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The United States is a beautiful country, full of attractions for pretty much every traveler. Majestic mountains, dense forests, vast deserts, sandy beaches—you name it. The cities are just as diverse, from entertainment capitals like Las Vegas to history-rich destinations like Boston, packed with character and culture.
However, when you’re talking about an area that spans over 3.8 million square miles (9.8 million square km), naturally, some of its corners will look worse than others. Curious about what let people down, Reddit user OceanicEndeavors asked the internet to share the place in America they do not want to go back to. Here are some of the most popular answers, from both tourists and locals.
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#1
Visited a reservation in Arizona... THAT was eye-opening. Literal single room concrete block houses with no water or electricity, dirt floors... Native Americans got so unbelievably betrayed by society.
Littlekw81 51 minutes ago
Yep. I grew up on the Rez. Seeing kindergarteners flipping light switches and flushing toilets because they'd never seen those before.
RELATED:
#2
Maricopa County Jail. Horrible place. The food and the staff were terrible. I did not enjoy my stay and no plans on going back.
The accommodations were subpar at best and did not match the brochure.
Total bait and switch! Communal showers, the other guests were loud which made good night's rest impossible!
To get a broader sense of what locals think of the country, we can check where they would like (or hate) to live. According to one survey, what makes a place desirable for Americans themselves is:
- Good weather (67%)
- Low crime rates (66%)
- Low cost of living (64%)
- Low housing costs (53%)
- Natural beauty (52%)
- Low taxes (51%)
On the other hand, the factors that drive them off are:
- High crime rates (75%)
- High cost of living (67%)
- High taxes (62%)
- Bad weather (58%)
- Expensive homes (57%)
#3
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
The level of poverty and hopelessness there rivals anywhere I’ve seen personally.
BlitheSpirit 34 minutes ago
My sister is a travelling medic, and she’s there now. Horrified at the level of poverty 😞
#4
The Mississippi delta region. Poverty like most Americans would not believe exists in this country.
#5
When I was driving through Gary Indiana there were signs that said not to stop at stop signs after dark lol.
The survey also revealed that Americans believe the most boring States are:
- Iowa;
- Idaho;
- Wyoming;
- Arkansas;
- and Utah.
The most boring cities to locals are:
- Birmingham, AL;
- Oklahoma City, OK;
- Salt Lake City, UT;
- Norfolk, VA;
- Milwaukee, WI.
Similarly, Americans think the ugliest cities in their country are:
- Detroit, MI;
- New York City, NY;
- and Chicago, IL.
#6
Cairo, IL. Honestly made me uncomfortable just driving through. My dad, myself, and my brother were traveling west and passed through. It was odd to count the few lights that were on in the city. The only place we saw a few people were standing outside a liquor store. Otherwise we did not see a single resident. Felt apocalyptic being so vacant.
#7
Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles. It's like an open-air mental asylum, and crime hotspot with scarce public toilets and facilities. It's a harrowing place to visit or drive through.
Daisydaisy 51 minutes ago
I bet if the US spent a few gazillion dollars less on warfare they could do wonders with affordable housing, d**g programs, mental health hospitals, employment schemes, parks and gardens ...
#8
Ocala, FL. Extremely backwards, backwoods, racist, middle-of-nowhere haven for klansmen and the “bad” rednecks. I am a dark-skinned person and get racist comments anytime I go somewhere in town.
Last time I went it was FJB/ MAGA/Trump signs everywhere, lifted trucks, roadside peanut stands and a collective IQ of about 39.
Lived in FL my entire life and I’ve never seen such an awful place.
When it comes to international disappointment, San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf continues to stay on top. (Or at the bottom?)
According to the San Francisco Examiner, it welcomed more than one million visitors last month alone, but at the same time, travel eSIM provider Nomad eSIM has compiled data from online reviews of top attractions around the world, and for the second year in a row, the Fisherman’s Wharf had the most accusations of being a “tourist trap.”
#10
West Memphis.
giggidygiggidyg00:
So glad I'm not the only one. Got lost there at like 2am and was about to run out of gas. Scariest gas station experience of my life. When I walked in the clerk looked at me like even he was scared for my life lol
#12
Centralia, PA. It has been ***on fire*** since 1962, and there are something like six residents who still live there. It is soul crushing.
This year, Fisherman’s Wharf might concede its first place on the internationally most-hated list, but not because of any improvements.
North America ended 2025 as the slowest-growing region for tourism, with the industry’s economic value rising only 1% from 2024. That was almost entirely owing to plunging international visits to the U.S.
While international travel rose by 80 million people in 2025, visitors to the United States fell 5.5%.
#13
Hollywood Boulevard. It was like a scene from a zombie movie with the amount of people staggering around off their faces or passed out across pavements. The stench of urine & stains from it covering a lot of the older stars was sickening.
#14
The most racist town in Arkansas. Growing up there, it was so normalized and. I still don’t get why. It’s a dirty town with no teeth.
Speak easy buttercup 1 hour ago
Must be talking about Harrison! 🤣 I believe at one time that was the HQ for that certain POS group! But not all of arkansas is filled with a bunch of racist redneck hillbillys...its gotten better over the years!
#15
Bakersfield. Driving and descending into the thick blanket of smog that hovers over the town always depressed me. Sunless, baking hot, awful place. .
Concerns over U.S. immigration crackdowns, high-profile enforcement actions, and reports of tourists being detained have made international travelers more hesitant to visit. Combined with broader political tensions and policies such as tariffs and proposed travel screening measures, the country’s global tourism image has taken a significant hit. This decline is also having economic consequences, with international tourism spending falling by over $14 billion year over year, even as the sector still supports millions of jobs and contributes trillions to the U.S. economy.
#16
Bakersfield CA. The second least educated city in the nation (Visalia made #1), the worst air quality in the nation (depending on the year), Kern county, the county Bakersfield is in, has one of the highest police involved shootings per population, it's in the top 10 for STDs, teen pregnancy. I spent years there.
#17
The Everglades.
Just alligators and poor people who wear poverty, Jesus, and backwardness like they won the Medal of Honor.
#18
Bucksnort, TN. I was running out of gas and pulled into a gas station off I-40 that looked almost bare inside and asked if I could get gas. The lady stared at me. I pulled out my credit card and said “do you take these?” She replied “you can take that card and get the hell out of here.” I did exactly that.
#19
Mos Eisley spaceport. You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
#20
I wouldn't say it's the "worst" necessarily, but I spent some time visiting friends in Laramie, Wyoming, and there's a truly dark energy there. it showed up in the behavior of the people, even during my brief stay
i traveled through it again a couple years ago on a cross country drive and was reminded of that feeling.
#21
Las Vegas. Everyone there is desperate. A shrine to greed. I hated almost every minute of my visit.
Simon Eppstein 1 hour ago
we have family there so we visit semi regularly - I kinda loath the strip... we have a running contest of which we will see more of : adult entertainment site billboards or lawyers' billboards
#22
Paducah, Kentucky.
Visited a friend from the area, and we went to Paducah to have a few beers.
Some big hoss with a few missing teeth came up to us. You know the type. Big, strong, no definition, just beef. Tall and heavy, and considers himself a great fighter because he can knock out regular guys in a few punches just by using his body momentum.
Dude came up between me and my buddy and clapped a hand on each of our shoulders, really friendly. Shouting about some [N-word] (his word, not mine) out in the parking lot. "HE THOUGHT HE WAS GONNA COME IN HERE, BUT I TOLD HIM TO GET TF OUT!!"
Dude was smiling, jovial, genuinely friendly. He just assumed because I have blue eyes that I dislike black people drinking in the same room as me, just like him.
We didnt correct the guy. Looking around, it was pretty obvious we'd get stomped by the whole crowd if we tried. Luckily he didnt beat the guy up. But I wasnt about to lose any teeth defending the honor of a guy who was already on the road on his way to friendlier pastures. I figured I'd just enjoy the rest of my beer and never come back to Paducah.
Daisydaisy 47 minutes ago
It's odd, because the image we get of the US is the lifestyles we see on Friends and the Big Bang Theory ...
#23
Memphis, TN
I travel a lot for work across the Midwest. It is the true epitome of a feast or famine town. There is no middle class. It's either rich old plantation homes in gated communities near Germantown in East Memphis, or extreme poverty just a few miles West back in the heart of Memphis off Poplar. .
#24
I'm not just trying to be that guy who just hates on Cali, because I loved central Cali and San Fran, but I honestly hated being in LA. It was too big, hard to get around, traffic clogged, and I just couldn't find anything to do. It just felt like there was a "place" to go to. I just don't get the appeal, maybe you have to live there to really get it.
#25
I’m going to go a different direction from the usual “Gary Indiana, East St Louis, Camden” answers.
Garden City, KS. It is on the other side of the continental dry line (I’m sure it has a name) but without some of the appeal of other western locales. It is brown, drab, it smells like cow manure because of the feed lots in the area, and it’s 200+ miles to any sizable metro areas.
Edit: I’ll never forget flying in there (work trip). We came down out of the clouds and not long after I started thinking “Man, somebody could’ve waited 5 minutes until we landed to poop their self.” Then we landed and popped the door open and I quickly realized “oh, that wasn’t coming from inside the plane.”.
#26
East Saint Louis. That was years ago so couldn't say what it's like these days, but when I was there it looked post-apocalyptic.
#27
Forgot where exactly because it was on a road trip with my dad when I was much younger, but we drove past a Native American reservation and it was incredibly depressing.
#30
Niagara Falls NY. An absolute armpit. Feel sorry for the newlyweds who decide to honeymoon there. 🚫.
#31
The entire state of Oklahoma. Altus, Lawton, and Sepulpa are modern day sundown towns.
The entire state’s aesthetic looks like what you’d see in a baby’s diaper after feeding them a nonstop diet of pumpkin, beans, and chicken nuggets.
#33
Paterson, NJ
Especially after a cold winter with lots of snow, then in the spring the snow melts to reveal piles and piles of garbage mountains. Wait, that's today. Right.
#34
South Bronx in the 1980’s.
Every front stoop with unemployed working age men. Streets in really bad shape.
Half of one street blocked by a car going across one lane. Stripped, bashed, on blocks and without tires or wheels. Burned and just left there long enough to be seriously rusted, too.
Felt like a war zone.
#35
Toss up between Evanston, WY and Rawlins, WY. Just nothing there, cold, windy. Third place would be Lower Lake, CA. Yikes.
#38
Kissimmee Fl. Nothing is walkable (without a bottle of water, snack, and determination) way too many tolls now, the schools are bad, the homeless have some STORIES, and it’s impressive I didn’t pass away at the hands of a giant bird (they roam in gangs, they’re in like every community). Barely any work, my old high school friends (like a quarter of them) lived in a Florida Motel or some half-retirement/half-residential community. Way too commercialized for kids living there to be able to go out and do anything besides run around in the few forests that are near their homes, and their parents barely made enough for them to go to the amusements. That place helped me understand how tourism completely overshadows the lives and care of the people living there.
#39
Orlando is so boring other than Disney World.
nottheactualphoto 44 minutes ago
I'm not sure how much you'd have to pay me to set foot in Disney World.
#40
Odessa TX.
Weather is always awful.
Only oil industry-related things exist there.
Roads/Highways are bad.
It is awful.
#41
Celebration, FL. I can deal with poverty and crime. Celebration is a cult.
#42
Stopped at a rest stop in Mississippi as we were passing through towards NOLA. Asked a worker if there was anything cool to see along the road. Now, she *could’ve* mentioned the NASA facility and space museum (which I did stop for on my own btw) but instead she goes “oh! You simply *must* see the former house of the great Jefferson Davis!” Feel like that sums up Mississippi pretty well tbh.
#43
Barstow, California.
I have been many places that are questionable for safety (watts, Compton, parts of Sao Paulo, Brazil) but there's something about Barstow that makes me feel the most uneasy. First off, it's hot, buildings are stacked on one another, you always get the white van special when getting gas, tweakers, everyone there is miserable.
Idk, I always want to get gas and leave that place as soon as possible.
#44
Newburgh, New York. It looked like it used to be a nice town, but they have really let it decay. Most of the downtown area looks like a rocket hit it and they never bothered to clean up. Not a place i wanted to be at night.
What do you think ?
Panda McPandaface 17 minutes ago
I am not having a go at **all** U.S. citizens, just those that continually shout about the U.S.A. being the greatest, freest, most developed place on the planet - look around yourselves guys, do you really believe that? From an outsider's point of view, the current administration is only going to make things worse.
Panda McPandaface 17 minutes ago
I am not having a go at **all** U.S. citizens, just those that continually shout about the U.S.A. being the greatest, freest, most developed place on the planet - look around yourselves guys, do you really believe that? From an outsider's point of view, the current administration is only going to make things worse.
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