dustbury.com: It's so crowded, nobody goes there anymore

15 February 2005

It's so crowded, nobody goes there anymore

Those who follow my World Tour reports will note that I do a fairly respectable job of avoiding the usual tourist destinations. (I mean, three days in South Dakota without either Rushmore or Sturgis? Heresy!) Matt Rosenberg would probably applaud:

I hate it, just hate it, when folks come to a new city, and waste their time schlepping around to all the predictable tourist traps. You see well-heeled yokels doing this all the time in Seattle. At Pike Place Market (gawking at the fish flingers, having dumb conversations with fish merchants about shipping one crab and a piece of salmon 2,500 miles in a chilled box, and generally getting in my way as I try to shop); at the Space Needle; and finally, falling for the downtown hotel concierge's ultimate and utterly predictable "local flavor" gambit — riding the ferry to quaint little downtown Winslow on Bainbridge Island. Paint-by-the-numbers, all the way. And so a whole class of visitors manage to have "been" to Seattle without having actually BEEN here.

Okay, I did schlep Dawn Eden through Bricktown that one time. But it was on the way, and it's not like the place was full of locals or anything.

Posted at 8:08 PM to City Scene

Tourists clogging your everyday routine? We never get that here in Florida...

Posted by: CT at 6:32 PM on 16 February 2005

Of course not. Tourists are your everyday routine. :)

Posted by: CGHill at 9:46 AM on 17 February 2005

I feel like most people don't consider the Twin Cities a vacation destination, so by default anything I show them (except the Mall of America) is non-touristy.

Posted by: Erica at 12:09 AM on 18 February 2005

I dunno. If you live in Bemidji, the Twin Cities loom as large as Tahiti or St. Tropez. :)

And yes, we saw the Mall when we were there, but we also ventured into downtown St. Paul and poked along the river on the Minneapolis side.

Posted by: CGHill at 7:50 AM on 18 February 2005