There’s something magical about standing before majestic snow-capped mountains, watching turquoise waves crash against a white-sand shore, or wandering through dense, green jungles that seem straight out of a movie. But hey, let’s be real, not every destination is a postcard-perfect paradise. Some places can turn out to be downright disappointing, uncomfortable, or even a little scary.
For instance, someone online asked, “What’s the worst place in the world you’ve ever visited?” and the responders did not hold back. From chaotic traffic and awful infrastructure to bad food, scams, and feeling unsafe, travelers shared their most unforgettable (and not in a good way) experiences. Keep scrolling to see which destinations made the list and maybe, just maybe, you’ll rethink adding them to your bucket list!
#1
Dachau.
We went on a tour when I was stationed there. Maybe 40 of us, mostly single twentysomething soldiers.
I don’t believe in an afterlife, or in the supernatural in general…but I could not deny feeling the awful psychic *weight* of the souls snuffed out in that place. Near a quarter million, as I recall. And Dachau was a work camp, not an extermination camp.
Within those fences, it was weirdly silent. There was no sound of birds, or bugs; not so much as a stir of breeze. I remember the term *unhallowed* occurring to me.
The 2+ hour bus ride back to base was also as silent as the grave. 40-odd young, single soldiers, and no jokes, no laughter, *barely* any conversation.
Every adult human on earth should visit one of those camps at least once. I’m glad I did, and I’ll never, ever go back.
Image source: punksmostlydead, Nicola Zhukov / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#2
A refugee camp. It changed how I see comfort forever.
Image source: Positive-Ad-3748, Salah Darwish / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#3
Mos Isley Space Port.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Image source: Kooky_Membership9497
#4
American here. Been to over 50 countries across 6 continents but for me it’s gotta be Mobile, Alabama. I could literally feel the hate in that city. Sorry to anyone from there. It just left a bad taste in my mouth.
Image source: yt_nom, WeaponizingArchitecture / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
#5
I do not think I will ever visit a worse place than Port au Prince. It is hard to describe a failed nation one step away from complete anarchy. By far the most dangerous city I’ve ever been to, there are no “good” parts of the city.
Image source: hockeynoticehockey, Yoni Rubin / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
#6
Got detoured once under Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham. I’d never seen such a grim place and I’d lived in Asia. Filthy dirty with about 4ft of rubbish piled up at the roadside. There was a small row of houses situated overlooking the underpass, right next to this garbage and horrendously busy road.
I couldn’t believe anyone could live there without being on max strength anti-depressants.
Image source: Rooatno8, Highways Agency / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
#7
A shanty town in the slums of Jamaica. It was the only time ever, I feared for my life.
Image source: EddieEssen88, Richard Lu / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#8
Varanasi, India. Don’t get me wrong, it was of course culturally interesting and all that but the poverty was pretty intense even relative to other parts of India. Also the dogs eating body parts out of the river and having human ashes raining down on you was… intense .
Image source: BomberRURP, Vyacheslav Argenberg / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
#9
Inside Makala Central Prison. The Main Prison in Kinshasa, Congo. Built for 1,500 People. Alledgedly over 10,000 people inside.
Image source: vpuq
#10
Southern Afghanistan. I know there was some prosperity around Kabul and a few other places pre-2021, but there was none of that where I was. Just severe, severe poverty. Little kids with flies in their eyes like you would see in National Geographic.
Image source: HankScorpioPR, Mohammad Husaini / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#11
I don’t know the name of the town, but it was a small rural town in Utah. Me and my family stopped there to get something to eat on our way to Capitol Reef National Park.
The City Hall building was about the size of a trailer, with a sign that literally has letters missing because they fell off. You could see the silhouette where the letters used to be. Went to a small burger place and, just like in a movie, everyone turned to look at us when we walked in. A tv behind the counter was playing episodes of Little House on the Praire. There were rifles on the walls, and posters that said stuff like “We don’t call the police.” with pictures of guns under the text. Needless to say, quite a few MAGA amd Blue Lives Matter merch too (the irony is not lost on me).
We’re from Puerto Rico and we usually speak Spanish, but I told my wife we should probably speak English while we’re there… Just in case. This was only a few months ago, so speaking Spanish could’ve probably gotten us in a bit of trouble. We still got plenty of dirty looks from some of the customers and one of the waitresses. We ate as fast as we could!
Edit: the town is called Sigurd, Utah. If you look it up on Google right now, you’ll get a photo of the town hall and you can see the “D” in Sigurd is nearly falling off. By the time we were there, it had fallen off completely.
Image source: ImInJeopardy
#12
I used to deliver Meals on Wheels in Indiantown, FL. I’m talking people living without electricity (wasn’t wired), no running water besides a few wells and literal dirt floors.
They only got better after the hurricanes came through in the early 2000s and destroyed most of the older buildings so FEMA was forced to put up “temporary trailers” that they never took back because the people had pretty much ruined them too much to be used elsewhere. They were still nicer than anything these people had ever owned.
Yet after all is said and done, I’ve never encountered anyone in that town that was as nasty as the general population of Louisville, KY. I once had a gun pulled on me for throwing trash in a public bin outside of a Walmart. And just so many random street fights.
So if you mean the place, Indiantown. If you mean the people, Louisville.
Image source: beccadahhhling
#13
In the 90s I visited a Masai village in Kenya. The centre of the village was a massive pile of cow dung with all the huts in the village around the outside. The theory was that all the flys would be drawn from the guts to the dung. It didn’t seem to work.
Outside the huts, the entire village was ringed with a wall of thorn bushes, which was excellent for keeping out predators. However, the thorns were home to thousands of huge shiny black hand sized bird eating spiders.
The people themselves seem to share their possessions, they seemed to have a grand total of the clothes on their back, some spears, some arrows, some bows, some metal rings that they put around their necks and wooden plugs for their ears and lips to make giant holes out of the piercings they had given themselves. I think about 100 people had about 8 goats and 5 cows.
They were so happy, so welcoming. They were scared of my camera because they thought it would steal their sprits. They let me play games with them and showed me inside their tiny homes that had literally nothing in them but a straw bed.
It was the worst place I have ever been to, because they showed me how weak I am. I could see what was really necessary to be happy and it’s not what our Western civilisation sells us. But I understood that it’s a way of life that’s inherent. It’s not something that can be adapted too easily.
So I went back to my hotel and watched the giraffes drinking at the water hole. I ate my dinner and went to bed.
In the morning there was a massive commotion in the hotel reception. The hotel manager had a disagreement with the Masai village. A few turned up in the night and stabbed him to death in his bed.
It’s a funny old world.
Image source: urbanmark
#14
Egypt. Never going back to that hellhole. What a nightmare that place was.
Image source: CapableLetterhead481, Omar Elsharawy / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#15
Cairo Egypt. It was so hot, crowded, chaotic, and full of scammers and children trying to constantly either sell me something or steal my stuff. So many buildings were literally crumbling and falling apart.
Like many places in that part of the world no one seemed to understand the concept of waiting in line, everyone just crowded around and tries to eventually push their way to the front.
I couldn’t get out of that city fast enough.
Image source: OzMedical80, Ahmed Al.Badawy / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
#16
Durant, Oklahoma. It was for a youth group retreat. The entire town seemed to have collectively drank from a mutant pool. .
Image source: Individual_Access969
#17
I dont know the name of the place but it was within a days ride from Bangalore India.
I was doing a tech transfer to the Indian subsidiary of the multinational I worked for. I had a car and a driver so at the weekend we took a trip with a couple of indian colleagues.
We went to some place that had a temple on top of a hill. Nearby was a place making big metal pots. We had a look inside and it was hellish. Lots of people bashing away at metal, working with flaming furnaces. After a few minutes i realised most of the workers were children.
We ascended a lot of steps to the temple. One of the indian colleagues was sweeping the ground so that he didnt accidentally step on an ant.
When we came down the other side we found a young boy begging. He was on something like a skateboard. His thighs ended in bloody stumps. I gave him some change I had and that’s when I noticed all his fingers ended in stumps. The money was snatched by a guy who was selling postcards anyway.
This was very upsetting, I had sons of about the same age. My indian colleague told me that the kid was likely mutilated deliberately.
I had to cut short my trip. I can remember the relief walking through the door of the British Airways plane.
Although I did have to work in Chennai years later I have no wish to visit India as a tourist.
Image source: swomismybitch
#18
A garbage dump in Haiti, where a heartbreakingly high number of people live.
Image source: Autobahn321
#19
Skid Row, LA. Was eye opening as I had never seen homelessness on this scale before. The contrast between the Hollywood area and Skid Row was pretty jarring.
I stayed with a friend in Graz, Austria for a while and we would walk through this park during the day as a shortcut. We made the mistake of using this shortcut after dark one day and I was honestly fearing for my life. There were so many men hanging around drinking, trying to talk to us and blasting music. As 2 young women it was terrifying. Imagine like a scare maze but in real life. People getting in your face and laughing and shouting.
Image source: PotatoPortal123, Nathan Dumlao / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#20
I visited a hospital in one of the African countries, and I was deeply disappointed by what I saw. The nurses were not kind or attentive to patient care. Patients with hemorrhage and severe injuries were left lying in the hospital corridors without proper medical attention. The hospital security staff were also very rude to patients and their families.
During my visit, I even witnessed a nurse arguing with a patient, breaking his phone and glasses. I was truly shocked, especially as a first-year medical student who has studied the subject of “Healthcare Communication.” What I saw was the complete opposite of everything I have learned about empathy, professionalism, and patient-centered care.
Image source: Existing-Poem-3745
#21
Charlie De Gaulle Airport. It is my idea of hell.
Image source: CurvyTornado
#22
Borneo. Don’t even. Leeches fall from trees and attach themselves to you, painlessly… But your shoes will be full of blood.. The power goes out when it rains. It rains all the time. Huge armored flying bugs the size of drones crash land around you. Durian is served everywhere. (Looks like multiple bags of yellowish mayonnaise. Smells like a corpse) Muslim country, so no alcohol. Indigenous people were headhunters, until recently.
I cant understand why they stopped.
Image source: prismbreakout
#23
A Walmart in Hawaii, on the big island.
Can’t quite remember where I was, but…there was something *WRONG* with that place. I was with a friend, we were going to do the usual split up and meet in the middle to make it quicker thing, but we ended up meeting back up shortly and doing it together. Neither of us said anything, I think we both silently agreed it felt weird in there lol.
Everything felt…stripped of colour somehow, the energy drained out of me through my feet with each step further, and I could feel…this uncomfortable prickling sensation. There was a strange ozone-ey type smell even in the food section. Some aisles felt like time was stopped or something, I don’t know how to explain it. Like they were out of sync with the ones next to them?
I kept seeing odd products and brands, sometimes things I recognized – but in the older version of their packaging, some things I know aren’t made anymore, etc. I attributed this to being from Canada and not knowing what brands/logos are different in the States vs here, as well as things we don’t have on the market but the USA still does.
The freakiest part though, was that I pushed my cart THROUGH SOMEONE. A woman, just kinda standing there suddenly in front of me. I didn’t have time to stop the cart, I was just walking and looking through the shelves, looked up and there she was. She looked normal though, no weirdness or faded colours. Didn’t react at all.
Now, idk, maybe I was jetlagged to hell and back and hungover, but I swear on everything I hold dear, that is exactly what happened. I’m Canadian, so I tried to say “omg I’m so sorry” before my brain caught up with the fact that I’d WALKED through a human being. I turned around and she was gone.
My friend was with me and swears up and down he saw her too, we both kinda looked at each other and went “ya know what…NOPE.” Ditched the cart, and just left the store immediately.
*(To the Walmart worker who had to restock that cart: If you’re reading this, I’m very sorry but um, the ghost or whatever was scary, that whole building has weird vibes and I ran away, my bad)*
Once we got out, we didn’t feel normal till we’d left the immediate area, and avoided the hell out of it for the rest of the trip. My friend is a native Hawaiian who lives in the mainland USA now, so it wasn’t just me vibing weird, that’s where he grew up and he was as ready to climb the walls as I was.
So for me, it’s that Walmart in Hawaii on the big island. Nope nope nope.
Image source: FourthLvlSpicyMeme, David Montero / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#24
Greyhound Bus Station in East St. Louis in the late 1980s.
Image source: Lisette4ver, Nyttend / Wikipedia (not the actual photo)
#25
Gallup, New Mexico. The only thing open after 6 is the Walmart, every window had bars on it, and I nearly ran over a guy passed out on the highway wearing all black.
Image source: Judge_Bredd3, Anderson Schmig / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
#26
Somalia. I was there in 1988 looking for oil. What a pit of corruption and decay. Everyone trying to rip you off at every turn.
Image source: bisonic123
#27
Agra, where the Taj Mahal is located. Holy hell that was a terrible place. Parts of Delhi were rough, but Agra was awful. Just filthy with trash.
Image source: ConstantinopleSpolia
#28
Fairfield County, CT. Just 1%ers, sterile social-climber Stepford vibes and boredom.
Image source: dumdum_bro
#29
Gorakhpur.. Had to spend a night around the station waiting for a train. Rats everywhere, groups of people would follow us everywhere without talking to us, and no place would serve us food. Felt stalked and unwelcome.
Image source: NielsB90
#30
Marseille France. It was disgusting, garbage and urine everywhere.
Image source: Level_Space9410
#31
Puerto Plata in the early 80’s. 3 girls going into “town” from the resort. We were advised by cab driver to go change out of our shorts for long pants. He stayed with us from store to store. Huge guy, coolest ever. Boys literally tried touching us and he swatted them off. It was very strange. I assume its better now. .
Image source: avenueroad_dk
#32
Memphis TN, 1986
My husband and I had pulled off the freeway to get gas and made a wrong turn. It was daylight. As we drove down the block, everyone, all on their porches, turned to look at us. Driving to the next block, everyone stood up and walked to the end of their porches, staring at us. At the third block, the biggest, meanest-looking guy we’d ever seen walked to the sidewalk with an expression on his face that said, “Half block further, and you’re mine.”
I told my husband to hang a U and get us the hell out of there!
I have lived in Venice Beach and driven with just my dog in the car in Fruitvale (granted he was a 200 lb mastiff and looked like a bear) and never feared for my life like I did driving those 2 1/2 blocks.
Image source: Jolly-Vanilla-443
#33
Close to home but the place I felt most unsafe was an estate in Dublin called Darndale – rampant crime, horses roaming free, people in bulletproof vests..
This was about 16 years ago so maybe it’s better now, but at the time I didn’t feel safe at all, and I’ve been to some pretty hostile places; the West Bank, Ukraine, certain Russian enclaves..
Image source: helenemayer
#34
Iraq was pretty sketchy. I was late to the game so it definitely wasn’t as bad as it was early on but waking up every morning thinking “well. Who knows” wasn’t great.
Image source: dumb-dumb87
#35
Worst in a western civilised country would have to be Tennant Creek NT Australia.
Got stuck there back in 2020 for a week with a broken down car. Weeks prior some local kids burned down the only grocery store so we had to shop at a makeshift grocery store end of town near the last fuel station.
45 degree heat that didn’t go down to low 20s till early morning.
The aboriginal kids are feral up there. The elders let them do anything l, rob anyone and view it as a “white man” problem. Would suggest not visiting the pub after dark in that town.
I did have to chase a bunch of youths from our caravan park and saved a French tourist from having his passport stolen.
Second worse is Alice Springs. Same issues but 100x worse now. We were there multiple times during our time in Australia. Don’t have anything of value out, don’t be out by yourself in the CBD area after dark etc. Tons of violence and other issues in that town.
Image source: The_Dutch_Canadian
#36
Jacksonville, Florida
I still don’t understand why there’s an NFL team there.
(I’ve been to Iraq and Afghanistan, during war time, and Jacksonville is worse).
Image source: lemystereduchipot
#37
Ann Arbor, Michigan. The area is s dump. Run-down old buildings. The bars are wooden shacks soaked with decades of spilled alcohol. And that Stadium is a giant pit in the ground only several feet from the first layer of hell. Seems like there’s only 4 gates to get 110,000 people through.
Second to that, probably Cairo, Egypt. .
Image source: Doingwrongright
#38
No haters please but New York is nasty/dirty. Just couldn’t handle crowds bumping you when walking and not saying excuse me or anything, as rats were running through sidewalks filled with trash. Ugh.
Image source: Existing_Bedroom_496
#39
Red light district at night, Monrovia, Liberia early 2000’s. Unfathomable.
Image source: Sgt_PuttBlug
#40
Wife and I were visiting a small town in Utah on vacation. I needed to get stitches for a cut and that urgent care was the shadiest place I ever experienced. I feared for my life.
Image source: Nervous_Scar_7444
#41
Not the worst places I’ve been to as I have not left my home country a lot, but Kudasi and Istanbul – both in Turkey. Kudasi, because every time you’re just staring into space, you have about 100 people coming over to you at once and trying to get you to go into their stores.
Something I should add: my mother and I are both extremely pale women, so it was clear we were tourists. We wanted to visit a Mosque in Istanbul the next day but didn’t have scarves to cover our hair with, so we brought them in Kudasi. My mother was charged €50 or €60 for both of them.
Istanbul because, as a white woman, I just wouldn’t feel safe there. I went on a bus tour when I was there, and there was this guy attempting to sell us perfume and we refused and kept insisting, and I just felt uncomfortable.
Image source: jesk_680
#42
San Francisco was certainly not what I imagined it would be like. Never seen entire side roads turned into shanty towns, homeless people all over the streets (with one guy throwing fecies at people and living in a little cardboard box, I dunno, home?) Vancouver has a wild area too, haven’t been to any third world countries but these areas were pretty rough as far as first world is concerned. .
Image source: Resident-Mortgage-85
#43
When I finished HS, my brother took me on a week long trip to NY city. We did not have smart phones then and used a book of maps. So we would get lost a lot on the trip and would have to ask for direction at local gas stations. Well one night we got lost and ended up driving through harlem and as we drove through, a street fight started. People came out to watch from all directions. We had to back up and turn around and get out of there as fast as we could. Then we stayed at a hotel and when I went to go pay, he asked how many hours. I did not understand and said the entire night.
Image source: matrix8369
#44
Selma, Alabama. I went 25 years ago and it seemed like it was going to end up as a cute tourist town with antique shops and river front dining. Went back five years ago and it looked like poverty stood up and said “Not so fast!”.
Image source: Crazy4mycats
#45
Bathroom at 30th St. station in Philly.
Image source: djprecio
#46
It’s a tie between the Caracas airport overnight due to a cancelled flight, and Schenectady NY for 18 months when I was 13. Both live in my head rent-free.
Image source: Bob_N_Frapples
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