Definitions of a Tourist Trap updated: 2006-03-15 ----------------------- Guarantee of a tourist trap has ANY single one of these items: 1. Turn a Coin into a souvenir = run away NOW 2. Thomas Kincade art gallery <--- double run away 9000 --------------------OR----------------- If it has any 2 or more of these items = Tourist Trap: 1. fudge /and or taffy 2. items of whimsy - "a throw for a sofa", magnets, thimbles, plates, spoons, shot glasses, keychains 3. t-shirts with stupid stuff on them "you don't know me, i'm with the witness protection service" 4. Carticatures/get a foto booth foto taken 5. Flavored popcorn 6. reality rides 7. any amusement park, except kennywood i hear is decent 8. parking is an issue (ok, i just made that up) 9. lots of chain restaurants (you can tell if it is a chain if the menu is nice, and /or they have a nice sign outside. A "one off" restaurant cannot usually afford a really nice sign and they are not invited to partake in tourist traps. 10. street performers that have licenses to perform 11. featured in a hotel guide book as a family or fun place to go, vs. alternative... Think of the difference between ADAMS Morgan and Georgetown as an example of how places differ in the same city /nearby areas. 12. Has a theme restaurant from someone famous, like Bill Murray, Don Shula, etc...(sorry kevin grevey, who will beat my ass next time i see him) 13. any place that is advertised in an airline magazine or hotel handout 14. Any place that claims to be "the worlds largest ______" 15. Your name on a grain of rice. <-- who the hell wants monogrammed rice? --------Other warnings: via ed & suzy-------------------- * When approaching the location you see more than 5 billboards within 10 miles. Such as South of the Boarder * Featured in an airline magazine * Has restaurants that have never been rated by Zagatt and claim to be good. * Has its own currency * Considers golf carts, pedal powered boats, tour mobiles and identically colored bicycles built for 4 a form of transportation * Employees are wearing theme uniforms. * Eating establishments all serve SYSCO food with identical ingredients but with different theme names. -Any place where a structure exists for the sole purpose of going up high (Space Needle, sombrero at South of the Border, giant dinosaur) -Any place that advertises itself with bumper stickers ("Where the heck is Wall Drug?") -Any place where stores sell only one type of clothing ($4.99 t-shirts, socks, ties, etc.) -----------KNOWN TOURIST TRAPS/ recent bad experiences----------------- 1. Venice beach 2. Pier 39? in San fran 3. West End in Dallas <--- fudge, photos, stupid shirts, sunglasses, etc... but i couldn't find a coin thingy 4. Navy pier in chicago popcorn, reality rides, general schlock of junk 5. most of florida 6. broadway on the beach in myrtle beach/ the duplicate trap like 10 miles north called "barefoot landing" is the same stupid thing 7. Modern art museum in salzburg, at, had a coin euro - changer thingy, first time i saw one internationally, plus mozart stuff out the ying-yang 8. Las Vegas. The whole city. Took me an hour to find a non-chain italian restaurant no where near the strip of tourism 9. Wall, SD 10. Mitchell, SD (home of the Corn Palace) 11. Seaside, OR (where the taffy is abundant) ---------------Close or Almost tourist traps or now too late ------------ 1. Gaslight district in San Diego 2. Scottsdale, az 3. South Beach, Florida 4. Most of San Fran 5. North End, Boston 6. Little Italy, both Baltimore and NYC 7. Shocko Slip/Shocko Bottom Richmond 8. rome has a lot of schlock 9. amsterdam is good if you seek out non-traps 10. paris seems fairly decent still 11. madrid ok 12. most of buenos aires.ar, almost all of montevideo.uy, most of santiago.cl all safe 13. all of capetown EXCEPT the v & a waterfront, almost all of the rest of the huge country .za 14. most of chicago except water tower area/navy pier 15. stockholm except parts of gamla stan 16. most of portland, oregon is safe 17. some of seattle is safe still 18. seek and look hard and LA has some good parts...like downtown culver city, etc... ---------------Safe to travel to as of last visit----------------------- 1. Tucson, most of it 2. Palm Springs - watch out for some thursday night schlockage 3. Charleston, Sc - probably some crap there 4. copenhagen - amazingly light on trappage 5. st. augustine fl, a bit, but not bad, worth another look 6. napa valley ok, but sonoma better in n. california -------WHAT TO DO IF YOU FIND YOURSELF IN A TOURIST TRAP-------------- 1. first off, exit immediately from the area, and cover your children's eyes to protect them from tourist traps 2. warn your friends about it. 3. email me with an update of what you saw 4. seek professional help to over come the schlock-a-thon 5. trace your steps to how you wound up there and do not follow that pattern again 6. don't buy an item of whimsey/keepsake, mug/sunglasses, keychain, fridge magnet, etc... no matter what /how whimsical it is and how cute it would look on your ______ ------------------------------------------SOLUTIONS---------------- 1. stay at home and never go anywhere 2. since #1 is not very good, just ask a hotel where the locals go AND if there/it is a chain restaurant. If they say "we all love olive garden/chili's / on the border" etc... then wack the hotel concerirge with your umbrella. 3. find a city paper, not the regular paper and peruse through that puppy 4. avoid anything that is called "* Centre/Center", "at the beach" "Square" "End" etc... 5. -------------------------------------------------------------- Send your submissions to peter at retep dot com retep = peter backwards, sillies... peter