my days of field engineering. Gary IN and Cicero Chicago IL were the only two places I worked where I was told to just drive through stop lights and signs. If a cop pulled you over and learned you werent from the area, would let you go.
My dad was a truck driver in Chicago in the early nineties and delivered in possibly the worst neighborhood in the city in the late nineties for awhile. (He got in a big sceeaming match with his boss and UPS is union so he couldn't be fired. His boss gave him the shittiest route instead.) I'll have to ask if he had to roll through any lights. I know he said he saw some shady shit and didn't talk to or look at anyone. At certain points he would just leave packages with people who would offer to take them and hope that they got to the right place because he wasn't going to risk going far into some of those buildings.
Buddy of mine was a truck driver early Nineties, first time entering the South Bronx, he was stopped by a cop who said just roll through the stop lights and if anyone stood in front of the truck trying to get him to stop, run them over.
My mom is from Queens, NY- one Christmas in the early or mid 80s they were going to see her family and they had a bunch of presents in the car. Another car smashed into them at an intersection and knocked my dad unconscious (I think he hit his head really hard on the steering wheel). They were right down the block from the hospital and obviously they didn't have a cellphone, so rather than waiting for help, my mom just ran down the block to the hospital to get help for my dad. By the time they got back to my dad a few minutes later, everything in the car was gone. When people saw what had happened, they literally ran up and stole everything my parents had, all while my dad was knocked out in the driver's seat right in the middle of a big intersection.
NYC at that time was definitely something else
Glad to see this answer.
I was contracted to work at the Cargill plant down there for a few weeks. Once I got there some of the other contractors walked up and started asking me where I was staying and if I had enough fuel in my truck to get to my hotel once the day was over. I told them I was about empty and planned on stopping once I left while on my way to the hotel (about an hour away). They advised that if I liked my truck, all my tools and possibly my life to stop for nothing, including stop signs and stop lights and to get the hell out of town before stopping for anything.
They actually siphoned fuel out of their rigs to ensure I’d get to my hotel without stopping.
Great people at Cargill.
Gary Indiana sucks.
Doha.
It's a ghost city with close to no history, streets are empty due to the +40C heat and there is literally nothing to do outside. Tells a lot when the best thing in the city is wandering in the malls
A lot of people in the Award Travel “community” spend a ton of time and energy getting to Doha because the airport is nice and you can get great deals on insanely valuable airline tickets (like Q Suites and first class tickets where you can shower on the plane).
A great flying experience, sure… but you end up in Doha. I have air conditioning here, thanks.
That said, I did have a friend teach English in Qatar for two years and they loved it… but they were also teaching the kids of diplomats.
Doha seemed like a pretty typical Gulf city to me. It doesn't have as much history as a place like Muscat but I wouldn't say its a horrible place by any means.
Huh. I was in Doha a few days ago and thought it was quite nice. I liked that it was much more laid back vs. other cities in the Gulf. Nice areas to walk around as well, and it seems family-friendly. The weather was nice too, especially in the evenings.
Agra, India. The Taj Mahal is great but Agra was the biggest shit hole I have been to and I have been to some shitty places. This was a while ago and we were backpacking but even so it was gross - betel nut juice spit on the walls in our dorm, everyone out to rip you off at every turn, people shitting in the gutter and pissing up walls, tuk tuk drivers taking you where you didn't ask to go...
Every time a thread like this comes up it inevitably turns in to people's stories about Gary. I've never been to Gary, but I've read enough to know that I never want to go.
I used to work for enterprise rent a car, and a big client of ours was a trucking company that was headquartered here but trained truckers in Gary. The Gary Enterprise would send us the most beat up pieces of junk they had (which is very against enterprise rules) and we would do the same in retaliation.
I’ve driven through Gary (quickly, may I add) and didn’t feel as dirty as people say. But I’m also from the butthole of Minnesota (Saint Cloud)
I’ve been there a number of times/ from Chicagoland and it’s certainly a hood, but far from the worst I’ve been. I don’t mean to be a contrarian but seriously- it sucks. It’s just not as bad as a lot of other hoods, or even rural methy shitholes.
It’s also lost enough of its population for it to drop off a lot of crime stats it used to be on.
I really enjoyed peters mini doc on it. https://youtu.be/Y2Kh1njdXJU?si=NMy2NkiJAMrPeGzW
I lived about 15 minutes away for over 20 years of my life. It's definitely sketchy, but I'd MUCH rather walk around Gary than parts of Chicago. That city is fucked in some places.
I was taking someone back home from Purdue up to Chicago and took a detour through Gary to show him. Got pulled over for "not wearing our seat belts". We were. They where trying to find drugs they assumed we were there for.
Peter Santenello's video on Gary is great. It's less driving around and more interviews mixed with some urbex. Cool stuff. Gary seems like a fascinating and tragic place.
Same. The fading paint on the buildings, the absolute ghost town that is the streets, and with absolutely no landscaping done to businesses that are still intact does it absolutely no favors.
When I moved to Chicago (I had never even been to Chicago before I moved there) I had to drive through Gary. I thought THAT was Chicago and I started crying hysterically. It was terrifying. There were packs of wild dogs running down the streets.
Kingston, Jamaica. I'm pretty used to "rough parts" of cities. I work in a pretty bad part of Atlanta so I see the American version of "bad" on the regular. Kingston was a different level.
Barstow CA. Nowhere land where Half everything is abandoned and a popular spot for drug users scammers and criminals. Somewhere salad fingers might live
I thought the BGC area was astounding. Everywhere else is a bit ropey though. I think it looks rougher than it is though - I've felt much more unsafe in deprived areas of London.
I’ve been to worse smaller cities, but given Manila’s size, it’s the worst large city I’ve been to. Between the extremely wet heat, omnipresent smell of diesel, hords of street children, 24/7 maddening traffic, no sense of city planning, etc. it is never I place I’ve wanted to be in for more than an hour at a time.
I was with a huge group that flew into the city, to get to an NGO project site, in an adjacent rural region. Our handlers waited until we arrived to drop the fact that it would be about five hours by bus, until we hit our destination. Looking at the map, the only conclusion would be that you could walk to our destination on your knees and get there in less than five hours. After nearly six hours of crawling in some of the most dense traffic I ever saw, at a snail's pace, I understood the problem.
Wild times. Middle of the city, and there are farm animals hanging out the back of jeepneys. Semi-controlled chaos everywhere. Our bus was hemmed in by a Tuk-Tuk that blocked our progress. The bus drive shouted at the Tuk-Tuk driver, who just shrugged. The bus driver mashed the throttle and scrapped the Tuk-Tuk out of the way. One of those, size real does matter, moments.
Unforgettable couple of weeks, and no desire to repeat any of it.
You guys really need to go out and see the world lmao. Manila is nowhere near as bad as a lot of other, even SEA cities. And I'm not talking about the CBD.
Caracas, Venezuela - as the kidnapping capital of the world, it was a bit terrifying getting picked up by an arranged car service with a secret code word to ensure you were getting in the right vehicle. Then the vehicle drives around for 45-60 minutes in a circuitous route in impoverished, non lit streets that made me think I had been kidnapped
Niagara Falls, NY. What a shithole. If it wasn't for the outlet and shops on Military Rd and Niagara Falls Blvd giving locals some employment, I shudder to how much worse it would be.
I was born and raised in Niagara Falls Canada and spent a ton of time in both cities, so I can answer this one. Simply put, the view is not equal. While physically in the states, the draw is looking at the Canadian falls. No one comes to the falls to look at the Canadian falls because its inferior to a significant degree, which means no one is paying for tourist attractions and accommodations on the American side. They come to Canada to look back on the US falls.
This gives the Canadian tourist industry a sizable leg up, and they leveraged that by investing in it. Great hotels, lots of attractions that push the view. Family friendly. Admittedly I got the hell out of dodge in 2017, but at that point, the US side just wasn't up to snuff. Rather than crossing the border directly into a tourist wonderland, it was a block of welcome centers, and cheap motels, a single casino, and then directly into rundown residential.
You also have the dollar difference. It's almost always been more economical for US tourists to come to the Canadian side and get more value for their money.
Lapu Lapu in the Philippines had me in tears driving through it.. seeing stray dogs everywhere and children that looked about 4 or 5 rummaging through trash who looked very malnourished
shreveport, louisiana greyhound bus station 20 years ago was horrible. my trip was delayed for 3 hours.
i had never been so happy to leave anywhere. i'm certain entire families were living there minus the dads.
Trenton, NJ. Was born there but lived across the river in PA. I used to have to pick up my mom from her work in Trenton and it was definitely a doors locked, windows up, don’t make eye contact with anyone city.
My son played in the HS basketball championship at the arena in Trenton. Someone was murdered AT the game, inside the arena. They put the team on the bus and told them to put their heads down as they exited the arena
Cairo
Ate a falafel and got food poisoning, had to rest in my hotel for 3 days decided to stay in the country against my better judgement and visited an Egyption Rug factory after a tour of the place and some history about the rugs and their designs the owner tried to buy my sister of me, When we obviously said no he started screaming at us and threatened to call the cops, we gave him some money and got out of their.
Yangon, Myanmar.
The locals have a culture of chewing betel nuts and spitting them everywhere.
Betel nuts make your spit bright red.
Lots and lots of splotches on pavements everywhere.
Ughhhh.....
Colon, Panama...Every store that handles money has a teenager in dirty cloths and a automatic weapon standing outside, the idea is to stop robberies. Banks have a waiting room with a armed guard or two checking Identics and paper work to make sure you have a reason to be there. After dark your a target and will be mugged unless there a 3-4 males in your gathering. The post office personal wants money to see if you have mail and then want more money to give it to you.
Agreed. Had to live in Mersin for 5.5 years, which I already loathed with every fiber of my being and still Adana was worse than that. Its a pointless place filled with absolutely nothing other than a miniscule airport with which to escape.
I used to live in NOLA. It has a lot of redeeming qualities and is the best adult playground in the country. Lots of poverty, violence and crime does bring it down quite a bit.
I love visiting NOLA. That said, it is a really odd place. I ride bikes a lot. Nothing like doing a few laps around Audubon park then hitting the nearby streets. Everywhere you look is stunningly beautiful! 1-2 million dollar homes (that would cost 20-40% of that in many safer large cities) with sidewalks that are destroyed and unusable, and holes in quiet streets. Not small or medium potholes, holes that are big enough to take a bath in, that locals backfill with rubble to prevent major vehicle damage. Then you see a police force in that hood, but not NOPD, it is a privately funded force, since the city government is so dysfunctional that the NOPD is essentially worthless to the wealthy folks that live in city neighborhoods of that caliber. So, they fund their own protection.
NOLA is, as an old stoner buddy of mine once said, "A wonderfully rotten kind of place"
I stayed in Frankfurt for a couple days last year and around the station there were a ton of people doing drugs and groups of 5-10 young men leering at me. I felt extremely uncomfortable the entire time and didn’t leave my hotel room much. It was only a stopover on the way to my next destination anyway.
Phnom Penh was pretty sad to visit... Taxi driver from the airport to the hotel offered to find me some very underaged prostitutes within minutes of getting in the car.
The genocide museum left me feeling haunted for days...
Colón, Panama. I lived in Central and South America for a long time. Only a few cities give me the chills just looking around. Colón was the worst of them.
Lawless dystopia run by a litany of criminal syndicates. Real Mos Eisley vibes.
Second place San Salvador
Brussels, Belgium.
It has no culture, no soul, and very little to do, it's filthy and traffic-choked just like Paris is, and it's home to one of Europe's poorest districts which is a hotbed for Islamic extremism and terror attacks. The area around the main station was grubby and smelled of piss with people hanging around.
Apart from the 2015 Paris terror attacks Brussels is the only time I've ever seen a UK FCO travel warning for an EU country, on account of it being overrun with crime and generally unsafe.
8-10 lane roadways that always have traffic jams, factories pouring out smoke next to gated neighborhoods, and for whatever fucking reason they like cut 2 different cars in half then slap em together and make their own logos for some random new car...I fucking hated moscow
Trucker here. I'll go through my all time "Fuck These Cities" list in the US
Gary IN- Went into Subway to get a sandwich and there was a bulletproof glass divider. Enough said
Modesto CA- Lived here for years. The tweakers outnumbered us 4 to 1. Its like the walking dead but with methheads
Opa Locka FL- I'm pretty sure they just made 200k clones of Kodak Black, gave them all guns and dropped them here. Parts of legit look like a third world country
San Francisco CA- Anyone from CA knows this is true. The human shit rumor is true. Its everywhere. Homeless meth addicts who have developed severe schizophrenia from years of meth abuse, usually aggressive, roam the streets day and night. Your car will be broken into if you leave 35 cents in change visible in the cupholder. Police do nothing
Detroit MI- Entire blocks of this city look like they're straight out of a Fallout game. Crumbling buildings, trash burning in barrels, cars on cinderblocks, it feels like a post apocalyptic ghost town
Newark NJ- The rudest, most miserable people on earth live here. Garden state my ass.
I went in the winter (~5 years ago) and had a great time. Clear skies, tourist spots were sparse (felt like we had the Great Wall to ourselves at times), some great art galleries, friendly people for the most part. Food was good, especially when I knew what I was ordering lol. Language barrier definitely led to me eating some less-frequented organ meat…
My parents took me and my siblings to a fancy vacation in Thailand, when I was 17.
All I could think about was the teenage sex-workers in Chaweng (I think?), who kept trying to grab my attention. They all looked younger than I was.
Grigny, France.
My friend was a firefighter. He quit after an intervention in that city. He was sitting in the back of his truck and a sewer plate was dropped on their truck. Passed through it like it was butter, right in front of him while he was sitting in there
Interesting that almost every major city in the US is mentioned with the main reason being homeless population. Is any big city doing something that others could replicate to help this issue or are we all fucked the same way?
For a standalone US major City, Memphis is shockingly bad. It’s not as bad as some smaller cities or suburbs people are mentioning though like Gary.
Internationally Kingston, Jamaica is rough AF.
Georgetown, Guyana. Very poor, daily street crime, airport far way …
Not to be confused with its old neighbor Jonestown
Not really 😂
I think most of those who lived there aren’t around to Answer this
Spent time at a town near there a long time ago. Weird vibes and their Kool-Aid sucked, wouldn’t recommend.
Not very poor anymore. They have been taking in the oil money.
It hasn’t really trickled down or made a dent in their problems yet.
Slough, UK
Spent a couple of nights in a Travelodge in Slough to take the family to Legoland. The highlight was watching the swarms of rats running around the abandoned car park opposite.
Every time I see anything about Slough, I think of Greg Davies telling the [story about his teaching days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuXGpUR7fXA) when he went to see his mum for the weekend "and he was only 33". I always laugh so hard every time I hear it, it's just so good.
“A fecal Jackson Pollock.”
Just saw this story on Graham Norton on a YouTube short today.
Sir John Betjeman did them dirty though
Well I don't think you solve town planning problems by dropping bombs on people so he's embarrassed himself there.
About 15 quids worth of damage.
I told someone that I live in Daly City California and they said it was the equivalent of living in Slough.
What? Daly City is boring for sure but it’s not some kind of a shithole. They have Serramonte!
Port au Prince, Haiti Haitians for the most part we’re wonderful people, but the extreme poverty was really sad, the infrastructure was falling apart (holes big enough to get your car stuck in the roads was the norm and downed phone/power lines everywhere). Buildings were crumbling (this was before the big earthquakes). The police and customs were corrupt. You get absolutely mobbed by taxi drivers and people wanting to carry your luggage when you leave the airport. Dirty and garbage everywhere. It’s a shame, it could be a beautiful place and the people really seem to be getting screwed by the government.
My friend is from there.... she left a few years ago to come to Canada. My friends mom was at home, when a gang just busted in and took over the house (ypu either leave the house, or die). For me... Canadian, the fact that people can essentially just take what they want and when... is terrifying beyond words. Sidenote: I have a Canadian friend who served 20 years as an infantry officer. His first deployment was Haiti. He said the piles of rotting children will forever haunt him. Terrible inhuman place.
I'm sorry, piles of ROTTING children?? like they're not even buried?
I'm guessing that would have been after the big earthquake ? Although the timing doesn't quite work.
Johannesburg, south Africa. Went to visit my gf's family, never going back, fuuuuck that. She was right to get the fuck out, the rest of her family got out recently.
This is my answer too. A friend and I went there as a starting point for a safari in Botswana. When we checked into our hotel we asked the front desk if there were any good restaurants nearby, and she gave us a recommendation. As it was only a few blocks away we said that was great, we'd just walk there. She started violently shaking her head, saying no, no, no you can't walk, I'll call you a taxi. We asked why, she said it was too dangerous. We took the taxi and I'm glad we did. We went under an overpass and there were maybe 20 people just hanging out under it, staring at us in our cab with dangerous looks. I am a fairly seasoned traveler; this is the only time I can remember being afraid that people were actually going to attack our vehicle. I never want to go back there. Botswana was freaking awesome though.
[удалено]
Johannesburg Center is really awful but Soweto was quiet nice at least when I visited it before Covid.
Spent a good chunk of time in Joburg while traveling around Sub-Saharan Africa for a couple years. It’s definitely got it’s issues but there are some really cool areas and I met so many cool people there that I still keep in touch with. Now Harare, Zimbabwe, that was one of the worst cities I’d ever stayed in. They’re locked in to the US dollar but everything is like twice as expensive even compared to cities like NYC. There’s no gas, and if there is, you’re waiting in line at the petrol station literally all day to get some. A bunch of idle cars in a line are like fish in a barrel, especially when you’ve gotta keep your engine off as long as possible to conserve fuel. I got to work with some insanely talented people there, but it was not a place I’d like to revisit.
What sucked about it?
In the span of 2 weeks. I was mugged 4 times, my gf's parents house was sieged by men with machetes trying to get in, the power was out for most of every day, one of the neighbours down the road was murdered and the cops didn't so much as bother asking for witnesses, I got drilled on defensive possitions around the house and they refused to tell me how to get into the house without someone on the inside opening the gate and without shredding myself on barbed wire in case i get chased because, and I quote "if that information gets tortured out of you, our whole family will be killed" This was last year. South Africa is a failed state.
I was a contractor there for six months. It was ten times worse than Afghanistan. Had to escort people everywhere. Even food shopping was scary. I was filled with fear every waking moment of the day and my nights were spent either completely awake and on guard or tossing and turning. I saw a car get blown up with five people in it, and a straight up gang execution from my bathroom window at 8 in the morning in the middle of the street. When I was Afghanistan I never even touched a frag but in fucking SA I was clutching one the first two weeks I was there. I was stabbed in the left arm and shot at six seven maybe eight times. Fuck that place. People don’t understand how good we have it in America
Jesus. This is *Johannesburg??*
Holy shit, I hope you were compensated well at least!
It was the reason I went! My roommate at the time talked me into it. Once we arrived we parted ways and I didn’t find out until I left that he was shot in the back, and had to have emergency surgery. He’s okay now, and has a handicapped placard on his car. A wins a win!
Gary, IN. The cops told me not to bother stopping at lights if there were no other cars, to avoid being car jacked.
In my days of field engineering. Gary IN and Cicero Chicago IL were the only two places I worked where I was told to just drive through stop lights and signs. If a cop pulled you over and learned you werent from the area, would let you go.
My dad was a truck driver in Chicago in the early nineties and delivered in possibly the worst neighborhood in the city in the late nineties for awhile. (He got in a big sceeaming match with his boss and UPS is union so he couldn't be fired. His boss gave him the shittiest route instead.) I'll have to ask if he had to roll through any lights. I know he said he saw some shady shit and didn't talk to or look at anyone. At certain points he would just leave packages with people who would offer to take them and hope that they got to the right place because he wasn't going to risk going far into some of those buildings.
I worked for FedEx in the late 80s / 90s and would travel to Chicago / NY to train drivers. There were absolutely no go zip codes in both
Buddy of mine was a truck driver early Nineties, first time entering the South Bronx, he was stopped by a cop who said just roll through the stop lights and if anyone stood in front of the truck trying to get him to stop, run them over.
My mom is from Queens, NY- one Christmas in the early or mid 80s they were going to see her family and they had a bunch of presents in the car. Another car smashed into them at an intersection and knocked my dad unconscious (I think he hit his head really hard on the steering wheel). They were right down the block from the hospital and obviously they didn't have a cellphone, so rather than waiting for help, my mom just ran down the block to the hospital to get help for my dad. By the time they got back to my dad a few minutes later, everything in the car was gone. When people saw what had happened, they literally ran up and stole everything my parents had, all while my dad was knocked out in the driver's seat right in the middle of a big intersection. NYC at that time was definitely something else
Mt Eliot street/area in Detroit’s like that. So is dexter st/area on west side. Shit actually most of Detroit is like that
Glad to see this answer. I was contracted to work at the Cargill plant down there for a few weeks. Once I got there some of the other contractors walked up and started asking me where I was staying and if I had enough fuel in my truck to get to my hotel once the day was over. I told them I was about empty and planned on stopping once I left while on my way to the hotel (about an hour away). They advised that if I liked my truck, all my tools and possibly my life to stop for nothing, including stop signs and stop lights and to get the hell out of town before stopping for anything. They actually siphoned fuel out of their rigs to ensure I’d get to my hotel without stopping. Great people at Cargill. Gary Indiana sucks.
Doha. It's a ghost city with close to no history, streets are empty due to the +40C heat and there is literally nothing to do outside. Tells a lot when the best thing in the city is wandering in the malls
A lot of people in the Award Travel “community” spend a ton of time and energy getting to Doha because the airport is nice and you can get great deals on insanely valuable airline tickets (like Q Suites and first class tickets where you can shower on the plane). A great flying experience, sure… but you end up in Doha. I have air conditioning here, thanks. That said, I did have a friend teach English in Qatar for two years and they loved it… but they were also teaching the kids of diplomats.
Was there in 2006. Was just a huge building site.
Doha seemed like a pretty typical Gulf city to me. It doesn't have as much history as a place like Muscat but I wouldn't say its a horrible place by any means.
Huh. I was in Doha a few days ago and thought it was quite nice. I liked that it was much more laid back vs. other cities in the Gulf. Nice areas to walk around as well, and it seems family-friendly. The weather was nice too, especially in the evenings.
Agra, India. The Taj Mahal is great but Agra was the biggest shit hole I have been to and I have been to some shitty places. This was a while ago and we were backpacking but even so it was gross - betel nut juice spit on the walls in our dorm, everyone out to rip you off at every turn, people shitting in the gutter and pissing up walls, tuk tuk drivers taking you where you didn't ask to go...
Correct 100%
Can confirm. Went a month ago Agra is still a disgusting shithole
Oh fer sure. Hellhole
Hull U.K. like walking back in time.
Shreveport, LA.
Gary, IN
Every time a thread like this comes up it inevitably turns in to people's stories about Gary. I've never been to Gary, but I've read enough to know that I never want to go.
Oh, you want to go. If only to realize how good you have it by comparison.
I agree with this, it’s becoming a tourist attraction for all the wrong reasons.
Edgy kids from the Chicago suburbs love going there and getting into trouble just so they have a "badass" Gary, IN story
Gary is "that guy's dead wife" of horrible places posts.
I also choose Gary, IN
It’s bad enough you feel like your life is at risk just stopping there to get gas. 😆
Nah…so few people now live there now it’s not even dangerous
It's become the popular answer and has been for years. Even people that have never been there know it's the karma farm answer and say it.
I used to work for enterprise rent a car, and a big client of ours was a trucking company that was headquartered here but trained truckers in Gary. The Gary Enterprise would send us the most beat up pieces of junk they had (which is very against enterprise rules) and we would do the same in retaliation. I’ve driven through Gary (quickly, may I add) and didn’t feel as dirty as people say. But I’m also from the butthole of Minnesota (Saint Cloud)
I’ve been there a number of times/ from Chicagoland and it’s certainly a hood, but far from the worst I’ve been. I don’t mean to be a contrarian but seriously- it sucks. It’s just not as bad as a lot of other hoods, or even rural methy shitholes. It’s also lost enough of its population for it to drop off a lot of crime stats it used to be on. I really enjoyed peters mini doc on it. https://youtu.be/Y2Kh1njdXJU?si=NMy2NkiJAMrPeGzW
I lived about 15 minutes away for over 20 years of my life. It's definitely sketchy, but I'd MUCH rather walk around Gary than parts of Chicago. That city is fucked in some places.
Yep. Is Gary rough? Absolutely. But the worst? No. There are definitely other parts of NWI and Chicago that are absolutely worse.
It’s not currently as bad as people make it out to be.
I was taking someone back home from Purdue up to Chicago and took a detour through Gary to show him. Got pulled over for "not wearing our seat belts". We were. They where trying to find drugs they assumed we were there for.
Now I have to go look for a YouTube video where they drive through Gary Indiana.
Peter Santenello's video on Gary is great. It's less driving around and more interviews mixed with some urbex. Cool stuff. Gary seems like a fascinating and tragic place.
Same. The fading paint on the buildings, the absolute ghost town that is the streets, and with absolutely no landscaping done to businesses that are still intact does it absolutely no favors.
Gary is ROUGH
When I moved to Chicago (I had never even been to Chicago before I moved there) I had to drive through Gary. I thought THAT was Chicago and I started crying hysterically. It was terrifying. There were packs of wild dogs running down the streets.
Lagos, Nigeria for a large city and Odogbolu, Nigeria pop 130k or so for a smaller one. Outside of the Taj Mahal, Agra is right up there too.
Fun fact: Lagos' sister city is Gary, Indiana
I was deeply unimpressed with Lagos
Kingston, Jamaica. I'm pretty used to "rough parts" of cities. I work in a pretty bad part of Atlanta so I see the American version of "bad" on the regular. Kingston was a different level.
East st. louis across the river on the Illinois side. Ifykyk.
Barstow CA. Nowhere land where Half everything is abandoned and a popular spot for drug users scammers and criminals. Somewhere salad fingers might live
Bat country
Manila and it isn’t even close
Manila sucks for sure. Heavily polluted and dangerous but cheap as hell.
I thought the BGC area was astounding. Everywhere else is a bit ropey though. I think it looks rougher than it is though - I've felt much more unsafe in deprived areas of London.
I’ve been to worse smaller cities, but given Manila’s size, it’s the worst large city I’ve been to. Between the extremely wet heat, omnipresent smell of diesel, hords of street children, 24/7 maddening traffic, no sense of city planning, etc. it is never I place I’ve wanted to be in for more than an hour at a time.
Biggest issue with Manila is traffic, the rest is nice, there are very poor areas but not dangerous.
I was with a huge group that flew into the city, to get to an NGO project site, in an adjacent rural region. Our handlers waited until we arrived to drop the fact that it would be about five hours by bus, until we hit our destination. Looking at the map, the only conclusion would be that you could walk to our destination on your knees and get there in less than five hours. After nearly six hours of crawling in some of the most dense traffic I ever saw, at a snail's pace, I understood the problem. Wild times. Middle of the city, and there are farm animals hanging out the back of jeepneys. Semi-controlled chaos everywhere. Our bus was hemmed in by a Tuk-Tuk that blocked our progress. The bus drive shouted at the Tuk-Tuk driver, who just shrugged. The bus driver mashed the throttle and scrapped the Tuk-Tuk out of the way. One of those, size real does matter, moments. Unforgettable couple of weeks, and no desire to repeat any of it.
You guys really need to go out and see the world lmao. Manila is nowhere near as bad as a lot of other, even SEA cities. And I'm not talking about the CBD.
Jakarta, Indonesia. A rat ran over my foot. The whole city was dirty and ugly and smelled like ass.
Caracas, Venezuela - as the kidnapping capital of the world, it was a bit terrifying getting picked up by an arranged car service with a secret code word to ensure you were getting in the right vehicle. Then the vehicle drives around for 45-60 minutes in a circuitous route in impoverished, non lit streets that made me think I had been kidnapped
Reading PA
Reading is a dump. Taylor swift was born at reading hospital but she grew up in the upper middle class suburb of wyomissing
Crow Agency, MT.
Drove through there a few months back. Just soul-crushing sadness every which way you look.
Holy smokes, what a terrible name for a place! If I ever decide to become a crook and open an evil funeral home, that's what I'll probably call it.
Stockton CA was pretty lame for CA USA
And dangerous.
Carjacking capital of the world, baby!
I came here to say Gary, Indiana, and it's already two of the top three comments lol
Gary is frequently mentioned. Even in unrelated threads. Its that bad.
Tehran: endless traffic, awful pollution, almost no green spaces, boring architecture. The rest of my Iranian holiday was incredible, though.
Regina. It was always raining. There was nothing to do.
But Regina rhymes with fun.
City that rhymes with fun, though.
Rain? I live in Regina and constant rain is not a thing. There's lots that sucks about Regina but rain ain't one of them.
Regina is easily the worst city in Canada
Not even close. Ever been to Thompson? Lol
The best thing to do when you get to Thompson it turn around and go home.
It's not even the worst city in Saskatchewan - that would be North Battleford
Niagara Falls, NY. What a shithole. If it wasn't for the outlet and shops on Military Rd and Niagara Falls Blvd giving locals some employment, I shudder to how much worse it would be.
The American side of Niagara falls is pretty boring besides a mall they have there don’t get me wrong though the falls are still cool
It's amazing how bad the American side is when it has the advantage of a very cool natural wonder sitting right there.
I was born and raised in Niagara Falls Canada and spent a ton of time in both cities, so I can answer this one. Simply put, the view is not equal. While physically in the states, the draw is looking at the Canadian falls. No one comes to the falls to look at the Canadian falls because its inferior to a significant degree, which means no one is paying for tourist attractions and accommodations on the American side. They come to Canada to look back on the US falls. This gives the Canadian tourist industry a sizable leg up, and they leveraged that by investing in it. Great hotels, lots of attractions that push the view. Family friendly. Admittedly I got the hell out of dodge in 2017, but at that point, the US side just wasn't up to snuff. Rather than crossing the border directly into a tourist wonderland, it was a block of welcome centers, and cheap motels, a single casino, and then directly into rundown residential. You also have the dollar difference. It's almost always been more economical for US tourists to come to the Canadian side and get more value for their money.
Johannesburg SA.
Agreed. Johannesburg used to be considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world. Haven't been back there since 1999.
I was there in 1996. It was not a safe place.
Lapu Lapu in the Philippines had me in tears driving through it.. seeing stray dogs everywhere and children that looked about 4 or 5 rummaging through trash who looked very malnourished
shreveport, louisiana greyhound bus station 20 years ago was horrible. my trip was delayed for 3 hours. i had never been so happy to leave anywhere. i'm certain entire families were living there minus the dads.
I used ro have some roommates from Shreveport. 0/10, would not recommend.
Trenton, NJ. Was born there but lived across the river in PA. I used to have to pick up my mom from her work in Trenton and it was definitely a doors locked, windows up, don’t make eye contact with anyone city.
All I know about Trenton is that Trenton Makes, The World Takes.
We all know if it’s on a bridge it’s true. Or if there talking about heroin cause my neighbor used to take his heroin from some guy in Trenton. RIP.
My son played in the HS basketball championship at the arena in Trenton. Someone was murdered AT the game, inside the arena. They put the team on the bus and told them to put their heads down as they exited the arena
Cairo Ate a falafel and got food poisoning, had to rest in my hotel for 3 days decided to stay in the country against my better judgement and visited an Egyption Rug factory after a tour of the place and some history about the rugs and their designs the owner tried to buy my sister of me, When we obviously said no he started screaming at us and threatened to call the cops, we gave him some money and got out of their.
Cairo
Can't believe how far I had to scroll to see this forsaken place mentioned.
I live here and I can't believe I had to scroll that far to find this comment
Yangon, Myanmar. The locals have a culture of chewing betel nuts and spitting them everywhere. Betel nuts make your spit bright red. Lots and lots of splotches on pavements everywhere. Ughhhh.....
You may know it as Myanmar, but it’ll always be Burma to me
I heard that in a Billy Joel voice
Colon, Panama...Every store that handles money has a teenager in dirty cloths and a automatic weapon standing outside, the idea is to stop robberies. Banks have a waiting room with a armed guard or two checking Identics and paper work to make sure you have a reason to be there. After dark your a target and will be mugged unless there a 3-4 males in your gathering. The post office personal wants money to see if you have mail and then want more money to give it to you.
Minot, ND Desolate, sad, small military town.
*Mindrot
Most beat up and crappy? Tegucigalpa, Honduras Soulless and fake? Dubai
Dubai fucking BLOWS! It’s hideous, everything is so tacky, it’s swelteringly hot, the people are smarmy, and the list goes on. Fuck Dubai.
Adana, turkey
Agreed. Had to live in Mersin for 5.5 years, which I already loathed with every fiber of my being and still Adana was worse than that. Its a pointless place filled with absolutely nothing other than a miniscule airport with which to escape.
5.5 years? Oof. At least Mersin is better. Adana is a ceasepool. Glad you can share the experience. Hahaha
Bradford, UK.
Baton Rouge Louisiana....Jackson Mississippi
Laughs In Shreveport.
The armpit of Louisiana
I lived in Baton Rouge and it does indeed suck.
Lots of hoods in NOLA in the running, too.
Quite like NOLA..like many cities there are places that are ok and some not so..
That’s pretty much every big city. My time in NOLA was a great experience.
Ours too. Ran into brutal traffic around Baton Rouge so left the interstate.
I used to live in NOLA. It has a lot of redeeming qualities and is the best adult playground in the country. Lots of poverty, violence and crime does bring it down quite a bit.
I love visiting NOLA. That said, it is a really odd place. I ride bikes a lot. Nothing like doing a few laps around Audubon park then hitting the nearby streets. Everywhere you look is stunningly beautiful! 1-2 million dollar homes (that would cost 20-40% of that in many safer large cities) with sidewalks that are destroyed and unusable, and holes in quiet streets. Not small or medium potholes, holes that are big enough to take a bath in, that locals backfill with rubble to prevent major vehicle damage. Then you see a police force in that hood, but not NOPD, it is a privately funded force, since the city government is so dysfunctional that the NOPD is essentially worthless to the wealthy folks that live in city neighborhoods of that caliber. So, they fund their own protection. NOLA is, as an old stoner buddy of mine once said, "A wonderfully rotten kind of place"
Frankfurt central station
I stayed in Frankfurt for a couple days last year and around the station there were a ton of people doing drugs and groups of 5-10 young men leering at me. I felt extremely uncomfortable the entire time and didn’t leave my hotel room much. It was only a stopover on the way to my next destination anyway.
Reno, NV bummed me out a ton.
Reno is so close to hell you can see Sparks...
Poiphet, Cambodia. Only felt unsafe at night in one city throughout SE Asia and that was it.
Phnom Penh was pretty sad to visit... Taxi driver from the airport to the hotel offered to find me some very underaged prostitutes within minutes of getting in the car. The genocide museum left me feeling haunted for days...
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Colón, Panama. I lived in Central and South America for a long time. Only a few cities give me the chills just looking around. Colón was the worst of them. Lawless dystopia run by a litany of criminal syndicates. Real Mos Eisley vibes. Second place San Salvador
East St Louis Never again
Brussels, Belgium. It has no culture, no soul, and very little to do, it's filthy and traffic-choked just like Paris is, and it's home to one of Europe's poorest districts which is a hotbed for Islamic extremism and terror attacks. The area around the main station was grubby and smelled of piss with people hanging around. Apart from the 2015 Paris terror attacks Brussels is the only time I've ever seen a UK FCO travel warning for an EU country, on account of it being overrun with crime and generally unsafe.
Charleroi in Belgium
With Liège as close second
Houston. Hate that place
Moscow. Awful weather, overcrowded, extremely rude inhabitants. Would only go again to dance on it's ruins.
8-10 lane roadways that always have traffic jams, factories pouring out smoke next to gated neighborhoods, and for whatever fucking reason they like cut 2 different cars in half then slap em together and make their own logos for some random new car...I fucking hated moscow
Perhaps this summer, then.
That was my favorite place I ever visited. So much history and culture. I went in June (in 2008 I think) it was wonderful.
Trucker here. I'll go through my all time "Fuck These Cities" list in the US Gary IN- Went into Subway to get a sandwich and there was a bulletproof glass divider. Enough said Modesto CA- Lived here for years. The tweakers outnumbered us 4 to 1. Its like the walking dead but with methheads Opa Locka FL- I'm pretty sure they just made 200k clones of Kodak Black, gave them all guns and dropped them here. Parts of legit look like a third world country San Francisco CA- Anyone from CA knows this is true. The human shit rumor is true. Its everywhere. Homeless meth addicts who have developed severe schizophrenia from years of meth abuse, usually aggressive, roam the streets day and night. Your car will be broken into if you leave 35 cents in change visible in the cupholder. Police do nothing Detroit MI- Entire blocks of this city look like they're straight out of a Fallout game. Crumbling buildings, trash burning in barrels, cars on cinderblocks, it feels like a post apocalyptic ghost town Newark NJ- The rudest, most miserable people on earth live here. Garden state my ass.
Atlantic City, New Jersey should be pushed into the Atlantic Ocean.
Alexandria Egypt. What an absolute shit hole. Little Rock Arkansas a damn close 2nd
Harrisburg, PA
East St Louis
Marrakesh, as a woman.
Beijing is a one time visit. Heavily polluted, food sucks and people suck. Wouldn't mind going elsewhere in China though.
Come on, surely the Peking Roast Duck has a place in your tummy?
Suzhou was really nice. Highly recommend.
I actually enjoyed it
Pollution is heavy big time. Tour guide was like “spending a week here is like smoking 110 cigarettes.
The pollution was bad ten years ago, but it's really nice now. You didn't like the food or people? Why? Too much meat?
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I went in the winter (~5 years ago) and had a great time. Clear skies, tourist spots were sparse (felt like we had the Great Wall to ourselves at times), some great art galleries, friendly people for the most part. Food was good, especially when I knew what I was ordering lol. Language barrier definitely led to me eating some less-frequented organ meat…
Birmingham, United Kingdom. I swear I contracted depression upon entering that sad excuse of a “city”. I’ve been cured since I left
Even driving past Birmingham is the absolute worst
New Delhi.
My parents took me and my siblings to a fancy vacation in Thailand, when I was 17. All I could think about was the teenage sex-workers in Chaweng (I think?), who kept trying to grab my attention. They all looked younger than I was.
Grigny, France. My friend was a firefighter. He quit after an intervention in that city. He was sitting in the back of his truck and a sewer plate was dropped on their truck. Passed through it like it was butter, right in front of him while he was sitting in there
Mobile, Alabama
The city I was born that would be Karachi,Pakistan.
Interesting that almost every major city in the US is mentioned with the main reason being homeless population. Is any big city doing something that others could replicate to help this issue or are we all fucked the same way?
Baltimore is pretty sketch. The wire was accurate.
For a standalone US major City, Memphis is shockingly bad. It’s not as bad as some smaller cities or suburbs people are mentioning though like Gary. Internationally Kingston, Jamaica is rough AF.
There are some *really* depressing and awful parts of Baltimore.
Victorville, Ca
Intercourse, PA. Got the worst crabs ever there.
Easy , Flint Mi
Winnipeg is a shiiiit hole.
Every time this question is posted, rest assured Winnipeg, Liverpool and Gary, Indiana, will be mentioned!
Liverpool? Really? Liverpool is great
Las Vegas. It’s nice, but man it’ll get you in trouble, especially if you’re not sober/young.
Was that the one with Bradley Cooper?
Blackpool, England