These ATMs are plenty useful for contributing to the local money laundering industry. More signals are unlisted prices, fading storefronts, fluorescent lights. Read more about what’s happening in London https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/oxford-street-candy-sho...
It’s not about scamming tourists at its core, it’s about avoiding electronic banking networks and pulling cash back into the system.
A lot of the London candy store thing is about not paying the very expensive business rates to the council. They are all owned by foreign controlled companies which just go bust come enforcement time.
Briefly put, it’s not just the ATMs but the shops who launder. No prices makes it easy to lie about intake cash (revenue) which is part real revenue and part dirty cash. Then cook books for costs to extract clean cash.
As far as I can tell, this is more common in the US – I'd be quite surprised if Euronet depended on business owners to restock their machines rather than having their own couriers doing that.
But in either case, I don't see how a merchant could hide anything using an ATM: Dispensing $100 of cash via a self-operated ATM has exactly the same effect on their bank account as depositing $100 of cash directly at their bank, no?
A bit elitist? "Ugly mass tourism places" are there because weather is good, location is convenient, one of a kind landmarks, it's easy to get food and supplies for the whole family and so on. Yes, it's going to be expensive and not super authentic. But not everyone can take a month off to live like a local. If I only have one day cruise ship stop in Mallorca and I have to pay 60 euro fee to get cash, it's still preferable to missing out on a nice dinner or something to take home to remember the trip.
The subtext here is that some people hate it when the poor can enjoy things. I know it sounds like a joke and that it's hard to believe, but that's what's happening.
Huh? It's the less wealthy in particular who benefit the most from choosing paths less traveled, finding places to eat where the food doesn't carry a 2x or 3x tourist markup and the ATMs are not rigged to scam you. Often these paths are literally a quarter hour away from the worst tourist traps.
I have wondered is there actually anything wrong with mass tourism? Wouldn't properly build for tourism destinations actually be overall better option? As long as they do not become over relied on. At least if we must have tourism and do not ban it altogether...
Mass tourism would allow optimization for environment and not to destroy areas that people actually work and live in. See the AirBnB effect for example. And in general the drug use and noise caused by them...
The thing is if you have to take the plane to get there you're already a major net negative for the environment, and that would get rid of most mass tourism places
We should live like our grandparents, a few (if any) big trips in your lifetime, everything else: in your country or close neighboring ones.
If you really want to reduce your carbon emissions you can start smoking, that will cut years off your life expectancy and, as a consequence, your lifetime carbon emissions.
Lots of people choose to go to tourist traps for their own reasons. You don't have to like what they like. Like many, I even go back to some "terribly" touristy places because it is what I wish to do.
I also do off-the-beaten-path travel as well. But I usually can't blend in as though I were a local. I also have the freedoms and restrictions usual to tourists.
Examples: I enjoy touristy Queenstown in my own country. I like Bali. Not a fan of Bangkok.
On-topic: Backpacker accommodation and number of hotels signal tourist areas. To avoid tourists, don't stay in convenient accommodation!
But, by God, have you seen them? Fisherman’s Wharf. Niagara Falls. Pretty much anywhere near a Hard Rock Cafe.
Overpriced, awful food. T-shirts that say “I visited <location> and all I got was this lousy T-shirt”. A Ripley’s Believe It Or Not.
On the streets, evangelicals from Ohio who, when they discover you’re Australian, will ask you about some random preacher you’ve never heard of. Parents with miserable kids looking wistfully in the direction of whatever tourist attraction they’ve spent thousands to get to and are not experiencing because the the kids want to go to Ripley’s Believe it Or Not and eat chicken nuggets off the kids menu at the Hard Rock Cafe.
First, I will agree that Ripley’s is awful. I’m not sure how they stay in business. I went once to see what was there, and because I remember watching the show with Dean Cain as a kid. Never again.
That being said, all the kitch aside, popular places are popular for a reason. When I started to travel more, I started out as a travel snob, not even going to those areas of town. Then I got over myself, as I figured I was missing out on seeing some of the things that put the cities on the map in the first place.
Going to some of the more touristy spots doesn’t mean you can’t still venture off the beaten path, or have good stories/memories. I go to see the thing that made it a good spot for the tourist trap, not to buy novelty t-shirts and foam fingers. It’s not the whole trip, it’s an hour of one day.
I also don’t know how touristy it will be until I get there. I was told to check out the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo, but was warned about it being a tourist trap. Clearly I screwed up getting there, was I ended up wandering around the docks where guys were working, and ending up getting lunch at this tiny place with about 8 stools, where I had the best seafood I’ll probably eat in my life. I went in expecting a tourist trap and found the exact opposite.
I was on cruise... I think that is beyond tourist trap.
In February I got trip to Canary Islands, because that was rather cheap. Pure tourism, but it is a vacation.
I have been to cities like Florence and London and more. Both tourist traps in essence.
Now that I think I don't think I have really gone to non-tourist trap place. As you know there is no flights or transport to such location which make it hard to visit...
A few years ago I had an Uber driver from Mongolia. He was trying to talk me into visiting and was telling me about the hospitality. He told me there weren’t many hotels, but to just knock on someone’s door and they’d take me in, feed me, and give me a place to stay. If it were to work out, that sounds like it could be amazing, but coming from my US perspective, it seems like it has a high chance of not working out.
Although, I’ve watched a bunch of Yes Theory on YouTube and it seems like the places that don’t get a lot of tourists are really excited for people to show up, so who knows.
You seem to be suggesting that by creating purpose-built mass-tourism destinations, tourists wouldn't continue to congregate in real places, where people live, shop and work.
I live in the centre of an attractive, old university town. We have druggies and dossers; typically, they don't have local accents (druggies and dossers seem to have their own accent, so perhaps that doesn't mean they're non-local).
But the streets around here are increasingly impassable, because of people taking photos (of anything) and blocking pedestrians, and columns of foreign language students 100-strong. These people don't come here because it's "properly built" for tourists; they come here because it's old and pretty.
To be fair, most of the tourists are daytrippers; they don't stay here overnight, and they don't spend much. Maybe they're only here because it's on the tour company list, and maybe it's because they want a selfie in front of $MONUMENT for their instagram feed.
IMO they'd get more out of their visit if they'd actually look at $MONUMENT in real life.
Having lived in Palma I can confirm that this is indeed a decent way to avoid the two nightmare tourist areas (and not just a population density, as the central Palma area would be larger).
I like this idea for proxy maps. Do the same for London with American candy stores
But the candy stores are in some popular places that are otherwise interesting to visit. Same as Angus Steakhouses. The winning move is to look at the sights but bring a packed lunch.
I had a wonderful trip in Thailand last year by doing two things: 1. roadtripping: I rented a motorcycle and chose a (relatively touristy) destination, but enjoyed the trip to get there over several days, during which I designed my own itinerary and stopped to look at the countriside and visit small towns. 2. I designed the itinerary while avoiding Lonely Planet and the like. By now everybody uses that and goes to the same places. Instead, to my surprise, I found that Google Maps makes a great guide. You can click on any places around an area, and see how they look like, whether they have hotels and cafés, if that temple over there is worth a look, if the view along that road is nice. For ANY town.
Yeah, strangely google (and more local tools like Openrice or Tabelog) is much better for finding good spots. Locals are more discerning, but if you don't speak the local language it can get difficult. Travelocity is almost the opposite since ratings are almost directly proportional to the ability to interact with (English speaking) foreigners.
Hmmm yeah. Google Travel used to provide very useful n-days itinerary on a city level, where it plans out, and shows on a map, the most efficient way to visit a city.
That feature seems to have been nuked and I’m sad.
I was helping my sister plan a trip recently and she asked how I was finding all these places to check out. I told her I just randomly pan around Google Maps and click stuff. She thought I had some super secret travel sites.
The mention of the presence of a Spar supermarket in Europe being a marker for overtouristed areas seems oddly area specific. In most European countries which have them these are bog-standard supermarkets.
Maybe I'm wrong but that's probably only true in DACH and maybe a couple other1 surrounding places. Outside that sphere, the rule does seem to apply that Spar is a mass tourist smell.
In .D(e) SPAR is dead. What can be seen labeled as SPAR, or Spar-Express, 'to go', or whatever, is operated by Edeka and is indeed catering to so called 'captive audiences' in airports, railway-/subway-/metro stations, little kiosks on platforms, gas-/fuel stations, and some larger locations in some downtowns, whose independent owners couldn't be bothered to 'reflag/relabel'. With the exception of the latter, they all have one thing in common: huge prices for common crap.
Was going to say the same thing. There’s zero correlation between touristy spots and Spar in Ireland, unless East Wall has suddenly become a tourist hot spot without me hearing about it
I was in Mallorca this summer. And I have shopped from Spar across Europe in the past.
The various "Spar" in Mallorca are mom & pop mini markets with 20% higher prices than the Mercadona or Lidl. Walking outside such a "Spar" one you SEE that this is not you "central-europe-1000 sqm shop" but a rip-off with a Spar label on it.
I haven't paid attention on the ATMs though. I believe that with the prevalence of Conotoxia, Revolut, and the likes, and the fact that everywhere* in Mallorca you can pay with your phone/watch, it makes carrying cash unnecessary
*and I mean flea-market that sells crap that only tourists would buy, or bread/cheese/snacks/etc.
So they just are the certain size category shops. Usually small as the retail spaces are not supermarket sized. Thus they don't get benefits from scale and end up being expensive.
The reality is that there is no big retail spaces near tourist attractions. Or those are much valuable when split up. Thus you end up with smaller stores that do not benefit as much from scale.
If you do not like the prices, just travel enough to find equivalent of Walmart...
I don't think anyone is holding Ireland responsible for "Irish" pubs. It somehow just became a genre of bar on its own, and it's easy to do in a lazy caricatured way, suitable for someone whose chief aim in owning a bar is rooking tourists: shamrock-based logo, change the name to "O'Whoever's", and have Guinness on tap, good to go.
Then you have other places like my old hangout from 20 years ago, which had a few of the same visual signifiers of Irishness, but the owner being in fact an Irishman, he didn't feel the need to go overboard with that. Hope that place is still open and doing well.
Expensive hotels, airport, American or pizza restaurants, guidebook with >3 editions, supermarkets instead of traditional markets, construction right up to the waterline, a 'bar street', a dense cluster of backpacker hostels, open drug dealing, monopoly lockdown on connecting transport (flight/bus/boat company), tourist behavior making international news, existence of mass-market souvenirs, a 'tourist police' department, dance clubs, high end ice cream chain stores.
These types of maps just show where people/tourists are which render them not that useful. It needs to be proportionate and comparative. E.g. normalised against daytime population, number of shops, restaurants or hotels so you can compare which similar areas do have more ATMs compared to other less "ugly" areas.
Comparing them against published population maps wont work because 1) those show where locals live 2) not where people go for entertainment and 3) tourists and hotels are not counted as population. Now, it will work if the aim is to go to quiet places with only locals and not much points of interest - I've tried this as a tourist strategy and ended up in an area surrounded by residential tower blocks and one basic cafe and a shop underneath.
> In Europe, they usually have certain retail stores (e.g. Spar)
By this logic, every town in Austria, big or small, is an "ugly mass tourism place." It's one of the leading supermarket chains here, and better quality than most of its competitors. Obviously not so in the Netherlands, or the author wouldn't have thought that the brand can only signify cheap/ripoff. But I understand what it signifies in Mallorca in particular: not just a tourist town, but a tourist town with mostly German-speaking visitors. Drive to the next beach town, where English tourists go, and the fake Spar/Billa beachfront stores will be replaced by fake Tesco/Sainsburys stores. None of them have any affiliation with the actual brands from the tourists' home countries.
Google Street View? A few years ago I saw a social media shared pic of sunrise at Angkor Wat. It was beautiful, these splendid, isolated ruins, peaceful in the sunrise.
Being curious about the area, I found the exact spot in Street View. Sunrise even. But then turned around 180 degrees. To find an absolute wall of photographers all capturing the same scene. I can't find that scene now though.
But frequently these social media brags are very carefully chosen angles - why not, I do the same thing, minus the social media posting - and in Street View all you have to do is change view angle slightly to see the busy street, the commercial clutter etc.
but that place was voted "has been voted as the world’s best place to see a sunrise" hence the popularity. Angkor is actually a huge place (400+ acres) and it's quite possible to avoid the crowds especially if you have your own transport.
Everyone takes the same photo there. the temples with the reflection in still water. all the tour guides take you the same place for the sun rise.
angkor wat isnt some off the beaten path temple though. its like the only thing to do in siem reap, its gotta be cambodias biggest tourist attraction besides misery tourism in phnom penh.
Angkor Wat isn't the only temple around Siem Reap, though. I agree that standing around with hundreds of people waiting for the sun to come up, then all crowding inside at the same time isn't the best experience. But on that same day, other temples in the area (Pre Rup, Neak Pean and Banteay Srei) had at most one other small group there. And really they're almost as impressive in their own ways - Neak Pean is small but has a beautiful reflecting pool surrounding the central structure.
Same thing in Egypt too. Great pyramids are extremely crowded and you're constantly getting hassled by people selling crap. But at the less famous Dahshur area, or the less accessible Philae/Abu Simbel temples, nobody else was there and we could appreciate them in peace. For that it helped to go in the summer (low) season too.
I have this sad realization that the current generation is taking the backlash to this too far, and as as a result people don't want to go anywhere that's too "touristy" as a result.
I get it.
I want the solo unique ethereal earth-changing experiences too. But I can also point to two distinct comparison points.
I got to have a fairly tourist-free experience in Angkor Wat. I intentionally travelled to Southeast Asia during the lowest time of the year - monsoon season. And I wound up in Siem Riep anand then Angkor in the middle of a rainstorm. Nobody was around. Yet the rain was warm. The temples were equally majestic. I had an incredible time feeling like I was actually exploring ancient undiscovered ruins by myself. Then the rain ended, and oh my, all those reflections. It was incredible.
This was 2008. I don't know if this is possible today even in the "lowest" tourist season. But that's not the point, the point is that while I do cherish the memories of this day, I got to have an exactly opposite experience at Taj Mahal.
By which i mean it was the HEIGHT of tourist season. I was in India for a Wedding and had no choice. It was hot. It was miserable. There were people everywhere.
AND YET. The Taj Mahal was absolutely magnificent. A true wonder of humanity and our history. An absolutely incredible experience, and watching how the changing evening light danced off the marble and evolved the building was mindblowing. It didn't matter that there were seemingly 20,000 other people there with me.
The democratization of travel is a good thing. That more and more people are exposed to other cultures and worlds is a good thing. That it inevitably brings photographers, instagrammers, influencers, and all the commercial activities associated with it are sad, but also ultimately worth it.
I say this on a macro humanist scale. I'm sure the locals at cities that live in those "tourist traps" would greatly disagree and are desperate for change. But I'm not writing this to them.
I'm writing this to folks on the internet that i know are out there that go "Ugh, I wish I could go see Angkor Wat/Taj Mahal/Leaning Tower of Pisa/Empire State Building, but I don't want to deal with the tens of thousands of tourists all taking the exact same picture."
Forget all that. Go. Go where you want to go. Don't let the presence of anyone else affect your experience.
Totally agree, even have a similar anecdote. I managed to visit Angkor Wat in March 2020, when people were just starting to take COVID seriously and Chinese tourists couldn't travel anywhere. Quite a few times it was just me and my friends walking around with nobody else around.
My contrasting experience was when I visited the pyramids last summer. Still thousands of people despite it being +40 degrees. It was hot and crowded, but it was still amazing.
> but I don't want to deal with the tens of thousands of tourists all taking the exact same picture
Yeah, I probably took the same picture as everyone else. The way I see it, every picture is unique, even if some are very similar [0]. My picture is to remind me of the time I was there, I want the shit weather and my shitty camera captured as part of the moment.
Just because other people had the same experience as you, doesn't mean that your feelings and experiences aren't unique.
It took becoming a parent for me to TRULY realize that. There is nothing unique about becoming a parent. Yet it's the most unique experience I've had in my life so far. Those are not in contradiction. Or if they are, embracing the contradiction is the key to having a fulfilling existence.
I caught onto to this scam at an airport ATM in Poland 6-7 years ago. The hard sell definitely flagged it to me - it said something about how the ATM could guarantee their conversion rate but if I had my bank handle the exchange the ATM had no idea what I would get, could be much much worse. I googled the nominal exchange rate and decided I would take my chances with the bank, which was the correct decision.
What I thought was crazy is that back then, and now, with a few minutes' looking I couldn't find the rate the bank would give me.
Most banks just let visa/mastercard do the exchange and maybe tac on a % fee. So the bank doesn't list an exchange rate because they don't maintain one. So find out in advance if your bank adds a fee and then check Visa [1] or mastercard [2] when you actually need to work it out.
I do a lot of PayPal stuff and this isn't true. You only get charged their fee (closer to 2-3% for AUD-CNY and AUD-USD) when converting your balance from one currency to another.
If your card gets charged in a foreign currency, the bank takes a few but PayPal won't.
The same goes for simple enough web searches like "what are the most beautiful 10 beaches in [Mediterranean country/province]?".
Surprisingly enough there are other people who still know how to web-search, hence why those places are crowded even at the end of the holiday season. I became aware of that basic fact this past September, while visiting the Peloponnese.
If you do happen to end up in a tourist trap location and are looking for a good lunch restaurant, pick one where the local construction workers and police go to eat.
Does it actually work? My experience in Europe (well a few places at least) is that most blue collar workers don't eat lunch in a restaurant, it's way too expansive (and time consuming). They either pack it from home, go to the local grocery/convenience store or maybe hit a fast food place/cheap take away.
It might work better in cultures with a more developed eat-out culture like in Asia.
I mean, I used to work in SF, in North Beach¹. Fisherman's Wharf is the tourist trap, and it's like right there, and in the years I worked for, never ate there. (I've been there as a tourist though.)
For lunch we'd hike over the hill into little Italy, and there was a decent sandwich shop we'd get lunch at. (Freddy's) Before the hill there was a small asian couple who ran a small shop, they made a good mushroom stew. No idea if they're still in business, though, or what their place was called.
Neither were restaurants … you weren't going to be finding a seat at least inside. There's plenty of seating around SF though, if you know where to look.
¹although Google thinks NB is actually a bit W of where we were.
Wouldn't it make sense to use something like Google Maps, filter to the lowest one or two price categories, and go from there?
I'd figure Google Maps, being less explicitly targeted to tourists, would be likely to include reviews and pricing data relative to a local mentality, which might not be so willing to spend tourist prices.
It's easier, I suppose, if you're doing a walking/public transit oriented trip and are in a city-- if you don't like what you see when you close in, just go 50 metres further down the street.
I've travelled extensively in Europe, it being where I live, using all different strategies. I've never been ripped off. I've been to a hostel from someone we met at the train station in Prague. It was fine and good value. Also similar story at lake Balaton. It turns out protectively selling something is not synonymous with being a scam artist.
Yeah, I’ve also travelled extensively around Europe, west, central, and east, to some of the most touristy cities in the world, and never been ripped off. OK, my current hostel is charging €8.50 for a continental breakfast, so I just go elsewhere. I don’t think it’s a rip if you’re informed of
the price and choose to pay - that’s on you.
Unfortunately I have been ripped in SE Asia, and moreso in Central America, where prices were almost never displayed, and I was charged US prices for almost everything.
If it costs extra to work out a plan that doesn’t “rip you off,” and the easy path is full of “rip offs,” then maybe it is just paying a premium for convenience?
Even as a European I can confidently say that Euronet ATMs are complete, utter scam and they have a tendency to show up in most scammy tourist areas to prey on foreigners.
Even here across southern Europe they always start popping up in areas that usually have other seedy businesses preying on people. Lately they don't even show their brand and colors anymore... only showing foreign languaged "ATM" sign with no bank logo.
Same goes for Eastern Europe, and I have the same recommendation, avoid them like the plague.
Also (and maybe this only applies for Bucharest, but good to know regardless), avoid changing currency (USD to local RON, in Romania's case) just as you get off the airplane, the exchange rates inside the airport are rip-offs pure and simple. The currency exchange shops inside Bucharest proper are more than decent, though, no rip-offs there.
I tend to use an ATM inside the train station/airport and decline any DCC (dynamic currency conversion), that way I get my debit card's exchange rate, which I know is reasonable.
I made that map, and I'm not American. You can google "population density map Mallorca" and compare. I had the same assumption as you, so I googled it before publishing.
Not all tourists are Americans. I would expect the average person scammed by these ATMs is an European citizen from a different country.
I agree the map kinda sucks, because most of the island of Mallorca is a tourist trap at this point. But you can see how the interior's population centers, like Inca, Sa Pobla and Manacor, have none.
For a better example, as one of the replies to the tweet suggests, check using Google Maps around Barcelona. You can see sixteen of them crowded around Sagrada Familia, for example, and barely any in the mostly-residential neighbourhoods further north.
Most Europeans citizens use euros so they won't get 'scammed' by euronet ARMs, as the only 'scam' there is currency conversion (and fees if you use an 'out of network bank', so I think if you are at Boa it should be fine)
Yah, well. That's also true for the ATMs in Germany, operated by the 'Sparkasse' (usually big red S) or 'Volksbank/Raiffeisenbank' (usually orange/blue signage) when you want to withdraw cash as customer of the 'Cashgroup' (Deutsche-/Post-/Commerz-/Hypo-Vereinsbank). Hm, k, just 4EUR and 80cents. But still...
There are still quite a few countries in Europe that don't use the euro, so conversion is an issue there. And most Euronet ATMs have a high surcharge even when drawing euros from a euro account (this may differ per country and location).
HSBC refunds ATM fees, which is nice since they don’t have many ATMs in North America. Then I realized I can get by without using ATMs at all unless I’m traveling out of country.
In Australia and the UK there are no fees for withdrawing from a bank ATM (independent ATMs can still charge fees).
IMHO this is superior to the bank refunding you. It doesn’t cost the bank $2+ to allow you to access your own money from a different ATM, it’s just rent seeking.
I googled a little and found a Belorussian article [1] that says, that first it is an American company (despite the name), second, it targets tourists, and third, they use DCC (dynamic currency conversion), so that when you want to withdraw euros from account in euros, they do double conversion, e.g. euro -> USD -> euro with very unfavourable exchange rate.
they aren't even a scam if the American has a good bank
those ATMs give you a choice on how to do currency conversion and my bank will do withdrawals at spot rate! I check forex and futures charts and I get the same rate.
and other than that just a normal ATM fee the same as I would encounter in the states. some banks reimburse those too.
Most Europeans are used to zero or low ATM fees, at least when no conversion is needed. Our banks don't tend to do the fee and reimbursement dance that I've heard American banks do.
That said, I've noticed that when I withdraw a non-euro currency, my own bank fee has been creeping up and is approaching the conversion rate and fee offered by the ATMs, so maybe I need to change my policy about that in the future.
Euronet Worldwide is an American-headquartered worldwide provider of electronic payment services. It operates the largest independent ATM network in Europe and owns a total of almost 46,000 ATMs around the world.
Euronet’s high ATM fees and exchange rates have regularly been criticised, but the company has frequently defended itself, saying that such fees are necessary to cover ATM running costs and the convenience that these machines provide. However, considering that many of Euronet’s ATMs can be found in locations such as airports and supermarkets – where if you need cash fast, there’s little other choice – you could argue that Euronet has found an easy way to generate additional income.
and
Euronet ATMs charge high fees that can quickly catch you out. Here’s what you need to know:
Euronet ATM withdrawal fees vary from €1.95 to €4.99
dynamic currency conversions (DCCs) can stack up to 13% of the total amount, you'll find Euronet ATMs in tourist locations (e.g. airports, shopping centres, busy streets, etc.),
we recommend avoiding Euronet ATMs wherever possible.
Most Polish people have free ATM withdrawals from Euronet per their bank account agreement. In Poland it is probably the most popular ATM chain. Where there’s a lot of ATMs there’s a lot of people - not specifically tourists.
Non-Poles pay through their nose at the same ATMs though. So I would think there's an incentive to place them at places with lots of tourists, which is where I find them; but then that's mostly where I have been in Poland.
If you visit them they'll become "ugly mass tourism places". Better to not identify them and stay at your area, unless absolutely necessary (i.e. not for tourism).
How do you stop the cycle of places in the long tail from becoming "go-to" destinations because they're in the long tail, having all the local flavour diluted from catering to the tourism, before being fully gentrified into identikit tourist traps, and being abandoned once they're "at the top" with their original local businesses gone, and trying to cater to the tourists who've all vanished? While those tourists are in search of the finding the next popularity-rising hotspot before the same thing happens to that?
If you pick from the long tail at random, you're unlikely to encounter many other tourists. The "go-to" destination problem really only happens if you outsource the long-tail mining to some centralized source (e.g. popular social media posts) that ends up sending many people to the same place.
Or just pick places which are an utter pain in the arse to get to - days of surface travel by 4x4, foot, boat, ski, or canoe. Makes for far more interesting stories, too. I ended up living in one of said “I’ve heard of it but I’ve never been” places. It’s lovely. Pain in the ass to get anywhere, but if I don’t want to see people, I don’t, and those that I do see I usually chat with over a pitchfork, and walk away with a gifted sack of produce.
Not necessarily. There is a Hard Rock Cafe right next to the main train station and major mall in Warsaw, and I wouldn't call that mall touristic. It's just a nice mall, as far as malls go.
There’s a Hard Rock cafe in Wrocław charging 2x the price of every other restaurant. From memory 70PLN for a burger. And yet it’s always full. I genuinely don’t understand.
Seattle had a Hard Rock Cafe for a couple of decades. I never saw anyone go there before, seems like most of the tourists just stand in line waiting to visit the first Starbucks.
The Hard Rock Cafe in Saigon, before it closed down, was actually kind of fun (where else would you hear a live Rock coverband in Vietnam?) and the food was decent.
Maybe? I was never in Saigon when the Hard Rock Cafe was around. That said, D3 has an amazing arts and culture scene. Lots of hip cafes, art shows, and popups. Plus, because of the large Viet Kieu community back in California, a lot of cultural interchange occurs between the two.
D3 is the locals "wealthy" area going back to post war days. Many homes there were gifted by the government as a reward. It is indeed a really nice part of town. My partners family lives on Tu Xuong street.
D7 is for the wealthy Koreans who come over and manage the factories. There isn’t really much else there, but the mall and a bunch of wannabe stuff.
D2 is for the wealthier western expats to ride around without helmets.
D1 is just… well… downtown.
I spent a lot of time exploring literally all of Saigon (and a lot of the rest of the country as well). More so than most locals really. There isn’t a corner in Saigon that I haven’t been to many times.
It’s not about scamming tourists at its core, it’s about avoiding electronic banking networks and pulling cash back into the system.
Disclaimer: Amsterdammer…