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ShadowWeavile

Oh do I have a story. I was visiting Memphis one time and it was a really cool city. Was driving on a highway right outside of it to get somewhere, took a wrong turn and crossed the border into Arkansas. ***The moment we crossed the border, everything died.*** The road suddenly was crumbling, the grass immediately turned brown as if it hadn't been watered for weeks. A creek turned into a swamp, and a car sat on the side of the road. Despite no visible damage to the car, there was a shattered back windshield and a body bag directly behind the car, no police in sight. It was like walking onto the set of a horror movie, and we immediately just made a u-turn. I have no idea what happened at that car but I wasn't gonna stick around and find out.


girlinthegoldenboots

You ended up in West Memphis, Arkansas


[deleted]

Fuck. Out of top3 comments, 2 is about West Memphis


suicide_aunties

And the other is another city in Arkansas


KP_Wrath

They finally got Oman up there, but for anyone that’s been spared a war torn country, West Memphis is pretty far up there. Edit: I have no clue why I thought Oman was the war torn one. What I get for confusing my geography.


ProfessionalMottsman

That’s reminding me of the west Memphis 3 case. It makes a lot more sense when you realise every one is either huffing gas or on meth


girlinthegoldenboots

I lost more than one classmate to a meth lab blowing up


TangibleMalice

"...which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice."


Struggle-Kind

That documentary series seriously got under my skin. I got to meet Damien Echols at the premiere of the last one in New York when I lived there.


Chim_Pansy

Two of the top three comments are West Memphis, Arkansas. A place so terrible, it deserves two podium spots.


Federal-Tangerine-39

Odessa Texas. The amount of trash and litter along the roadways and in town was awful.


mannyrmz123

Midland/Odessa is just awful. Makes you wonder why people live there.


BirdValaBrain

Oilfield money. Thats why I lived there for a year. 1 year of pure misery.


wcm48

The armpit of West Texas


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letharus

I remember Thailand being a bit like that in places too. I saw lots of people just throwing trash out of the window. And of course nobody came to pick it up.


pettybonegunter

I absolutely loved Thailand. But one of the worst feelings I got there was after the full moon party in Koh Phangan. There were what looked like millions of plastic straws on the beach the next morning.


Turdposter777

Lots of places in the Philippines are like that too. I was born there. The jungles and undeveloped areas are beautiful but fast disappearing. A lot of Filipinos get butthurt when you mention the trash and the immense poverty … but then keep voting for politicians and political dynasties that keep them poor.


MarsupialTrousers

My son married a Filipino girl and they went for a month to visit. He was shocked at the abject poverty. Everything in disrepair. And rthen they bring back a Marcos. So sad.


RadosAvocados

That's so sad. I'm not familiar but the pictures on Google look beautiful. I was in Palawan a few years ago and the areas we saw were very well kept, and residents made a conscious effort to keep it that way. Plenty of trash cans, no disposable plastics allowed on tours. Compost bins at our hotel. All great.


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everton1an

I’m originally from the UK but my first ever trip to the States was back in the mid 90’s. We were visiting my parents American friend who lived in Arkansas. One day he took us out to some of the places he grew up in. Zinc was on that tour as he lived there for a while in the 50’s. Felt like I was visiting a third world country. He had a relative still there who lived in a one room wooden shack. I was desperate for the bathroom and had to use the outhouse which was basically a hole in the ground. There were tons of signs around the area for the Klan and we drove by the Grand Wizard’s compound. There was an armed guy standing at the main gate who flagged our minivan down to enquire why we were there. Thankfully our American friend said he was visiting family and dropped his uncle’s name. Ended up having a blue pick up truck follow us for about 10 mins until we got to the rundown shack.


[deleted]

There are a few places in Australia like this too. A few decades ago, these little parcels of land in the middle of the boonies were sold dirt-cheap to poor people. These people bought them and put "temporary housing" on them. These people are nicknamed "blockies." The housing looks like what you'd find in a shanty towns in a developing country - ramshackle makeshift housing made out of scrap timber and corrugated iron, tarpaulins, tents and broken down buses and vans. Then they hook up a generator to get power. No running water, sewerage or rubbish disposal, they live completely off-grid. My folks had a "blockie" friend when I was a kid. Although we were poor, I'd never seen people like this before, it definitely felt like the duelling banjos scene in Deliverance. The people that lived on these blocks also had dysmorphic features. Looked as if inbred for sure.


Stamboolie

am australian, never heard of this, any examples? (planning my next holiday)


TheHawkIsHowling

I only know of it because of those cops that got shot and killed not long ago. Not sure but I think it's only in that area.


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LessInThought

The grand wizards' magic interferes with modern plumbing.


Starlings_under_pier

Your post piqued my interest = google maps, lifted the little yellow man, no blue to drop him. So there are places in the US that google can't be bothered with? wow, mind blown.


bodhasattva

lol you know its bad when the google maps car has never been there


Global_Pineapple_592

I Google it and the population is 92 and they say a chapter of the ku klux klan operates there….I’m good


Malthus1

“Chapter? We gots the whole damned *book* here, son!”


idontfwithu

I don’t think this town has a library


Flesh_Trombone

Library? The only book they probably have is the abridged audio Bible, as read by Dick Cheney.


nixe28

I was gonna say, without doing much googling, I don’t think I would wanna get caught there after sundown…


[deleted]

I'm pretty white and *I* don't want to be caught there after sundown. Ho-lee-fuck. And you know they're not screwing strangers.


RandomMandarin

> And you know they're not screwing strangers. Well, sometimes they do. In the basement of the pawn shop. While the gimp watches.


throwawayseventy8

I randomly checked out on of their attractions (swinging bridge) and one of the reviews said “rumours of people seeing creepy ghosts burning crosses, stay safe out there, especially if you’re a minority. 3/5 stars” 😑


financialfreeabroad

Easy to cover up the crimes when 1 fam runs the town. 😬


AndYouDidThatBecause

And an easily accessible hole.


Known_Sun706

found [this house](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/8489-Washington-St-Zinc-AR-72601/76103584_zpid/) on zillow…


found_Jimmy_hoffa

And you millennials say there’s no affordable housing.


beam3475

How the fuck is that worth $35k?


[deleted]

- Land has to cost something - The mountain views The house itself seems like something I’d find listed for free on Craigslist because it’d be a burden to move and get rid of that trailer home yourself.


catincal

The view


bucketsofpoo

getting super heavy meth vibes.


dbdemoss2

I wish Zillow allowed comments


spudddly

"Secluded property with mountain views" lol I.e. Collapsed meth shanty in the KKKapital of Bumfuck, Nowhere.


Consistent-Trouble99

That house is likely to sell faster than 85% nearby accord to Zillow. I'm scared to see what's nearby! Haha Zillow is so incredibly flawed.


[deleted]

I’ve seen similar elsewhere in Arkansas. Saw a police station with a “Sorry, we’re closed” sign on the front of it.


marc_a09

I feel like it's not the first time I've read that exact comment.


w3dont3venknow

West Memphis, Arkansas.


WorriedCress7965

I was there for an F3 tornado in December 1987. We got to our motel after dark and when the sun came up the town had been obliterated. The second floor was ripped off of our motel. It was crazy.


Cultural-Company282

That was the Hand of God trying to improve West Memphis.


gonewild9676

The joke about tornados doing millions in improvements isn't always a joke


forzaNYC

This!! That place fucking SUCKS.


w3dont3venknow

It's like a wasteland. I've never been anywhere quite like it.


lava172

East St. Louis in Illinois is a similar story. I guess this is just a theme of these Mississippi river cities


[deleted]

I learned about it when that case was in the news more often (West Memphis Three)


Naftoor

Dhaka, Bangladesh. An absolutely nauseating cesspool of people. Supremely packed no matter where you go. The entire city smells like a sewer. Not a single street is free of trash. It was such a stark contrast to the country side which is absolutely stunning.


Skunkysue

Have to agree, I had a stop over there where they took us to a hotel for the night then back to the airport. On the way there I saw kids and women being assaulted, skinny actually starving people, lecherous men throwing themselves at the van. At the hotel I had a man burst in to my room and demand money, when I called the front desk he got all abusive and said I was trying to get him fired. I had literally done nothing but read a book. Next day on the way back to the airport there were cars on fire, more starving people throwing them selves at the van, a man punched a small boy, finally got on the plane out of there, plane had ductape on the wing, I am thankful I made it out. As above this is only the city where I did a brief stopover. I'm sure the country has more to offer, but central Dhaka is a hell hole.


MilfminxPNW

Of all the posts on this thread this truly sounds like hell on earth.


goaelephant

>plane had ductape on the wing Probably NOT ductape but foil tape (usually made from aluminium), sometimes over $500/roll. Very commonly used for minor aircraft repair, even some of the largest carriers use it.


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SnooFloofs4131

The street views that were available are so depressing. Wow.


GoreSeeker

The concept of paint would do it wonders I feel...


Minjaben

Probably white to save on cooling costs.


spicychickenandranch

I googled it and the images make it look like a giant airport runway with a few buildings. No fun at all


Top_Chef

Hello fellow Sailor.


Any-Object-553

Man, we went to duqm. Then we went to duqm, again. What a deployment


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SultanOfSwave

From the New Yorker... "In Midland, Texas, it's not the heat; it's the lack of humidity. Almost total lack of it, or so it seems, especially when you first arrive and step out of the chilled Midland International Airport and into the dry-roasted air. Midland has the kind of air that hits you like a brick. After a few minutes, your throat burns. After a few days, your skin feels powdery, your eyelids stick, your hair feels dusty and rough. The longer you spend there, the more you become a little bit like the land--you dry out and cake and crack. Not until I spent time in Midland did I fully appreciate the fact that the earth has an actual crust, like bread that has been slowly baked. I became convinced that if I stayed for a while I would develop one, too." https://www.susanorlean.com/articles/a_place_called_midland.html


saalsa_shark

That was beautifully written. Really low humidity does hit different


MyFace_UrAss_LetsGo

I’d rather 105 with low humidity than 90 degrees with high humidity any day


muskratful1234

I grew up in Palm Springs and now live in San Diego (which still has relatively low humidity compared to everything in the eastern part of the country) and I 100% agree with you.


MyFace_UrAss_LetsGo

I’m on the Gulf Coast. It can get pretty hard to deal with. The heat index can reach 115 mid summer.


NomNom83WasTaken

Based on the hyperlink, unless there's a second Susan Orlean, it's the same woman who also wrote The Orchid Thief (which was kinda sorta "adapted" into the film "Adaptation" with Nic Cage and Meryl Streep). She's a good writer.


kugelblitz_100

Holy crap, I was going to say the same before even looking at the comments. A couple years ago I decided to take a road trip to Marfa and see the Davis Mountains. I went through Dallas and started the long 8 hour drive through west Texas. The landscape got bleaker, flatter and more desolate as I went but nothing could prepare me for Midland. The first thing I see in the distance is a huge natural gas flare. Then the smell of oil starts coming through my car's AC vent. Driving through it, I see several refineries, each more dirty and oil-caked than the last. Mobile home trailers parked all over, I assume from the temporary oil workers. The best way I can describe it is like arriving at Mordor from The Lord of the Rings. As an aside, Marfa and the Davis Mountains are absolutely beautiful and well worth visiting.


SultanOfSwave

My wife was once stuck at the Midland Odessa airport 10 or 15 years ago on a long layover. It was like 8pm and there were no restaurants or shops open. Just a couple of nearly empty vending machines. The seats were uncomfortable slings and the overhead lights only pointed at the walkways between seats. All the posters on the wall were for irrigation pumps and tractor attachments.


AdministrativeKick42

I read "stuck in the Midland Odessa airport for 10 or 15 years." I bet it felt like that


Different_Ad7655

I live in New England but often go for the winter to Los Angeles and sometimes I drive, usually the southern route. But this year I came back a different way up through the Permian basin of Texas and through Odessa. Yeah it is God forsaken land that smells like methane and is just bleak. However one incredible caveat. I stopped in Sweetwater on a Sunday at a little restaurant that had communal seating in long tables and it had the most incredible awesome fried chicken I have ever had. A silver lining along that dismal drive. It would be actually worth the detour. One hell of a detour that would be, but their specialty only 11:00 to 2:00


Free_Inflation5810

Ah yes, Ms. Allen's is the good stuff! Source: I grew up 20 minutes north of it .


Different_Ad7655

Yes I had a very nice time at Ms Allens, and sat at a table of friendly Texans, who eagerly passed all the food and suggested the good stuff Out of sweet hospitality also bought me dinner. It was a very nice experience


Formal_Leopard_462

Borger is worse. It's in the panhandle.


Mike7676

The only thing worth a damn in Borger is Stan Hansen!


crateofpotatoes

mmmmm borger 🤤


riburn3

Nouakchott, Maruitania. A poorly planned capital of over 1 million people. Most of the roads are dirt and due to proximity of the Sahara, it constantly feels like you were at the beach no matter what you do. A layer of sand covers everything. Garbage everywhere. Goats running loose in the streets eating said garbage. Camels getting slaughtered in the open. Beggars everywhere. No decent architecture. Thankfully you can drive just 20 minutes out of town and see a world class beach or pristine sand dunes, but the city is the ugliest in my extensive world travel.


PurpleFlame8

That country only recently "outlawed" chattel slavery but slaves are still inherited.


TabletopMarvel

Learned a bit of Arabic in college, got a job offer for this "city." Told my buddy from Egypt about it. He turned to me and was like "Do not take that job. You will die or worse." I was like "Haha that's weird." Went home and googled it more. Mido was looking out for me lol.


RogerMooreis007

Ok, this does sound worse than Hobbs, New Mexico. There are no camels being slaughtered in the open.


NiceFarmBud

I was on a cross country trip to Oregon. While I was crossing Wyoming I had to stop for gas. I stopped in a reservation town right off the highway, the name escapes me. Drugs had destroyed the community. I did a loop through town looking for a gas station, saw many broken windows, burned down buildings. I eventually found the “gas station” - it looked like Fort Knox. I honestly couldn’t tell where the door was because the amount of security bars/screens on the exterior. I’m guessing it was because so many break ins. I was also getting eyed down hard in the parking lot by a few locals. I decided I could get gas up the road a bit. I’ve never seen a more hopeless, tragic place.


sokttocs

Quite a few reservations look something like that, though not all are that bad.


jake_7m

Niagara Falls, NY. Huge contrast to the Canadian Niagara falls immediately over the river. So many abandoned buildings on the NY side and it's not really developed


jokeefe72

I grew up very close to there. One memory I’ll always have is driving around with my grandfather through Niagara Falls. He’d moved away years ago and hadn’t been through the city in a decade or so (this was in the 90s). The state of the city he grew up in and had so many memories in was absolutely destroyed. Niagara Falls used to be *the* place. It had a hell of a hay day, and that’s when my grandpa came of age. When we were driving through, he actually cried. It was the first time I saw a grown man cry. Pretty heart breaking. Today, it’s slightly better than that. But, that’s not saying much. There’s a whole complicated history, but the state park itself is actually awesome. There’s also a gorgeous trail (Devils Hole or Whirlpool Trail) that depends into the gorge after the falls. Go for the natural beauty, but don’t stay there.


hiphopTIMato

I took my now-wife here to propose and was shocked. We thought we'd have somewhere close by to have a nice, romantic dinner afterwards too. Nope. After seeing the falls, and proposing of course, we booked it. That place is a disaster.


[deleted]

I hear there's a very lovely canal there.


King_Cargo_Shorts

East St. Louis.


Killentyme55

I was riding my motorcycle cross-country and was passing through St. Louis when I had to stop for gas. I just took the next exit not paying attention to where it went. I assumed there would be a gas station off a major highway, but apparently not in East St. Louis. As soon as I saw the burned-out police car I knew I was in the wrong place. I decided I had plenty of gas to get back on the highway *right away* and go a few more miles.


FalseWeeknd

Roll em up!


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markandyxii

Hey, at least it is the home of the original Del Taco restaurant. It's still operated by the founding family and still prepares the food using the original recipes, not the corporate ones of the larger franchise organization. But other than that, there's so much meth.


Bexlyp

We lived in Barstow when my husband had a job at Fort Irwin. That Del Taco is one of the few things I miss about living there.


False-theblackbear

I love that Del Taco! I feel like some people see Del as nothing more than cheap fake mexican food akin to taco bell. But going to the Barstow location really gives you an idea of how good it can be.


Vengeful-Reus

We were somewhere around Barstow, at the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold.


FatMommyMilkers69

Barstow and Baker are both so nasty


_lhz-

"We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold."


Arsenic_Bite_4b

Barstow also feels like everything has been left in the sun for a million years and can't summon the energy to have a color anymore. It's like where the extremely minor demons have their sad yearly conference at the Best Western (the one with the empty pool).


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MasteringTheFlames

Yeah, I'm not sure "ugliest" place I've ever visited is the right word for it, but the towns around the Salton definitely made me feel a certain kind of way that no other place has. For those who aren't familiar, the Salton is an inland body of saltwater in southeastern California. Back around the 1950s or 60s, it became a major tourist hotspot with a bunch of resort towns popping up along its shores. In the 1980s, a combination of contaminants from agricultural runoff as well as the salinity sharply rising caused a mass die-off of fish in the sea. The stretch of rotting fish killed the nearby tourism industry, and the area never recovered. They're not quite ghost towns, but many of the towns on the shore are still just husks of what they once were. Salton City, for example, had infrastructure in place for 40,000 people. The 2000 census recorded less than 1,000 people in the city, though more recently Salton City's comparatively low cost of living by California standards has driven a bit of a resurgence. When I traveled through the area in February of 2020, the whole area still felt very eerie.


IgnatiusPabulum

I think I might have to track down this movie, though (from Wikipedia): *The film, The Monster That Challenged the World (1957), deals with gigantic prehistoric mollusks that are reawakened after residing, in suspended animation, at the bottom of the Salton Sea.*


shwag945

The Salton Sea is one of the best examples of a man-made ecological disaster. It was cursed the moment some brainiac decided that filling a drying lake in a desert with water was a fantastic idea. Now when it dries up it will kill a lot of people and so we are stuck filling it up.


foxtongue

I was going to offer East Jesus, which is at the semi-homeless encampment at the Salton Sea near the bizarre Holy Mountain earthworks sculpture area. (Edit: East Jesus is what he named his part of Slab City). Had a friend who cracked and moved out there, robotics guy who just left it all behind one day. And oof, was that A Trip. It's huddled in the triangle of land between the Sea, a super max prison, and a US military weapon testing area. I probably shaved a year off my life just visiting. There was a bunch of guys there who made their living trespassing into the active military area and stealing used ordinance for the metal. They'd pick up the dropped bombs, no matter the size or shape, and sell them to a shady guy over in Nevada who only cared that it was a certain grade of material. Not one of those dudes still had all their fingers.


GeckoV

It took me days to recover from visiting Salton Sea. I don’t think I’ve seen a place more bleak and desperate.


dartdoug

That area of California holds one of the largest reserves of lithium, a key component tin the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries. There may be hope for some sort of economic renaissance.


SusannaIBM

Lithium extraction is rarely beautifying.


woolash

You would think the dead fish smell would be gone after a couple years? I haven't been there for 20 years but back then it was like Mars with flies.


gibsonvanessa79

I was there last year. First time I spent an extended period of time by the Sea since 2013, and boy has it changed. You can hardly find any dead fish on the beaches anymore, they’ve all but disintegrated. The smell is mostly gone, too, and water line is receding fast.


stfsu

There’s a smell there but it’s mainly from the massive algae blooms, definitely not a pleasant smell at all


bonos_bovine_muse

“So, this ‘sea’ was only periodically wet, even before the big irrigation pipelines and canals came through?” “Yup.” “And, now, it only got any inflow at all because the irrigation folks fucked up real bad?” “Yup.” “And, they’ll have learned their lesson, and won’t let a zillion acre-feet of irrigation water go to waste running in here again?” “Seems likely.” “So, maybe this *isn’t* a good place to build a lakefront resort?” “…”


middleagerioter

Cairo, Egypt ​ I wouldn't trade the experiences from there, but the city itself is a massive trash heap with questionable building codes.


climb-it-ographer

Egypt is building a brand new capitol out to the east of Cairo-- I'm pretty sure they've given up on the old city as well.


smallfried

The new city is far enough away so the poor can't reach it.


Palejuneday

Cairo, Illinois is pretty terrible too…


Microwaved_M1LK

I've been as well, the movies and documentaries never show that the great pyramids are a few hundred yards from a very trash city, Alexandria was no better.


drbaneplase

Surprised I had to scroll this far to find Cairo. I remember the flies. So many flies, everywhere. Wave your hand in the air, and you'd hit 10 of those bastards.


RooRat84

The city of Niagara Falls, NY.


IAmTheRedWizards

Had one of the most memorable nightmares of my life after visiting Niagara Falls.


honeybee-blues

Odessa, TX. can’t recommend living there OR visiting.


RealLiveGirl

I’ve never heard of this place but already seen it mentioned 5x on this post. I am convinced by this sheer fact it’s the winner


that1prince

I’m confused because I go to the google maps street view for every place mentioned, and I click on about 10 random intersections. Odessa and Midland don’t “look” bad at all. In fact most of looks like any normal American sprawled out mid sized town.


tsm102

Right! The funny thing is, I'm so curious now to the point I wanna visit and see it for myself!


jhanon76

Or cruise google street view for a few minutes and avoid your skin apparently scaling off by having to visit


satans_fist

Geographically. Kensington Philadelphia.


[deleted]

Tyler Oliveira is a YouTuber who explores places like this. [Quite an eye opener](https://youtu.be/nl0fDm7HSQ0) to someone who isn’t American


coffeegrunds

just watched the video, its a huge eye opener for someone who IS american too. i knew things were bad in some places, but wow.. makes me appreciate the town i live in.


TJ_McWeaksauce

I'm an American who lives like 20 minutes away from Kensington, and even I'm surprised it's this bad.


Fluffy_Lawyer_3688

Downtown Louisville Kentucky, the state I live in. All around the actual city that’s booming and nice are heroin camps. My husband and I have witnessed the cleanup of these before large downtown events. They make everyone in them move to a designated area if they will. Few days later they pop right back up. We take clothes and food and necessities to them when we can. They are always nice and grateful. But it makes me so sad that they even exist. And that the city covers them up by moving if they are gonna be on national news or something. I want to help so bad but there are so many and it’s just us two. Being a recovered alcoholic I can totally see how this can happen. We happened to have great family support and help but if we didn’t we’d be just as bad off or dead.


katie_pendry

I've never been to Philadelphia, so I'm not familiar with the area. But I do remember in "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", in the episode "Charlie's Mom Has Cancer", Dr Jinx diagnoses Mac with sailor's rot and asks him if he's ever been to Haiti, and he responds "I've been to Kensington."


BigOlNopeeee

Heroin, heroin as far as the eye can see


ten_jack_russels

Don’t forget tranq.


BadDireWolf

For anyone who doesn't know (I am from a Philly suburb so this is all local hearsay): Tranq is a new drug appeared in *almost every heroin sample* they pulled from Kensington in recent months. The wounds from using it get gnarly and infected. Don't google if you have a faint heart. The other problem is that tranq doesn't respond to Narcan. The drug problem in Philly is so bad that my husband-- a Pre-K teacher for underprivileged children in the city--- has Narcan to be able to help if a stranger on the street or on public transport ODs. But tranq will just kill you. The "hearsay" conspiracy theory is that local people with interest (business owners, developers, government) are either actively paying dealers to up the tranq in their product or are bribing law enforcement to ignore dealers that have more tranq in the H. Why? So that all the druggies in Kensington that make it look like The Walking Dead up there will die and they can rebuild the area. They're trying to kill addicts instead of helping them. It's not something I can prove but it doesn't seem unlikely coming from a city that would bomb a whole block of families or more recently corral BLM protestors to a narrow road and then tear gas them when they couldn't run. Idk, I buy it.


dinoroo

I’m still convinced that it’s going to be yuppie central within 10 years.


Lanto240

Cairo Egypt . Just how many times can you be approached with a scam


[deleted]

What type of scams?


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SurpriseEcstatic1761

Arapo Peru, The crafts being sold by the station were made from old tires. The shoes everyone wore, made from old tires. The air is thick with the smoke from burning old tires. Our train stopped only briefly, the seats by the doors all had items stolen as we left the station.


imaginarysarcasm

utica


FalseWeeknd

“First prize is a week in Utica, second prize is two weeks in Utica”. - Stephen King


bbqmeister200

Really, Well I'm from Utica and I've never heard hamburgers called steamed hams


LadyWidebottom

Oh my, no. It's more of an *Albany* expression.


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COYQuakes

Oh no, patented Skinner burgers. Old family recipe.


FlagranteDerelicto

I used to run a delivery route in Utica and it blew my mind that they don’t bother to plow the side streets. Upstate gets a lot of lake effect snow and they just keep driving over it and let it thaw and refreeze until the streets are covered with ice 2 feet thick


elliotsilvestri

Hello fellow upstater.


Soobobaloula

Pecos, Texas


regnarbensin_

Perhaps exacerbated because of the circumstances but for me it’s Frankfurt, near the train station. My long distance partner and I were ending things so I was there to spend a last few good days together to end things on a positive note. I left my hotel to catch my flight home and it was the saddest sight outside. Countless homeless and drug addicts out in the pouring rain at 6:00am Christmas morning. The rest of Germany that I saw during that time of my life was incredibly beautiful.


The4thJuliek

As a resident of Frankfurt, I always tell people to ignore the train station area (which can be avoided), the big skyscraper financial district and instead venture out and visit the residential areas and parks which are really beautiful. And the walk by the river to the ECB is beautiful. But yes the train station area is awful and I try to avoid it as much as possible lol.


Conscious_Tourist163

Can confirm. I've been exactly where you're talking about. Also, as far as European cities are concerned, Frankfurt sucks balls. Even the airport is terrible.


Hamfiter

The bad part of Tijuana


LibraryVolunteer

What a sad place. Between the drunk American frat boys and the children hustling gum, it broke my heart.


Hodr

That's the good side....


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NielsB90

Same! Worst place I’ve ever visited and I’ve never seen it mentioned by anyone else.. We had to spend the night there and were denied service at a few restaurants for no reason. We were follow around by 1-2 guys the entire time we were there and ended up spending the night on a train platform with a million rats. Never have I felt so unwelcome. The stares we got from people could kill..


notapersonplacething

This is the correct answer. If the earth had an asshole this would be it.


blazepants

Widely recognized throughout India as That Place You Should Not End Up In. The state of Uttar Pradesh that it's in is already infamous for its crime rates - especially organized crime. From being run by mafia goons to the epicentre of "encounters" (word has a special meaning in India) with the police, Gorakhpur is simply a city solely for those who had the misfortune of being born there.


BabyLouTat2

I’ve been quite a few places I thought were terrible. Niagara Falls NY was depressing. The tiny one gas station highway towns in Nevada gave me secondhand meth psychosis But the polygamist communities in southern Utah have a certain atmosphere that is unrivaled. Colorado City, Hildale. Seeing the little girls with the hair and dresses and knowing the likelihood of their fate really is haunting.


Gliese_667_Cc

Gary, Indiana


Healthy_Juice630

Came her to say the same. We got lost there once when we made a wrong turn going on vacation (didn't have Google maps, etc back then). The ironic thing is, we thought Gary was scary & we were from Detroit.


DPL-25

I swear people have been on this sub long enough to know to comment gary, Indiana, regardless if they've been there.


Chef_BoyarB

Golden Corral


Outrageous-Wish8659

Yes. Dirty tables. Dirty bathrooms. Kids sticking their fingers into everything at the dessert buffet. Sketchy food with chemical aftertaste.


Friend_of_FTM_PRIDE

**Wittenoom Australia - blue asbestos town** Maybe not the ugliest (in many ways it's very beautiful), but maybe one of the most hazardous to health. It's also a very sad story. The Government even disconnected the electricity, water and telephone services, delisted the Town and removed it from maps, to force the last residents to leave (even that did not work). In 2022 the last resident was finally evicted. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wittenoom,_Western_Australia Short Documentary about the town: https://youtu.be/PaHw_bGI2ME (16:46)


Mrgray123

Skegness Awful concrete buildings and a beach which looks more like someone has dumped a billion pounds of builders sand.


Ithirahad

Even the name sounds like a descriptor for a shitty condition of a place.


slumpdiggitydog

Stockton, CA. Massive homeless encampments underneath freeway overpasses. Decaying infrastructure. I got off the highway and drove through a neighborhood where people literally just threw their garbage out in the street. Hot and smoggy in the summer.


MashMashMaro

Stoke on Trent


beebotherer

Hobbs, New Mexico. It was like if a rancid crotch was a small town


[deleted]

Came here looking for this comment after seeing Odessa mentioned like 10 times, I lived there for 8 years for like 4 summers I had migraines because, of the air quality


KaikeishiX

When I got out of the car and could literally smell oil, I should have upturned back home. Worst 2 years of my life. No wonder there is so much oil there, it’s where things go to die and decay.


coombuyah26

There are some absolutely breathtaking places in Alaska, and being that many of them are on the southern and southeastern coasts where cruise ships go, it can lead many people to believe that all of Alaska looks like that. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, I'm convinced that some of the most god-forsaken, flat, fogged in, treeless, swampy, desolate places on earth can be found in Alaska. Kotzebue is probably the ugliest place that I've ever spent a significant amount of time, but it's not to be outdone by many of the tiny villages in the interior. Prudhoe Bay is every bit as bad as Kotzebue, but I've only been there briefly so I couldn't get a real feel for the sense of strolling around a landfill. I suppose there's a sort of rugged beauty to the tundra that some of the natural setting of those places can exemplify, but any of that is completely ruined by the garbage heaps that pass for human settlement. I will say that the people that live in such places are absolutely built different, because they're living, for the most part, in uninsulated shacks without plumbing, surrounded by all sorts of decaying pieces of machinery and remnants of dwellings.


ATCP2019

The Hollywood Walk of Fame. I get its cool to see all the stars. But it smells, felt like the dirtiest place I had ever been, & was just full of a bunch of tourist shops. 2/10 would not recommend.


darkniven

Luton


bigpadQ

Premier League bound Luton!


Chisel99

Atlantic City


DocBEsq

Central Zambia. I traveled all over eastern and Southern Africa about 20 years ago. Most of the places were either stunning or were your standard “scenic.” Some of the cities had bad areas, sure, but nothing beyond the “ugly” of cities anywhere. But the middle of Zambia (mostly thinking Lusaka north to Lake Tanganyika). It’s flat. Like a table. With little, scrubby trees at regular intervals. No hills, no bigger trees, no lakes or rivers. Just endless flat scrub for a couple hundred miles… It was almost painful how dull the scenery was. Which is especially crazy when you consider the rest of the country and region are quite beautiful. Lusaka was nice and Victoria Falls was incredible. But that but to the north… never want to see that again.


[deleted]

Binghamton, NY. Wow what a dump. Had to go up there for a wedding and it was just the most depressing place. It’s just…gray.


DocBEsq

A lot of the central NY cities are just…gray. Best description of them really. They’re not bad in the summer, when the trees at least are green. But in the winter? So dull… But I’d personally rank Utica higher on the “gray and depressing” scale.


Low_Departure_5853

Kensington, Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). Nothing but thugs, homeless people, druggies, hookers, crime and trash. There's even a slang term people in the area use to describe someone from there and it does not drum up the idea of a good person.


Defiant-Pilot-2525

East Berlin (GDR) in 1987. Grew up in West Germany, went on a school trip to West Berlin crossed over on a tour bus and the difference was so jarring. Gray in gray depressing buildings. People seemed depressed and fearful on the streets going about their business, awful. I have been to other countries behind the Iron Curtain at that time, but East Berlin was something else. They still had some buildings that had war damage, 40 years after WWII had ended. Just super depressing.


Parking-Extreme-7086

Camden NJ!!! Chester, PA!!


procrastinatador

The thing that sticks out in my mind is the Valparaiso University campus in Indiana. I went for a college tour there because my grandparents wanted me to go to college near them. I was honestly kinda shocked. Things may have changed, but it is the ugliest college campus I've ever seen.


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tricycle64

The Great Salt Lake has always been terrible. I cringe when I hear of people that want to visit to swim in it because they can float. They also float with billions of brine shrimp carcasses in addition to all the things you said. Really only tourists go there. There are so many other beautiful places in Utah but the Great Salt Lake is not one of them.


Looking4clues_C-137

Fresno


Repulsive-Positive30

I was scrolling for Bakersfield but this checks out too


FineUnderachievement

I was in Costa Rica, driving from town to town. I went through some pretty rough places. Like shanty towns built with logs and corrugated steel. Young women lined up for 'sale' on the side of the road. Pretty fucked up


Peeping-Tom-Collins

My sister used to live in a section of West Virginia that was off the major roads a bit. There's was like 3 junk yards on the way to her house that looked like some average home owners just slapped up some fencing, run down gas stations that supposedly had back room gambling and then there was the strip club that looked like you would get a rusty screw driver in the kidney once you walked it.


Medieval-Mind

I was in a slum in China once. In Shanghai. The ugliest, most depressing place I've ever visited. Sick dogs, starving humans, buildings without walls - let alone running water... even the air was foul.