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When you hear talk about trendy tourist spots, attractions, and landmarks, they often mention how overrated or overpriced they tend to be. But how much of that word-of-mouth holds some merit? USA Today may have the answer to that. The website scoured through Google reviews to determine which popular destinations are considered 'tourist traps.'
A popular destination in Seattle ranked in the Top 10: Pike Place Market! Out of over 63,000 reviews analysts scoured through, 355 people alluded to this market being a "tourist trap." The Space Needle also ranked among the world's Top 10 most "overpriced" attractions.
Here are the Top 10 tourist traps in the world:
- Four Corners Monument (Arizona)
- Salem Witch Museum (Massachusetts)
- Calico Ghost Town (California)
- Crazy Horse Memorial (South Dakota)
- International UFO Museum and Research Center (New Mexico)
- Blue Lagoon (Grindavik, Iceland)
- Voodoo Doughnut (Oregon)
- Capilano Suspension Bridge (Vancouver, Canada)
- Penang Hill (Penang, Malaysia)
- Pike Place Market (Washington)
Analysts also broke down how they determined their picks:
"In July 2023, we analyzed 23.2 million Google reviews of the 500 most popular tourist attractions in the world, spanning 65 countries in six continents. For each attraction, we asked a simple question: How frequently do the reviews mention the terms 'tourist trap,' 'overrated' or 'expensive'? We compared attractions to one another by measuring the relative frequency of these mentions, dividing the number of mentions in each case by the total number of reviews for that attraction."