8 vacation spots that are completely overrated and not worth the money or hype

You see all these perfect photos on Instagram. Everyone tells you it's a must-see. Travel bloggers rave about it. So you save up, book the flights, and show up expecting magic.

Then reality hits.

It's crowded. It's expensive. It's exactly like the photos because everyone takes the exact same photo from the exact same spot. And you're left wondering why you spent thousands of dollars to be surrounded by other tourists doing the same thing.

I'm not saying these places are terrible. Some of them are legitimately beautiful. But are they worth the hype? Worth the money? Worth choosing over dozens of other incredible places?

Not really.

So here are eight vacation spots that are completely overrated, and why you might want to think twice before booking that ticket.

1) Santorini, Greece

I know, I know. Those white buildings with blue domes against the sunset are stunning.

But here's what the Instagram photos don't show you.

Santorini is absolutely packed with tourists. The famous sunset spots in Oia? You'll be shoulder-to-shoulder with hundreds of other people, all trying to get that same iconic shot.

The prices are insane. A mediocre meal will cost you twice what you'd pay on the mainland. Hotels are wildly expensive, especially anything with a view.

And the island itself is small. Really small. You can see everything in a day or two, but most people book a week because they've been told it's unmissable.

Greece has dozens of beautiful islands that offer the same stunning views, better food, and actual Greek culture without the tourist circus. Naxos, Paros, Milos. All incredible, all way less crowded, all significantly cheaper.

Santorini is beautiful, but it's become a victim of its own popularity. You're not experiencing Greece there. You're experiencing a tourist trap that happens to be in Greece.

2) Times Square, New York City

If you're planning a trip to New York and Times Square is high on your list, I'm going to save you some time and disappointment.

Don't.

Times Square is just bright lights, crowds, and overpriced everything. It's a corporate advertisement district where actual New Yorkers actively avoid going.

The restaurants are chain restaurants you can find anywhere. The stores are stores you can find anywhere. The only thing unique about it is how aggressively mediocre it manages to be despite all those lights.

You'll spend your time dodging costumed characters trying to charge you for photos and street performers blocking the sidewalk. It's overwhelming, but not in a good way.

New York City is incredible. But the best parts are the neighborhoods. Brooklyn. The West Village. The Lower East Side. Central Park. The museums. The actual food scene.

By all means, walk through Times Square once just to say you saw it. But don't plan your trip around it. You'll be disappointed.

3) Dubai, UAE

Dubai markets itself as this futuristic luxury destination. And sure, the buildings are impressive.

But impressive doesn't mean enjoyable.

Everything in Dubai feels artificial and soulless. It's a city built for showing off, not for actually experiencing anything meaningful.

The whole place is designed around malls and hotels. There's no real culture to explore, no history to discover, no authentic neighborhoods to wander through. Just expensive shopping and indoor ski slopes in the desert.

And it's expensive. Incredibly expensive. For what you pay to visit Dubai, you could have a much richer experience almost anywhere else.

Plus, it's hot. Like, unbearably hot for most of the year. You'll be running from one air-conditioned space to another.

The truth is, Dubai is impressive in photos but hollow in person. If you want luxury, there are places with actual character. If you want Middle Eastern culture, there are countries with thousands of years of it.

Dubai is neither. It's just expensive and shiny.

4) Hollywood Boulevard and the Walk of Fame

Here's a secret that locals know: Hollywood Boulevard is depressing.

The Walk of Fame is literally just names on a dirty sidewalk. That's it. And that sidewalk is filled with tourists taking photos while stepping over homeless people and dodging aggressive tour operators.

The area is run-down, grimy, and sad. The magic of Hollywood exists in studios and on screens, not on this particular street.

I get the appeal. You've seen it in movies your whole life. But trust me, seeing it in person will only disappoint you.

Los Angeles has so much more to offer. The beaches. The hiking trails. The actual cool neighborhoods like Silver Lake or Venice. The Getty Center. The food scene.

Hollywood Boulevard should be a fifteen-minute photo stop on your way to somewhere actually worth visiting. Not a destination in itself.

5) The Maldives

Okay, hear me out on this one.

The Maldives is objectively beautiful. Those overwater bungalows are real, and the water really is that blue.

But unless you're loaded, it's not worth it.

You're paying premium prices to be stuck on a tiny resort island with nothing to do except swim and lay on the beach. Every meal is expensive. Every drink is expensive. Every activity is expensive.

And you can't leave. You're literally trapped on your resort island unless you pay for an expensive boat transfer to another resort island.

There's no culture to experience because tourists aren't really allowed to experience Maldivian culture. There's no exploring because there's nowhere to explore.

For the amount of money people spend on a Maldives vacation, you could have multiple incredible beach vacations in places like Thailand, Indonesia, or the Philippines. Places with beautiful beaches, plus culture, plus food, plus things to actually do.

The Maldives is perfect if you specifically want to do absolutely nothing in an expensive resort. But if you want an actual vacation with experiences and variety, your money goes so much further elsewhere.

6) Pisa, Italy (specifically for the Leaning Tower)

People plan entire days around visiting Pisa. Some even base themselves there.

Don't do this.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa is exactly what it looks like in photos. It's a tower. It leans. You take the obligatory photo pretending to hold it up. And then you're done.

The entire experience takes about thirty minutes, including waiting in line.

The rest of Pisa is just a normal Italian city with way more tourists than it can handle. It's not particularly charming. It's not particularly interesting. It exists primarily to service people coming to see the tower.

Meanwhile, Florence is forty-five minutes away. Lucca is even closer. Both are absolutely stunning, full of actual things to see and do, and worth spending real time in.

If you're in Tuscany, stop in Pisa for an hour on your way to somewhere better. But don't make it a destination.

7) Niagara Falls (the tourist area)

The falls themselves are impressive. Nature did good work there.

But the area surrounding Niagara Falls is one of the tackiest tourist traps in North America.

It's all wax museums, haunted houses, chain restaurants, and casinos. Everything is designed to extract money from tourists who've come to see a natural wonder and end up in what feels like a depressing carnival.

The Canadian side is slightly better than the American side, but that's a low bar.

And here's the thing: you can see the falls in about an hour. Maybe two if you do the boat tour. Then what? You're stuck in this weird tourist area with nothing else worth doing.

The falls are genuinely impressive and worth seeing once. But don't build a vacation around them. See them, take your photos, and move on to Toronto or wine country or literally anywhere else in the region.

8) Mount Rushmore

I'm going to be honest. Mount Rushmore is weird.

It's four giant faces carved into a mountain in the middle of nowhere. You look at it. You think "yep, those are definitely giant faces." And then you realize there's nothing else to do.

The viewing area is a parking lot with a walkway. You can't get close to it. You can't hike to it. You just stand there and look at it from a distance.

People drive hours out of their way for this. They plan their route through South Dakota specifically to see it. And it takes fifteen minutes.

The Black Hills region has some genuinely cool things. Custer State Park is beautiful. Badlands National Park is stunning. But Mount Rushmore itself? It's a quirky roadside attraction that got way too famous.

If you're already in the area, sure, stop by. But don't make it the reason for your trip. You'll be disappointed by how underwhelming it is in person.

The pattern here

Looking at all these places, you'll notice they have something in common.

They're all victims of their own fame. They became so well-known that the tourist infrastructure overwhelmed whatever made them special in the first place.

The original appeal gets buried under crowds, inflated prices, and manufactured experiences designed to extract money from visitors.

And here's what really gets me: there are incredible places all over the world that offer similar or better experiences without the downsides.

Want beautiful Greek islands? Skip Santorini and go to the Cyclades nobody talks about.

Want pristine beaches? Southeast Asia has hundreds that rival the Maldives at a fraction of the cost.

Want to experience real cities? Skip the tourist traps and explore the neighborhoods where actual people live.

What to do instead

I'm not saying don't travel. I'm saying be smarter about where you go.

Research beyond the top ten lists. Look for the places that people who actually travel talk about, not the places that just photograph well.

Talk to locals. Ask them where they would go if they were tourists in their own country. Those recommendations are gold.

Consider what you actually want from a vacation. If it's relaxation, you don't need the Maldives. If it's culture, you don't need Dubai. If it's beautiful scenery, you don't need the most famous viewpoint.

And be willing to go off-script. Some of my best travel experiences happened in places I'd never heard of until someone mentioned them in passing.

The world is full of incredible places. Many of them are cheaper, less crowded, and more rewarding than the ones everyone tells you to visit.

You just have to be willing to look past the hype.

Final thoughts

Look, if you've already been to any of these places and loved them, that's great. I'm genuinely happy for you.

And if you have your heart set on visiting one of them, go ahead. Sometimes you need to see something for yourself to understand it.

But if you're planning a trip and trying to decide where to spend your time and money, I'm giving you permission to skip the famous spots.

You won't miss out. You'll actually have a better time.

Because the best vacations aren't about checking boxes or getting the perfect Instagram shot. They're about actual experiences, real discoveries, and coming home with stories that aren't identical to everyone else's.

And you don't need to visit the most famous places to have those experiences.

In fact, you're often better off avoiding them entirely.