One of the many French cafes in Paris with fresh bread, stinky cheese and strong coffee. How in the hell is this place overrated?
Yesterday I read the results of the annual TripAdvisor survey, which asks questions to 1,300 travelers about European travel. It covers many topics like “Best Bargain City” and “Most Boring City.” Now while this is nothing more than just an opinion poll, it has many people in the travel industry puzzled, and in some cases fuming. Arthur Frommer, founder of the well known “Frommer’s Travel Guide”, is the most notable critic of this survey, which was released by the extremely popular and helpful travel website. Some of the results in question include:
- Best Bargain Cities: 1) Prague, 2) London, 3) Paris 4) Lisbon, and 5) Budapest
- Most Unfriendly Hosts: 1) Paris, 2) Moscow, 3) Rome, 4) London, and 5) Berlin
- Dirtiest Cities: 1) Athens and Rome (tied), 3)Paris, 4) Istanbul, and 5) Venice
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Geez Paris, sorry about that. Hey but look on the bright side, you guys won the most attractive locals category…even if those same pretty people will not give others the time of day. In any event, other outcomes of the survey included London with the worst food, Brussels the most boring, and Paris (not again!) the most overrated. What exactly were these people doing when visiting these countries?
London over the last couple of years has seen an excellent influx of top chefs from around the globe move into town. Long gone are the days of lame London pub grub. Brussels is boring? Really? I found Belgium’s city of beer and chocolate to be amazing and quite educational. Finally, how is one of the most romantic, architecturally beautiful and top culinary locales on the planet “over rated.”
This hatred of France has got to stop already among American travelers. Paris, France is an amazing city! Now while it might be a “tourist trap” in certain parts of town, so what! Most top cities have become tourists traps…we are all tourists at one time or another.
Arthur Frommer also blasted TripAdvisor when the survey stated that Prague was the “Best Bargain” in Europe. Sorry, maybe it was a great cheap European locale in the 70s and 80s. But over the last decade and a half, Czech Republic’s capital city has become very pricey. Some of their hotels can cost you as much as $400+ a night. Now while I love Prague, I mean it has been discussed a lot this week on this site, it is in no way a cheap city.
Want a bargain? Get on a train in Prague and take it six-to-eight hours east to Krakow, Poland. Their exchange rate is great right now (As of this post, every $1 US will give you 3.30 Polish Zloty). On top of the money in your pocket, food and drinks are so cheap and there are tons of affordable and free attractions throughout the city.
I love TripAdvisor and will continue to use their site for hotel reviews, real hotel pictures (Which are 100 times better than the fake and perfect looking hotel site pics), and the forums. But I just thought that their survey was conducted on people that probably do not travel very often and are the same ones that give a hotel a 1 out of 5 rating because the front desk did not smile enough or the view was not up to par. That is where Frommer and many other people have a right to look at these results and say…huh?!
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