21.
I lived in Berlin for a decade and while it’s not as bad as some other cities, it has its tourists traps.
The biggest one I can come up with is Checkpoint Charlie: the museum is mediocre, the “actors” you can take photos with are incredible expensive and the fake Soviet merch you can find cheaper anywhere else.
Speaking of which: Berlin has a lot of flea markets not all of which are good or cheap. Especially the one at Mauerpark is mostly an expensive tourist trap.
I also really really dislike the area around Friedrichsstraße. I worked around there for a while and while they have good restaurants/bars/cafes around there, most of it is generic and overpriced. I’m especially mad that they replaced one of my favourite Currywurst stalls with some “Bio Currywurst” place that is not only way more expensive, but also the tastes much worse.
Similar and not too far away: Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Centre. Almost all bars and restaurants around there are tourist traps. You go there for the view, but that’s about it.
Berlin, like many other capitals, has loooots of museums. Unfortunately, there are some that are not as great. I found both the Espionage Museum as well as the DDR museum to be well made, but pretty small – and as said before, I wouldn’t recommend the Mauermuseum at Checkpoint Charlie (there are better museums about the same topic). I’d suggest getting the “Museum Pass Berlin” which is a shared ticket for most big museums in the city center. I can recommend all of the included ones.
Not Berlin, but right next to it in Potsdam: Castle Sanssouci. While te castle is neat, it is also really small and doesn’t have that much to show, but it’s expensive nontheless. You can walk around in its famous gardens without paying anything. If you want to visit a castle around there, take the Neues Palais (new palace) which has amazing interior design and a lot of famous art in it. If you want to visit a castle, but stay in Berlin, go to Castle Charlottenburg.
22.
In Greece, any street with lots of “UK Pubs” and things like that, I never understood why anyone would come to Greece just to go to a traditional style UK Pub, but many do that.
Besides that, Greece is an open place to explore, tons of hidden gems
23.
The Champs Elysées avenue in Paris. It’s an impressively big street, but all there is there are overpriced shops, crowded sidewalks and pickpockets.
The only reason to stroll down that street is for the 14th of July military parade if you’re into that sort of thing, and the only reason to go near it is to see the Arc de Triomphe.
24.
In Copenhagen I would say Nyhavn. Not so much going to the area, that I always recommend, but eating there. It’s expensive and you can easily find better not that far away. That being said, you of course pay for the privilege of eating at Nyhavn mostly, so if you are willing to do that, fair enough.
Also, the Little Mermaid is basically a joke among Danes by now. Every tourist has to see it, and every tourist will be disappointed.
In my hometown Randers, we only really have two tourist places. An indoor rainforest, which is totally worth the money. And an Elvis museum which is build to look like his home in Memphis, which is expensive and not worth the money.
25.
In Amsterdam, stay away from the ‘smartshops.’ They sell products that they claim contain THC, but the truth is smartshops do not sell weed. If you’re not buying that THC from a coffeeshop, it’s probably a scam.
26.
For Iceland it’s the blue lagoon, it way too expensive 40-60€ (sure you can spend the whole day there) but everything is expensive there like food and massage! You can have avocado toast for 20€ (I’m not kidding).
Also to avoid are the Puffin Shops in downtown Reykjavik and other tourist locations, e.g. Geysir. Everything is waaaaaay overpriced. You could get everything they are selling in these stores a lot cheaper at the Fleamarket (Kolaportið) in Reykjavík.
27.
Probably taxi drivers in Bucharest, it’s like they are born to scam you. Instead of 7 euros, they will ask you for 20 euros from the airport if you’re foreign.
Other than that, the Bran (Dracula) Castle is kinda overrated, it’s just a normal castle somewhere near the mountains. At least that’s how I remember it 5 years ago.
28.
In istanbul, at touristy areas some “friendly” people will talk to you like a normal person. Than they will offer you to go a pub to drink.. do not ever go to that pub. They will be expensive af. Like 100 euros for a beer. Your new friend is working with them.
Do not look or answer to guy on the streets who are welcoming to you somewhere. Like it could be tshirt place or a pub.
Spend 1 hour in taksim and never comeback. Taksim sucks. Literally tourist trap. 60% of the people you see will be syrians that fleed from the war, 10% scammers, 25% tourists, 5% locals.
29.
Hallstatt. If you‘ve seen photos of it online (from the same two angles) then you‘ve seen the town. It is pretty, but it is over run by tourists and cheap tourist shops. There are so many more „authentic“ villages by lakes in that region, you don’t need to go to Hallstatt to get the vibe.
30.
Literally ALL of Monastiraki Market, it’s filled with tacky tourist shops with overpriced poor quality tourist cr*p about the Acropolis and the ancient greek world and poorly pressed T-Shirts with cringy Greek stereotypical one liners which are probably gonna fade after a few times in the washing machine, not to mention the huge amount of pick pockets in the square and the narrow roads.
When visiting Athens, do yourselves a favour and after visiting the Acropolis dont bother with the tourist shops of Monastiraki, if really you want to buy some souvenirs, just enter one they are all exactly the same anyways, then go eat in one of the tavernas in Monastiraki or something, (except Bairaktaris, somehow this is an unpopular opinion with some Greeks, but their food is cr*p, and their restaurant is filthy, dont @ me), and then leave.
