{"id":12835,"date":"2022-09-25T19:13:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-25T19:13:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/?p=12835"},"modified":"2025-05-18T12:59:36","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T12:59:36","slug":"travel-things-not-to-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/travel-things-not-to-do","title":{"rendered":"18 Things Not to Bother Doing Before You Die"},"content":{"rendered":"

Travel is a blast<\/strong>…
\nIt broadens the mind, teases your taste buds and sharpens your life skills.
\nExcept when it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

For every on-the-road memory to slip in the mind vault marked \u201cprecious\u201d, there\u2019s one to chuck in the \u201clet-down\u201d bin.
\nOr maybe two.
\nOr maybe that\u2019s just the view of a jaded travel writer.<\/p>\n

\"Places<\/p>\n

1)<\/span> \u201cDetoxing\u201d Retreats<\/span><\/h2>\n

The human body has a natural \u201cdetoxing\u201d facility.
\nIt\u2019s called the liver.<\/p>\n

Any spa treatment or retreat that promises to detox you is speaking gobbledegook while tweaking your guilty conscience with one hand and slipping the other into your back pocket.<\/p>\n

Retoxing opportunities, on the other hand, abound in travel, with countless quirky and exciting local mind-bending slants.<\/p>\n

Choose that instead.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00bb\u00bb Want to Get Paid while Exploring the World? \u00ab\u00ab<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2)<\/span> \u201cExperiencing\u201d a Sunset<\/span><\/h2>\n

The sunset, like sunrise, happens every day.
\nIt\u2019s pretty unremarkable.<\/p>\n

The letdown about seeing any of the \u201cworld\u2019s best\u201d sunsets at places such as Bagan, the ancient Myanmar city, Cambodia\u2019s Angkor Wat or the cliff-top town of Oia, in Santorini, is not all the other people\u2019s heads blocking your view of the golden orb.<\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s the inevitable failure of the sinking of the light to engender in you the expected feelings of the oneness of everything, romantic blossoming or assorted other epiphanies ripped from a cornflake packet.<\/p>\n

Instead your stomach might rumble.
\nHave an early dinner instead.<\/p>\n

3)<\/span> Climbing the Eiffel Tower<\/span><\/h2>\n

The main drawback of the Eiffel Tower \u2013 aesthetic and engineering marvel and icon of modernity that it is – is that you can\u2019t actually see the Eiffel Tower from it, which is the whole point of Paris.<\/p>\n

See also the Empire State Building, the Burj Khalifa and London\u2019s Shard.<\/p>\n

4)<\/span> Finding Yourself<\/span><\/h2>\n

You won\u2019t.
\nOr you won\u2019t find anything different.<\/p>\n

As Alain de Botton put it in \u201cThe Art of Travel\u201d, the problem with travelling is that you take yourself with you.<\/p>\n

5)<\/span> Kissing the Blarney Stone<\/span><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s a rock so it probably doesn\u2019t mind but tonguing this slab of bluestone built into the battlements of Blarney Castle, in Cork, Ireland, appears to be one of the greatest letdowns in the history of tourism.<\/p>\n

Its rating as the most disappointing attraction in Europe by USA Today is only one low in a welter of scathing, flabbergasted and simply hurt online reviews.<\/p>\n

Kissing the stone is supposed to lend you the gift of the gab \u2013 \u201dblarney\u201d meaning witty and beguiling talk – but you don\u2019t half have to pay for it.<\/p>\n

First there\u2019s the steep walk to the castle, then the long lines, and when it\u2019s your turn you risk a hernia bending backwards gripping on to an iron rail.<\/p>\n

And, as we\u2019ve pointed out, kissing the thing does absolutely bugger all.<\/p>\n

6)<\/span> Seeking Out the World\u2019s Biggest Anything<\/span><\/h2>\n

A simple piece of travel logic holds that the bigger an everyday object blown up and stuck by the side of the road to attract tourists, the more sadly inconsequential the responsible town, hamlet or other municipal entity proves to be.<\/p>\n

Australian small towns are particularly dedicated to enlarging ordinary things, including a banana and a carp but also, inevitably, a koala and atop a Northern Territory service station, a boxing crocodile.<\/p>\n

To put it another way, \u201cbig things\u201d have the unintended effect of advertising from afar somewhere to be avoided.<\/p>\n

7)<\/span> Gawping at the \u201cMona Lisa\u201d<\/span><\/h2>\n

Poor Mona, eyeballed more times than there are stars in the galaxy.<\/p>\n

Poor eyeballers — in their smartphone-flashing multitude — each ruining for everyone else the experience of seeing the world\u2019s most famous painting in the flesh.<\/p>\n

The Louvre doesn\u2019t help by encasing it in a kind of reinforced-glass coffin to guard against damage and theft.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the latter, ironically enough, that explains most of the \u201cMona Lisa\u2019s\u201d fame.<\/p>\n

When thieves lifted the picture from the Louvre in 1911, they created a media sensation, heavily spiced with stories of how the (in fact screamingly gay) Da Vinci was in love with his female sitter.<\/p>\n

Anyway, let\u2019s face it, what interests most people about this portrait of a 16th-century Florentine idle woman is how much it\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n

In which case, you might as well go and stare at a stack of gold bullion.<\/p>\n

8)<\/span> Camping<\/span><\/h2>\n

Camping: A form of cruelty passed down from generation to generation.<\/p>\n

The fact that tents only get more sophisticated, more multi-roomed and mod con-bedecked, proves how misguidedly minimalist the enterprise is in the first place.<\/p>\n

Cf. RVs: Voluntary homelessness.<\/p>\n

9)<\/span> Joining a Slum or Favela Tour<\/span><\/h2>\n

Organized tours of the slums of Mumbai or Nairobi, or favela tours in Rio \u2013 all of which exist \u2013 are supposed to be about bridging the gap between impoverished locals and tourists on a getaway that\u2019s a little bit different.<\/p>\n

Plus they\u2019re meant to aid slum dwellers financially, once the tour operators have taken their cut.<\/p>\n

Both of those premises may be true but surely slum tours will only lose their voyeuristic taint when busloads of slum kids are taken to gawp at folks in LA gated communities.<\/p>\n

Now, that would be a sight.<\/p>\n

\"Journo<\/a><\/p>\n

10)<\/span> Bungee Jumping<\/span><\/h2>\n

A kind of skydiving lite (but see \u201cskydiving\u201d, below), bungee jumping has lost whatever \u201ccrazy\u201d thrills it might once have afforded through sheer, monotonous repetition.<\/p>\n

Everyone\u2019s done it.<\/p>\n

Which is not to say it can\u2019t still be dangerous.<\/p>\n

A much watched YouTube video shows an Australian tourist\u2019s 111-meter jump from Victoria Falls Bridge over the crocodile-filled Zambezi River, on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia, on New Year\u2019s Eve 2011.<\/p>\n

Except it wasn\u2019t over but into, when her cord snapped and she failed amusingly to bounce back up again and again.<\/p>\n

She survived \u2013 but that doesn\u2019t make bungee jumping any more acceptable.<\/p>\n

11)<\/span> Skydiving<\/span><\/h2>\n

Like bungee jumping (snapping cords aside), there\u2019s something ersatz about the supposed daredevilry of this quasi-military pursuit, which is that its danger is predictable and contained and, not to mention, entirely unnecessary.<\/p>\n

The British humorist and professional naysayer Richard Wilson argues against the pastime that, \u201cI don\u2019t want to pay [hundreds of pounds] to have someone push me off a 10-foot wall so I can practice falling safely.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to feel my bowels turn to hot-and-sour soup in a rickety plane and then jump out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to smash into the ground at 124 miles an hour and have my leg bones driven up under my armpits.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd, assuming my chute does open, I don\u2019t want to float helplessly into the propeller blades of a plane and be turned into a human smoothie.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quite.<\/p>\n

12)<\/span> Sleeping in an Ice Hotel<\/span><\/h2>\n

Like something dreamt up by vindictive hoteliers to prevent guests complaining of draughts, ice hotels should induce a shudder long before you check in.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re also now so ubiquitous the only space left for one may soon be in the desert.<\/p>\n

Or Dubai. Actually, they\u2019ve got a ski resort, so it may not be long.<\/p>\n

13)<\/span> Spotting, or Swimming with, Dolphins<\/span><\/h2>\n

Yet another activity that might be included under the metastasizing category of \u201cnew age travel\u201d, encounters with our smiley finned friends seem often to disappoint.<\/p>\n

To put it another way, just because they appear to be smiling doesn\u2019t mean they are, and just because you want to see them, doesn\u2019t mean they want to see you.<\/p>\n

14)<\/span> Staying in a Prison Hotel<\/span><\/h2>\n

Because if you end up in prison you\u2019ll regret having done the extra time.<\/p>\n

Aside from that, you\u2019ll also recognize that prisons are places of suffering.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s supposed to be part of the ironic experience of staying in one of the prisons-turned-hotel that have sprung up everywhere from Oxford to Ottawa via (shades of \u201cMidnight Express\u201d) the Four Seasons Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Others would say it\u2019s in dubious taste.<\/p>\n

If you must stay in one, pick somewhere like Karostas Cietums Military Prison, in Latvia, where you sleep on an iron bunk, eat prison food and take abuse from the \u201cguards\u201d.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a special offer for children.<\/p>\n

15)<\/span> Studying Hydrology at the Beijing Tap Water Museum<\/span><\/h2>\n

Without wanting to pick unduly on the Tap Water Museum in the Beijing suburb of Dongcheng, it does seem to sum up peerlessly well a subject that may well be worthy of a museum but is sadly leagues away from being interesting enough to attract anyone through the doors other than the curator\u2019s aunt.<\/p>\n

Belgium\u2019s Carrot Museum, the British Lawnmower Museum and the Mustard Museum, in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin, admittedly provide quite stiff competition.<\/p>\n

16)<\/span> Touring a Red Light District<\/span><\/h2>\n

Ill-advised in Amsterdam, Bangkok, Paris or anywhere else, solo or on a guided tour, less for the risk of contracting an exotic venereal disease than for the general biliousness of observing the desperation of both those selling and buying.<\/p>\n

Plus you might end up turning a trick by accident when drunk.<\/p>\n

17)<\/span> Visiting Stonehenge<\/span><\/h2>\n

Britain does bathos well when it comes to its ancient sites, building a roaring motorway next to Stonehenge, for example.<\/p>\n

A costly visitor center for the 5,000-year-old stone circle has finally opened but it\u2019s around 1.5 miles from the site itself, and the stones remain roped off from ordinary mortals.<\/p>\n

The \u201cdruids\u201d who descend upon the monument in their hundreds every summer and winter solstice are merely the fruit loops on the cake of a site deprived of its magic.<\/p>\n

\"How<\/a><\/p>\n

18)<\/span> Ziplining<\/span><\/h2>\n

Possibly the zzzzzenith of pointless travel activities, ziplining combines absurdity and indignity with impressive force.<\/p>\n

You want to get from tree A to tree B?
\nWalk.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t climb up A, sling a rope across to B and then dangle between the two.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not how we evolved.<\/p>\n

And only children should wear harnesses.<\/p>\n

For that matter, avoid making a bucket list!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Travel is a blast… It broadens the mind, teases your taste buds and sharpens your life skills. Except when it doesn\u2019t. For every on-the-road memory to slip in the mind vault marked \u201cprecious\u201d, there\u2019s one to chuck in the \u201clet-down\u201d bin. Or maybe two. Or maybe that\u2019s just the view of a jaded travel writer. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[9705],"class_list":["post-12835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","","category-travel","tag-traveling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12835"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14146,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12835\/revisions\/14146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.online-ebook-download.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}