Tourist Traps: How to Recognise and Avoid Them

The term tourist trap has a very negative connotation, although whether or not it’s deserved is a matter of opinion. Typically, a tourist trap is a landmark or feature in a town that is over-sold to bring in tourism.

Now, you might feel cheated if you were expecting more than you got, but if the town is so small that they need a tourist trap to keep their business alive, I can hardly say that I blame them.

That said, the term tourist trap can mean different things to different people. For example, the Meteor Crater in Flagstaff. To me, that’s a tourist trap. It’s a hole in the ground that we paid to see. Even the museum devoted to it acknowledged that there were bigger craters out there. To my Dad though, it was a marvel of nature and a wonder of science. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to visit again.

So how do you identify a tourist trap if everyone has a different version of what they could be?

The easiest way is to know yourself. It’s your vacation, and you shouldn’t conform it to what others think it should be. Don’t be wandering miserably around the Louvre if you’d rather be camping in the Australian outback.

“That’s nice and all, Lost,” you might say, “but how do I make sure I don’t fall into my own tourist traps?”

Great question traveler, with another easy solution, though one that does require considerable effort: Research.

Don’t know where to start? Type in the country, town, or region you want to visit into Wikipedia. Find out what that place is known for. Does it interest you? Great! Keep reading, make a list of places you want to see.

If you find yourself bored, move on. Keep searching until you find a place that calls to your soul, and that sparks your imagination. Don’t just settle for “Yeah I could go there…” Keep searching until you find yourself saying “Oooh! That looks amazing!”

I know there are people who revel in spur of the moment trips, but I am not one of them. I have limited time and resources, so every moment of research I put into a trip translates directly to moments of happiness during my vacation. As if that wasn’t enough incentive, research also turns into money saved. Why pay for something that doesn’t interest you, right?

Once you’ve found an attraction or activity that you think you’d like, do your research before planning and booking. Go the attraction’s web-page, to TripAdvisor, and head to google to read some reviews.

What I look for in particular are the ratio of stars and reviews. Having five stars is great but if there are only two reviews that’s hardly qualifying. Five stars with over two thousand reviews though, that says quite a bit more. I also go out of my way to read the bad reviews.

If there are one or two complaints about staff members, a few about bad weather, or even a couple about something not being up to a person’s expectations, that’s something that won’t bother me too much. If the complaints are over a year old it might not bother me at all.

What sends up red flags are multiple complaints about the same things, especially if they’re recent. This applies to all reviews: attractions, hotels, products, anything.

It’s really as easy as that. It can be a bit tedious, making sure that everything you want to see is up to your standard, but take it from me that the reward is well worth it.

Are there any instances where reading the reviews saved you a world of hurt before a trip? Let me know in the comments!