Catherine Price's new book 101 Places Not to See Before You Die is something like a reverse bucket list. It's about the world's most pointless or disgusting tourist traps that you should desperately avoid. One is the Karostas Cietums Prison Hotel in Lativa. It's a prison that has been minimally converted into a hotel:
What place would add to such a list?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128692710 | Image: Catherine Price
"It's not like they took the prison and tried to like spice it up and turn it into a luxury resort," Price explains — it really looks like a prison.
The hotel boasts that 150 people were shot there. "Ever since the first years of its existence it has been a place to break people's lives and suppress their free will," the hotel's website explains.
"Guests" of the prison sleep on iron beds or prison bunks. For an extra-special occasion, you can arrange to be abducted at your workplace and delivered to the hotel.
What place would add to such a list?
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128692710 | Image: Catherine Price
The current NYC one I would say is Ground Zero. It's amazing how many tourists clamor to visit it. It's just a construction site and a PATH (a subway system that connects Manhattan to NJ) station. Maybe in a few years when the buildings and memorials are finished will it be worth a visit.
While in Nova Scotia, I had to see the Bay of Fundy for it's amazing vertical tide range. I was directed to this field in this small town and told what time the tide would come "rushing" in. We waited over an hour, cameras poised and ready. At tide time we watch this tide the equivalent of what I'd see if I turned on a tub tap come in and "fill" the river. Total tide range at this place was about a foot.
We ended up getting the silly giggles because everyone had really built up how "amazing" this tide rise was. We still laugh about that to this day. I wouldn't have missed that for the world!
side note: there are places where you can see an amazing tidal rise; we just were there!
A work friend of mine who'd been around the world in the military said that Naples, Italy is the worst place he has ever been in his entire life.