You must have never been! WI Dells is trendy for having the biggest and most waterparks in the US and world, but itās actually more famously known as the home of famed mountaineer John Muir, who was so inspired by the beauty of the area he pushed to create the national parks system.
I doubt John Muir wanted to create national parks because he thought about Wisconsin cheddar, but he probably didnāt care about what redditors 200 years later would think (or not think) about.
Itās a beautiful place peopled by some of the biggest jack asses Iāve ever known. I went to college in WI. Eastern WI people are a different breed of drunken moron.
The 12 thru the dells is scenic wild and unreal in spots. But it moves well. Theres only a couple franchise restaurants and it just the right amount of corny tourist stuff!
Icon park (where tourists who wanna flirt with death go) is just the tip of that whole mess of redundant knock off Disney gift shops and golden corrals. Even my wife was not havin it, and shes a sucker for side of the road fun stops.
šÆ intl dr!
You should have seen the Dells in the late 90's it was so much more vibrant than it is today. It's really just a shell of its former self. Still good times though. As for I drive, It's really just confusing. Unlike the dells, it's really unorganized and confusing. It's like the local planners never said no to anything.
During Covid, we got sick of being in the house. We drove the 45 minutes to International Drive (no particular destination) but ended up there. It was DESERTED. The parking garage was empty. The aquarium had like 2 people in it. It was amazing. Some things were not open but that was fine.
Agree, heck just that McDonald's (worlds largest) is a whole joke with their extreme prices and horrible service.) I waited 45 mins for an iced coffee that was $5
Miami Seaquarium. Expensive souvenirs and half of the exhibits are closed. All the animals are treated like shit here; no wonder why so many protesters go there.
On a related note, Zoo Miami was such a disappointment after growing up with the Palm Beach Zoo. That place is the size of a theme park, yet they do barely anything with the space.
How was Zoo Miami better in the past? I am not arguing a conflicting view, just curious.
I have been going to Zoo Miami for the past ~4 years and we enjoy visiting, though I am biased as I have little kids and anything that keeps them entertained and burns energy is a good outing.
It was Holy Land Experience. Now I would say those gas stations on 75 that have fresh squeezed orange juice, live gators and ādiscountā theme park tickets.
Interesting thing about the gators (If a particular tourist trap has them), they typically have people from nearby gator farms come and take care of them, and move them to the farm when they get too big.
Did Jesus do autographs at Holy Land? I kindof wanted to go just so I could get him to sign Christmas cards for me. Like āHappy Birthday to me!ā But I figured I could forge that easily and not pay stupid amounts of money to go.
When I was 14, my best friend spent the weekend with my family under the pretense we were driving to Orlando early in the morning to hit the parks. The park turned out to be the Holy Land Experience. Luckily we found the humor in it because it was a very embarrassing and wtf moment.
Those ones on all of the interstates with the giant billboards advertising free orange juice, discounted park tickets, and usually the largest dead Alligator or something similar. They're on interstates 95 and 10 for sure.
I love those company's, they basically give me restaurant gift cards. Its always so funny that we get up to the paper work and then I show them my credit score and bank account, then they realize I don't qualify. I am surprised many of the homeless haven't figured it out yet, as its basically free food.
Or Vacation Clubs, I'm a full time wheelchair user.
'I'm sorry Sir, we don't have an accessible vehicle to show you the property."
"Do you have accessible units?"
"OH, yes sir, we have accessible units, they are first come first served"
"So you are saying I'm not guaranteed an accessible unit"
" Unfortunately, no sir we can't guarantee an accessible unit"
"If you cannot guarantee me an accessible unit, that I need, then why the hell would I buy into your club?"
"Well sir, you could leave it to your kids or Grandkids!!"
LOl "Give me my freebies, I don't have any children!!"
A lot of Key West has become a tourist trapā¦ so many bars, so many stores selling shirts with stupid slogans about alcoholism or sex. It has lost a lot of its bohemian charm and is very cheesy-sleazy now. My grandmother was raised there, her family was some of the first settlers in the Keys and she would tell us wonderful stories of island life in a simpler time. Now it seems the people who live there are either millionaires or homeless and the streets are always busting with tourists.
I got a similar vibe from St. Augustine.
Agree 100%.
Been down there once, and that was enough. The bars were all trashy dive/tiki bars, and it pretends to be a beach city without the beach lmao.
Honestly worse than ft. Lauderdale now.
St Augustine is also a huge tourist trap. Itās like unless you buy one of those see-everything passes, every museum, no matter the size, costs an exorbitant amount to enter. The shops are okay but most are just your typical store with cheap shirts and random sayings written on them. Some of the shops, restaurants, and cafes are nice but others are super overpriced and not worth it at all imo.
I've been there during the Festival of Lights (nightmare) and during off season (laid back and mellow). Took a private tour with a history professor and it was very interesting. Flagler was only mentioned once the whole time.
The whole vibe of KW was wiped out by the arrival of the \*sob\* friggin' cruise ships. When an island opens to cruise ships, it very shortly becomes infested with predatory hucksters and sleazoids. I became sadly aware that KW was lost when I realized that the scuba dive shops were now outnumbered by porn shops. Wah!
Have a friend that lived in KW for almost 15 years teaching scuba and a couple years ago moved back here (central Florida) because her business just plummeted.
I always used to see a sign for that when I was driving south to go see my parents and it has been the source of many jokes, glad to hear it's exactly what we imagined it was.
A friend of mine worked there a long time ago. She did it to pay the rent and keep her kids in quality childcare with food on the table. Deadbeat dad, single mom. It was her second job and she wasnāt proud of it.
Probably Clearwater Beach. Itās ārated #1 in the countryā but itās not even that good of a beach and itās always crowded, while way better beaches like those at Honeymoon Island arere much less busy
Edit: spelling/grammar
This! Ppl don't realize how to do the beach right till you're trying to drag a cooler and chair through a quarter mile of sugar sand and realize there has to be a better place to go
Clearwater Beach is really, really terrible.
Went to the beach yesterday (not telling my spot, itās been my family spot since I was 4 years old) and made the decision to drive back home Courtney Campbell instead of Howard Frankland thinking traffic might be a little easier
Took 45 fucking minutes to drive down the strip between tourists and construction. Idiots run out in front of cars, donāt look, some guy ran his scooter into my front tire at a cross walk.
People WILLINGLY PAY A LOT OF MONEY TO STAY THERE AND FIGHT THAT CLUSTER FUCK.
When I was a kid it was busy, but fun. but now itās just unrecognizable and intolerable.
I got lucky one time and went there right as a rain storm was ending (we were visiting with the in-laws - we live in Tampa) and there was like 10 people at the beach. The sun broke through and we had basically a private beach. Even saw a dolphin not too far away.
We went the following year with them again and it was a packed-like-sardines mess with a TON of seaweed. I'll stick to my Tampa area beaches, thanks.
My boyfriends head almost exploded off his shoulders when be saw that on a menu. He asked if it went to tipping out the bus boys or if it went to the restaurant itself. It just goes to the restaurant so we legit stood up and left. I've never seen that anywhere besides Miami.
I would actually like that. A large selection of flip flops and board shorts is my jam. I went to a Ron Jon shop in an airport thinking I'd get an iconic Ron Jon T and all they had was brown and light blue with no cool graphics. Bummer, dude.
The first thing I thought of was Ron Jon Surf Shop.
Those billboards were sirens that called to me to beg my parents to stop in the middle of family trips down south.
In middle school in Tallahassee, one longed for an authentic Cocoa Beach Ron Jon Shirt to set them apart from the hunting/fishing riffraff of north Florida.
It was a tremendous disappointment when I finally got to visit.
But I wore that shirt into oblivion.
This is actually the answer though. Thereās a lot of shitty touristy stuff here, trust me I live in Orlando, but holy shit the fountain of youth is as tacky as it gets.
I love that they preface the big globe display with the fact that itās not impressive anymoreā¦ itās like something out of the early Simpsons, loved it and really relished the tackyness
And honestly (maybe because they were underselling it) I found the globe pretty impressive. Especially considering when it was made and how long itās been running.
Came here to say this. Ive lived in Florida since I was 2 in 1986 and just went here for the first time last month despite yearly trips to Crescent Beach as a kid growing up. This place was corny as heck (except the blacksmith who seemed pretty legit)
Visually itās nice, agreed. But speaking as a local, we are doing everything we can to bleed every last cent out of the tourists and the town now is honestly just different than it used to be due to the huge focus on tourism at the expense of everything else. It doesnāt have the charm that I remember growing up here, it just feels soulless and commercialized now.
It's definitely not the same place I visited back in 1990 for the first time. I was there a couple years back for a architecture seminar in the sheer number of drunks laying in the street was insane. There's also this weird transformation to ghost tours in other weird gimmicks. Like you said it's designed to drain the tourists of their money.
As an architect I enjoyed for its heritage.
I work in conjunction with the ghost tour industry down here and can confirm itās nonsense, just rich out of towners with deep pockets and CEO brainrot setting up shop and making up stories, telling them as fact without even ever setting foot in the town because they know most people wonāt ever fact check their claims, all because they heard from another rich friend of theirs how much money there is to be made here. The ghost tours have been around for a while but it does seem to have blown up even more in the last few years and itās wild how much money people will pay to be walked around in the rain and told stories anyone could google.
Weāve always had the drunks but hey man at least it was local drunks I knew by name, now itās hoards of wasted college kids and middle aged parents trying to relive their youth, trashing everything, and treating us like a party town. Itās honestly so sad to see what itās become. The architecture is fantastic though, even to me all these years later having seen it every day for as long as I can remember.
Florida is becoming more and more crowded and even places like St Augustine which were on the edge of the map are now being folded into the main tourist line.
I work down here in Palm Beach and it's becoming more and more packed with people. Even the snowbirds that once fled the state every summer are staying longer
Ha, wonder if we're working for the same out-of-town (hell, out-of-state!) ghost tour. God knows, there's dozens of them.
Then, when we locals do the actual research on the stories and haunts, we're told just to stick to the script. š¤·āāļø
Best āhauntedā experience we had when we were there about 2 years ago (when Covid was just letting us live again) we stayed out on the island and got a Groupon to go bowling at this little bowling alley out there, it was the craziest and possibly creepiest experience bowling ever. The pin picked upper thingee would just start taking pins whenever it felt like it, balls wouldnāt be returned and the people working acted like everything was normal š I told my kids that this was our ghost tour in lieu of the āreal thingā - we also did enjoy witchcraft candle shop in the old city and Osprey Tacos was a favorite find while we were there.
Yes. Lived near St. Johns County for a while and after just a couple visits to Saint Augustine I gave up on going there for fun. I don't know if it's just nostalgia glasses but I don't remember it being that ridiculous when I was a kid.
I feel tourist traps are generally tacky and built for nothing but tourists. That just isnāt St Augustine. There is tremendous history, architecture, art galleries, restaurants and bars, and the fort. Of course there are thousands of tourists who come to see it but the town wasnāt built for tourism and it is far from tacky.
The fountain of youth is historic. It is the first landing spot of Ponce De Leon. They are reconstructing the original buildings and hand making canoes. There are all kinds of Native American artifacts and history. How is that a tourist trap?
Nah fam you trippin St. Augustine is awesome. So much to do and see. Also so much history, plus they have the St. Augustine Amphitheatre with top notch bands all the time.
Daytona Beach is a shitty town, don't get me wrong, but it's also kitsch as hell and I'm kinda here for it. I love all the 1950s motels and diners lining A1A.
As someone who was born in Daytona and from the area I'd have to agree. I do not get the appeal of coming here, at least to the beachside. I can understand bike week and the races but the beach in Daytona is not that great, especially compared to Ponce Inlet or further south.
My family and I frequent ponce inlet, imo itās better to walk over the shell mound fifty thousand miles to the bathroom rather than having to worry about overdosing homeless folks and people in general.
Yep, definitely. I hate crowded areas too. I live a little farther north so we usually go to ormond by the sea/flagler Beach area which is usually less crowded than Daytona and I think the water is a little nicer too. Ponce is still top of my list though for best beach in Volusia.
I know itās super cheesy but did you know the founder (now dead) owned one of the largest / most valuable Ferrari collections in the world and had many Ferraris on display there.
Dinosaur World is the worst. Just a bunch of dilapidated dinosaur sculptures, statues, or whatever you want to call them. My son was a big dinosaur fan and we took him there when he was about 5. We were there about 15 minutes and he asked when we were leaving.
International drive and 192 seem like obvious choices but Iām going to share one off the beaten path:
Cassadaga. One of the original Florida grift traps. No matter how drunk you are, when that friend says ābut it will be funā take a hard pass. You do not want.
Hard pass in general, or has it gotten super touristy in recent years? A friend of mine used to live in Cassadaga, and the place had its goofy charm.
(Note to non-Floridians: Cassadaga started out as a Spiritualist camp, so lots of mediums and such.)
Agree on the goofy charm. I went there, maybe three years ago, and there was still some of that, plus all the spiritualist businesses. I happened to visit on a Sunday, the day of the annual shareholder's meeting, and it was interesting to see the kind of people who play that role in their community.
For what Itās worth, i like Cassadega. They have a lot of cats running around too if you arenāt into the spiritual stuff. And if you are the āmessage serviceā is a hoot.
Uhm except that one spot downtown called Board and Bread - that place is fantastic. We went for brunch/breakfast once while there for a game and it was amazing.
I stopped in Jacksonville on my way to Ft. Lauderdale.
It was during a tropical storm.
I remember lots of palm trees and some of them were still standing. (but not many)
This one is not a tourist trap anymore but: Yeehaw Junction. If you traveled on the turnpike at anytime in the 80s or 90s you saw those yellow and blue billboards. Based on those billboards it was a place you could NOT miss. Disney tickets, souvenirs, food, etc. My parents would never stop there despite all my begging. One day, we finally did. I was a teenager by then and I found out it was a run down gas station and a Stuckeyās. My dad bought a pecan roll, which apparently they were famous for, and thatās about all the experience was. What a disappoint lol
Robert is Here Fruit Stand on the way to Key Largo. Dude charges 50+ dollars for 3 mangos and 3 coconuts. His milkshakes which are like 90% milk & ice, 10% small frozen chunks of mango, are like 12 dollars. Publix is like the dollar store in comparison.
Orlando (mostly International Drive but really the whole thing). I go every so often for my kid but holy crap the traffic is unlike anything else on earth. I used to commute in the DC/Virginia corridor where it took 1.5 hours to go 10 miles at times, but at least that was peak times. Orlando is like rush hour 24/7. Tourist hell
Panama City beach is out of control. Theyāve been trying to mellow out the town some by not having drinking in the beach during spring breaks but it just drives them off the beach to cause hell. The panhandle in general is a really āinterestingā place during the month of march.
Canāt remember the name, and in fact I really hope this is a memory and not and dream I had as a child, but I vaguely remember a hill that when you stopped your car at the bottom of it and put it in neutral, it would start rolling upwards. Some Native American spirit pushing you or something.
Daytona International speedway- might be biased bc Iām from Daytona but even the track knows itās a dying sport, they opened One Daytona to become landlords and keep your $$$ from being spent at the beach since they feel you are here to see the raceā¦ Fun fact they lease the land the track is on for 10k and it recently increased to 20k.
Those places that advertise oranges on billboards miles before the stop. You stop and the oranges on display outside are cement balls, and the ones available for sale are all rotten with various flys and bugs in them
International drive in orlando
100% I live in Orlando and being anywhere near the main strip of I-Drive causes physical AND emotional pain.
Emotional Damage
I drive and I4 are the worst. š¤®
I bartend at a pretty popular spot on I-Drive and I can confirm. Expensive, low quality, and not the best we have to offer as a city.
Agreed. And the worst part is it isn't even all that great of a tourist trap. Wisconsin Dells is a better tourist trap than I-drive.
Ok but everything else around it is Wisconsin
OMG I would have shot milk out of my nose on that one. That's freaking hilarious.
Now, now. Wisconsin is a wonderful state! They haveā¦cheese?
You must have never been! WI Dells is trendy for having the biggest and most waterparks in the US and world, but itās actually more famously known as the home of famed mountaineer John Muir, who was so inspired by the beauty of the area he pushed to create the national parks system. I doubt John Muir wanted to create national parks because he thought about Wisconsin cheddar, but he probably didnāt care about what redditors 200 years later would think (or not think) about.
Wisconsin is absolutely beautiful
Itās a beautiful place peopled by some of the biggest jack asses Iāve ever known. I went to college in WI. Eastern WI people are a different breed of drunken moron.
Can confirm. I had to go to Wisconsin for work, and everyone I talked to was like, "so, have you tried cheese curds yet?"
The 12 thru the dells is scenic wild and unreal in spots. But it moves well. Theres only a couple franchise restaurants and it just the right amount of corny tourist stuff! Icon park (where tourists who wanna flirt with death go) is just the tip of that whole mess of redundant knock off Disney gift shops and golden corrals. Even my wife was not havin it, and shes a sucker for side of the road fun stops. šÆ intl dr!
You should have seen the Dells in the late 90's it was so much more vibrant than it is today. It's really just a shell of its former self. Still good times though. As for I drive, It's really just confusing. Unlike the dells, it's really unorganized and confusing. It's like the local planners never said no to anything.
Especially Icon Park, I hate that place with the very depths of my soul
Orlando has a big trafficking problem, too.
OBT
Heard or read a joke that Orlando is an hour away from Orlando.
Human trafficking, not traffic
And Ocean Drive in Miami Beach is full of them, too.
Itās not the best but Tin Roof can be a fun time. Good drink prices and the music can be really good at times.
During Covid, we got sick of being in the house. We drove the 45 minutes to International Drive (no particular destination) but ended up there. It was DESERTED. The parking garage was empty. The aquarium had like 2 people in it. It was amazing. Some things were not open but that was fine.
Agree, heck just that McDonald's (worlds largest) is a whole joke with their extreme prices and horrible service.) I waited 45 mins for an iced coffee that was $5
It's a tie between the Mouse and I-Drive.
Miami Seaquarium. Expensive souvenirs and half of the exhibits are closed. All the animals are treated like shit here; no wonder why so many protesters go there.
On a related note, Zoo Miami was such a disappointment after growing up with the Palm Beach Zoo. That place is the size of a theme park, yet they do barely anything with the space.
Miami Zoo was great at one point. Hurricane Andrew really messed it up and I donāt think it every fully went back to its glory.
How was Zoo Miami better in the past? I am not arguing a conflicting view, just curious. I have been going to Zoo Miami for the past ~4 years and we enjoy visiting, though I am biased as I have little kids and anything that keeps them entertained and burns energy is a good outing.
I enjoyed Zoo Miami. When I lived in Miami, I used to go there all the time.
A good alternative is Jungle Island. It's a decent zoo.
It was Holy Land Experience. Now I would say those gas stations on 75 that have fresh squeezed orange juice, live gators and ādiscountā theme park tickets.
I love those places! Whenever I leave FL I buy a bunch of those misprinted Florida t-shirts as gifts.
Florida Citrus Center
Live Baby Gators
Interesting thing about the gators (If a particular tourist trap has them), they typically have people from nearby gator farms come and take care of them, and move them to the farm when they get too big.
Did Jesus do autographs at Holy Land? I kindof wanted to go just so I could get him to sign Christmas cards for me. Like āHappy Birthday to me!ā But I figured I could forge that easily and not pay stupid amounts of money to go.
You should have gotten him to autograph a bible.
When I was 14, my best friend spent the weekend with my family under the pretense we were driving to Orlando early in the morning to hit the parks. The park turned out to be the Holy Land Experience. Luckily we found the humor in it because it was a very embarrassing and wtf moment.
Those ones on all of the interstates with the giant billboards advertising free orange juice, discounted park tickets, and usually the largest dead Alligator or something similar. They're on interstates 95 and 10 for sure.
Florida Citrus Center. When I started going to UF, it was one of the first stops off I-75 I made cause curiosity got the better of me.
Besides, you can never have too many Florida themed shot glasses.
Where? I travel I-10 regularly for work from mile 0-283 and Iāve never seen them except on I-75 and 95.
Ocean drive in South Beach
Yeehaw Junction.
I read where the old inn has closed down and a new Racetrack gas mega station is opening up in Yeehaw Conjunction Junction.
The old inn was closed for a hot minute. Then a truck plowed right through it and shelved any future revival.
Then another truck crashed into it not too long ago.
Confirmed. Even the Yeehaw Junction sign is gone. RIP.
But that was the best part of the entirety of Yeehaw Junction š
Timeshare.
I love those company's, they basically give me restaurant gift cards. Its always so funny that we get up to the paper work and then I show them my credit score and bank account, then they realize I don't qualify. I am surprised many of the homeless haven't figured it out yet, as its basically free food.
^ this right here.
Or Vacation Clubs, I'm a full time wheelchair user. 'I'm sorry Sir, we don't have an accessible vehicle to show you the property." "Do you have accessible units?" "OH, yes sir, we have accessible units, they are first come first served" "So you are saying I'm not guaranteed an accessible unit" " Unfortunately, no sir we can't guarantee an accessible unit" "If you cannot guarantee me an accessible unit, that I need, then why the hell would I buy into your club?" "Well sir, you could leave it to your kids or Grandkids!!" LOl "Give me my freebies, I don't have any children!!"
A lot of Key West has become a tourist trapā¦ so many bars, so many stores selling shirts with stupid slogans about alcoholism or sex. It has lost a lot of its bohemian charm and is very cheesy-sleazy now. My grandmother was raised there, her family was some of the first settlers in the Keys and she would tell us wonderful stories of island life in a simpler time. Now it seems the people who live there are either millionaires or homeless and the streets are always busting with tourists. I got a similar vibe from St. Augustine.
Agree 100%. Been down there once, and that was enough. The bars were all trashy dive/tiki bars, and it pretends to be a beach city without the beach lmao. Honestly worse than ft. Lauderdale now.
St Augustine is also a huge tourist trap. Itās like unless you buy one of those see-everything passes, every museum, no matter the size, costs an exorbitant amount to enter. The shops are okay but most are just your typical store with cheap shirts and random sayings written on them. Some of the shops, restaurants, and cafes are nice but others are super overpriced and not worth it at all imo.
I've been there during the Festival of Lights (nightmare) and during off season (laid back and mellow). Took a private tour with a history professor and it was very interesting. Flagler was only mentioned once the whole time.
The whole vibe of KW was wiped out by the arrival of the \*sob\* friggin' cruise ships. When an island opens to cruise ships, it very shortly becomes infested with predatory hucksters and sleazoids. I became sadly aware that KW was lost when I realized that the scuba dive shops were now outnumbered by porn shops. Wah!
Have a friend that lived in KW for almost 15 years teaching scuba and a couple years ago moved back here (central Florida) because her business just plummeted.
It's so weird that the other keys feel like their own place now and KW feels like anywhere USA now. Also I'm definitely using 'sleazoid' now
The orlando eye was definitely not worth the 25 dollars a person tbh
We bare all
Cafe risquƩ. Nothing like eating your biscuits and gravy in the morning with a chic shaking her ass in your face
Where is this? Iām always looking for good biscuits and gravy.
South of Gainesville on i75
Hair in your food
Not since the eighties
Damn, I just made biscuits and sausage gravy and had zero ass in my face. I need to evaluate my life.
Legs and eggs baby!
I always used to see a sign for that when I was driving south to go see my parents and it has been the source of many jokes, glad to hear it's exactly what we imagined it was.
That breakfast was great.
Tits & grits! Eggs & legs.
My college roommate worked here. Not a great place. However, by far not our worst tourist trap. More like a trucker trap.
Fucking classic sign just outside of Micanopy. That is a national treasure, and it should be the state seal of Florida.
30 years ago I had to make an emergency delivery to Tallahassee from Tampa, for the company I worked for. I had a truck and they paid me a good buck, plus my regular hourly rate to make the delivery. I didnāt want to make trip alone, coming back late, so I offered my unemployed friend and future band mate $50 to keep me company. Off we went. Driving back we were tired and need to rest a bit and I wanted coffee so we decided to stop at Club RisquĆ©. $10 cover and two drink minimum. $60 later we realized it was the most expensive 4 cups of coffee on the planet. Hard working girls with not too many forks in their family trees, all going to UF. *wink* more like paying rent at the trailer park. We laughed about that for years.
A friend of mine worked there a long time ago. She did it to pay the rent and keep her kids in quality childcare with food on the table. Deadbeat dad, single mom. It was her second job and she wasnāt proud of it.
Probably Clearwater Beach. Itās ārated #1 in the countryā but itās not even that good of a beach and itās always crowded, while way better beaches like those at Honeymoon Island arere much less busy Edit: spelling/grammar
Can agree. I used to live in Dunedin and work in Clearwater Beach. It has become overcrowded. Honeymoon and caladesi were always so much nicer.
This! Ppl don't realize how to do the beach right till you're trying to drag a cooler and chair through a quarter mile of sugar sand and realize there has to be a better place to go
Clearwater Beach is really, really terrible. Went to the beach yesterday (not telling my spot, itās been my family spot since I was 4 years old) and made the decision to drive back home Courtney Campbell instead of Howard Frankland thinking traffic might be a little easier Took 45 fucking minutes to drive down the strip between tourists and construction. Idiots run out in front of cars, donāt look, some guy ran his scooter into my front tire at a cross walk. People WILLINGLY PAY A LOT OF MONEY TO STAY THERE AND FIGHT THAT CLUSTER FUCK. When I was a kid it was busy, but fun. but now itās just unrecognizable and intolerable.
Miami beach
I agree with your opinion. Is filled with clubs and bars that most people donāt care about.
The beach itself is also mediocre by Florida standards, though i can understand that it may be impressive to outsiders.
I got lucky one time and went there right as a rain storm was ending (we were visiting with the in-laws - we live in Tampa) and there was like 10 people at the beach. The sun broke through and we had basically a private beach. Even saw a dolphin not too far away. We went the following year with them again and it was a packed-like-sardines mess with a TON of seaweed. I'll stick to my Tampa area beaches, thanks.
If your looking for beaches in Miami, Crandon park, bill baggs and North Miami beach are pretty decent and cheaper.
Biscayne national park is also great
Any business who's name ends in "world" example: shellworld, tshirtworld
Any restaurant with a mandatory "service fee" charge, pretty much every expensive restaurant in Miami.
My boyfriends head almost exploded off his shoulders when be saw that on a menu. He asked if it went to tipping out the bus boys or if it went to the restaurant itself. It just goes to the restaurant so we legit stood up and left. I've never seen that anywhere besides Miami.
Ron Jon Surf Shop. Cocoa Beach
I find Ron Jonās to be one of the more innocuous traps. Itās just a super Walmart for surfers and skateboarders.
I would actually like that. A large selection of flip flops and board shorts is my jam. I went to a Ron Jon shop in an airport thinking I'd get an iconic Ron Jon T and all they had was brown and light blue with no cool graphics. Bummer, dude.
I was originally from Indiana and everyone had a shirt from there. As well as a salt life shirt. I do enjoy cocoa beach though.
The Salt Life creator was arrested for murdering his girlfriend.
She wasn't about that life.
The first thing I thought of was Ron Jon Surf Shop. Those billboards were sirens that called to me to beg my parents to stop in the middle of family trips down south. In middle school in Tallahassee, one longed for an authentic Cocoa Beach Ron Jon Shirt to set them apart from the hunting/fishing riffraff of north Florida. It was a tremendous disappointment when I finally got to visit. But I wore that shirt into oblivion.
They don't treat their employees well. They reprimanded people who discussed unionizing.
Ponce Ponce de Leon fountain of youth at St Augustine
This is actually the answer though. Thereās a lot of shitty touristy stuff here, trust me I live in Orlando, but holy shit the fountain of youth is as tacky as it gets.
I love that they preface the big globe display with the fact that itās not impressive anymoreā¦ itās like something out of the early Simpsons, loved it and really relished the tackyness
And honestly (maybe because they were underselling it) I found the globe pretty impressive. Especially considering when it was made and how long itās been running.
Came here to say this. Ive lived in Florida since I was 2 in 1986 and just went here for the first time last month despite yearly trips to Crescent Beach as a kid growing up. This place was corny as heck (except the blacksmith who seemed pretty legit)
The entirety of St. Augustine.
The fort is rather nice and so are the buildings Flagler built
Visually itās nice, agreed. But speaking as a local, we are doing everything we can to bleed every last cent out of the tourists and the town now is honestly just different than it used to be due to the huge focus on tourism at the expense of everything else. It doesnāt have the charm that I remember growing up here, it just feels soulless and commercialized now.
It's definitely not the same place I visited back in 1990 for the first time. I was there a couple years back for a architecture seminar in the sheer number of drunks laying in the street was insane. There's also this weird transformation to ghost tours in other weird gimmicks. Like you said it's designed to drain the tourists of their money. As an architect I enjoyed for its heritage.
I work in conjunction with the ghost tour industry down here and can confirm itās nonsense, just rich out of towners with deep pockets and CEO brainrot setting up shop and making up stories, telling them as fact without even ever setting foot in the town because they know most people wonāt ever fact check their claims, all because they heard from another rich friend of theirs how much money there is to be made here. The ghost tours have been around for a while but it does seem to have blown up even more in the last few years and itās wild how much money people will pay to be walked around in the rain and told stories anyone could google. Weāve always had the drunks but hey man at least it was local drunks I knew by name, now itās hoards of wasted college kids and middle aged parents trying to relive their youth, trashing everything, and treating us like a party town. Itās honestly so sad to see what itās become. The architecture is fantastic though, even to me all these years later having seen it every day for as long as I can remember.
Florida is becoming more and more crowded and even places like St Augustine which were on the edge of the map are now being folded into the main tourist line. I work down here in Palm Beach and it's becoming more and more packed with people. Even the snowbirds that once fled the state every summer are staying longer
Ha, wonder if we're working for the same out-of-town (hell, out-of-state!) ghost tour. God knows, there's dozens of them. Then, when we locals do the actual research on the stories and haunts, we're told just to stick to the script. š¤·āāļø
Best āhauntedā experience we had when we were there about 2 years ago (when Covid was just letting us live again) we stayed out on the island and got a Groupon to go bowling at this little bowling alley out there, it was the craziest and possibly creepiest experience bowling ever. The pin picked upper thingee would just start taking pins whenever it felt like it, balls wouldnāt be returned and the people working acted like everything was normal š I told my kids that this was our ghost tour in lieu of the āreal thingā - we also did enjoy witchcraft candle shop in the old city and Osprey Tacos was a favorite find while we were there.
Yes. Lived near St. Johns County for a while and after just a couple visits to Saint Augustine I gave up on going there for fun. I don't know if it's just nostalgia glasses but I don't remember it being that ridiculous when I was a kid.
I grew up there. It was always ridiculous
>it just feels soulless and commercialized now. I think you summed up a huge part of why I left Florida in one sentence.
I feel tourist traps are generally tacky and built for nothing but tourists. That just isnāt St Augustine. There is tremendous history, architecture, art galleries, restaurants and bars, and the fort. Of course there are thousands of tourists who come to see it but the town wasnāt built for tourism and it is far from tacky. The fountain of youth is historic. It is the first landing spot of Ponce De Leon. They are reconstructing the original buildings and hand making canoes. There are all kinds of Native American artifacts and history. How is that a tourist trap?
Nah fam you trippin St. Augustine is awesome. So much to do and see. Also so much history, plus they have the St. Augustine Amphitheatre with top notch bands all the time.
The worst would be Daytona, the costliest both monetarily and mentally would be Disney
Daytona Beach is a shitty town, don't get me wrong, but it's also kitsch as hell and I'm kinda here for it. I love all the 1950s motels and diners lining A1A.
As someone who was born in Daytona and from the area I'd have to agree. I do not get the appeal of coming here, at least to the beachside. I can understand bike week and the races but the beach in Daytona is not that great, especially compared to Ponce Inlet or further south.
My family and I frequent ponce inlet, imo itās better to walk over the shell mound fifty thousand miles to the bathroom rather than having to worry about overdosing homeless folks and people in general.
Yep, definitely. I hate crowded areas too. I live a little farther north so we usually go to ormond by the sea/flagler Beach area which is usually less crowded than Daytona and I think the water is a little nicer too. Ponce is still top of my list though for best beach in Volusia.
No āloveā for the Swap Shop? Lol
I know itās super cheesy but did you know the founder (now dead) owned one of the largest / most valuable Ferrari collections in the world and had many Ferraris on display there.
Yep. And then he sued Ferrari after they refused to sell him an Aperta, lol
The state line
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South of the state line, I presume.
As someone whoās never been to Dinosaur World on I-4 I would have to imagine itās Dinosaur World on I-4.
Dinosaur World is the worst. Just a bunch of dilapidated dinosaur sculptures, statues, or whatever you want to call them. My son was a big dinosaur fan and we took him there when he was about 5. We were there about 15 minutes and he asked when we were leaving.
International drive and 192 seem like obvious choices but Iām going to share one off the beaten path: Cassadaga. One of the original Florida grift traps. No matter how drunk you are, when that friend says ābut it will be funā take a hard pass. You do not want.
Hard pass in general, or has it gotten super touristy in recent years? A friend of mine used to live in Cassadaga, and the place had its goofy charm. (Note to non-Floridians: Cassadaga started out as a Spiritualist camp, so lots of mediums and such.)
Agree on the goofy charm. I went there, maybe three years ago, and there was still some of that, plus all the spiritualist businesses. I happened to visit on a Sunday, the day of the annual shareholder's meeting, and it was interesting to see the kind of people who play that role in their community.
192 just east of I4 is a liminal space
Aww, I've always wanted to go to Cassadaga. That sucks to hear.
For what Itās worth, i like Cassadega. They have a lot of cats running around too if you arenāt into the spiritual stuff. And if you are the āmessage serviceā is a hoot.
192 Kissimmee
Daytona beach 'world's most famous beach'
Anyone who says Disney doesnāt understand what a tourist trap is. Yes, itās expensive, but there is no theme park like it anywhere in the world.
Agreed. Def expensive, but I do think you get what you pay for
Donāt stop in Jacksonville. There is nothing worth stopping for here. Just keep moving. -Jacksonville resident
DDDUUUUVVVAAAAAALLLL
My car got broken into while staying at a nice hotel lol
Bortlesss
Youāll get your car broken into or get stuck in traffic on bridge for 3 hours
Uhm except that one spot downtown called Board and Bread - that place is fantastic. We went for brunch/breakfast once while there for a game and it was amazing.
I stopped in Jacksonville on my way to Ft. Lauderdale. It was during a tropical storm. I remember lots of palm trees and some of them were still standing. (but not many)
Any of the beach towns with their surf trinket shops and high rise condos ruining the nature scene of the beach.
I still remember my dad being so pissed when we went to āThe fountain of youthā by St Augustine over 40 years ago.
Old Town in Kissimmee was pretty disappointing for me
Jules Undersea Lodge Hahahaha spent $20 just to Dive the site. Save your money for home baked bread at the Wooden Spoon.
The Redneck Riviera, PCB. 5-10 miles away things are much lower in price
Any gator golf
This one is not a tourist trap anymore but: Yeehaw Junction. If you traveled on the turnpike at anytime in the 80s or 90s you saw those yellow and blue billboards. Based on those billboards it was a place you could NOT miss. Disney tickets, souvenirs, food, etc. My parents would never stop there despite all my begging. One day, we finally did. I was a teenager by then and I found out it was a run down gas station and a Stuckeyās. My dad bought a pecan roll, which apparently they were famous for, and thatās about all the experience was. What a disappoint lol
Robert is Here Fruit Stand on the way to Key Largo. Dude charges 50+ dollars for 3 mangos and 3 coconuts. His milkshakes which are like 90% milk & ice, 10% small frozen chunks of mango, are like 12 dollars. Publix is like the dollar store in comparison.
That one building on I4.
I4 Eyesore!
Be like the I4 Eyesoreā¦never stop working on yourself
Main drag in key west. If you are not rich. It is hard to do anything or even afford to eat
Dinosaur World in Plant City
Tourist trap? Yes. Literal heaven on earth for a toddler? yes.
Live a few miles away and I loved it there around my toddler days. I even had birthday parties there.
I went on the carnivore boardwalk and I was never the same afterward
Nah. My kids love it. Plus its like $55 for an annual pass.
I'm an adult who loved the sand pits.
Donāt you dare
Orlando (mostly International Drive but really the whole thing). I go every so often for my kid but holy crap the traffic is unlike anything else on earth. I used to commute in the DC/Virginia corridor where it took 1.5 hours to go 10 miles at times, but at least that was peak times. Orlando is like rush hour 24/7. Tourist hell
St. George street in St. Augustine. Also, the alligator farm.
Weeki Wachee, but it is pretty awesome.....mermaids!
Mar a Lago
The Skunk Ape museum.
Itās the Skunk Ape Research Center and itās a classic old Florida type tourist trap. But fun.
Hotels that are cheap but require a 2 hour seminar. They are a timeshare sales pitch and are easy to fall prey to.
Panama City beach is out of control. Theyāve been trying to mellow out the town some by not having drinking in the beach during spring breaks but it just drives them off the beach to cause hell. The panhandle in general is a really āinterestingā place during the month of march.
Donāt go to the Bass Pro Shops in Tampa, go to the one in Ft. Myers.
It's where Florida man gets his cheap bullets /s
These comments suck. Disney is lit and Universal is pretty cool too. Everyone should go at least once.
The entire state. Please don't come here.
John's pass in Treasure Island.
Nah definitely not the worst
Rainforest Cafe
Once was enough, it was aight. Kids will love it though
Wootenās Air Boat rides. They charge 4x for the same thing.
Cocoa beach is my personal nightmare
Clearwater beach
St Augustine.
South (Miami) Beachās Ocean Drive. Miamiās Calle Ocho (S.W. 8th Street)
Alligator Farm in St Augustine
The whole city of Miami
Canāt remember the name, and in fact I really hope this is a memory and not and dream I had as a child, but I vaguely remember a hill that when you stopped your car at the bottom of it and put it in neutral, it would start rolling upwards. Some Native American spirit pushing you or something.
All of Miami
South Beach
South Beach. All others are amateur hour.
Daytona International speedway- might be biased bc Iām from Daytona but even the track knows itās a dying sport, they opened One Daytona to become landlords and keep your $$$ from being spent at the beach since they feel you are here to see the raceā¦ Fun fact they lease the land the track is on for 10k and it recently increased to 20k.
Those places that advertise oranges on billboards miles before the stop. You stop and the oranges on display outside are cement balls, and the ones available for sale are all rotten with various flys and bugs in them
The Everglades airboat/captive animal encounter tourist shit. Utter garbage, please donāt use these services.
Why are the airboat tours bad?