Travel Expectations Vs. Reality

[Virtus_Probi]

Saw this one another forum...
http://www.boredpanda.com/travel-expectations-vs-reality/
...could not stop cracking up!

So much depends upon season and exact timing, though. Our first trip to Virgin Gorda was in a low season, kind of a buggy time but we just owned the place. We drove to the famous Baths and they were mostly empty, so we could linger in the warm pools in the caves for as long as we wanted with virtually nobody disturbing the incredible peace we felt.
The next time, we visited on a boat tour from St. John during the high season...the Baths were mobbed and we could barely move, snaked through the place in a long line with no time to wade or enjoy the place at all.
Similar story with Trunk Bay on St. John with the famous National Park Snorkeling Trail, you go on a day when the cruise ships show up and you are trying to "enjoy" the beach and snorkeling with dozens of people who have never snorkeled and are fighting with their equipment and splashing like crazy while their cruise directors yell at them to hurry up. Even during high season, if you visit on a non-cruise ship day you can relax and snorkel with only a few other people around.
Did not see any boat jams in Venice, but I was there in late August or early September and did not find tourist crowds anywhere in Italy. Venice till stunk bad, but not nearly as bad as Ravenna did!!!

 

[VeeDubb]

That's really good. One of the biggest let downs for me was the Great Barrier Reef. This is what I expected:

This is what I got:

 

[Virtus_Probi]

May have been Hawksnest on St. John where we went snorkeling one day and found that some big boat had recently plowed through and destroyed a lot of elkhorn coral...truly sad.

That website also reminded me of a Puerto Rican resort we visited that had a small cay you could kayak to just off their main beach...the thing that you couldn't see until you were pretty much there was that it was COMPLETELY covered in trash. It was actually kind of interesting to look at the weird stuff that had piled up.

 

[HTSS_TR]

Originally Posted By: VeeDubb
That's really good. One of the biggest let downs for me was the Great Barrier Reef. This is what I expected:

This is what I got:

You own me a keyboard cleanup !

 

[A_Harman]

The downside of getting away from it all is so does everybody else! Travel off-peak. Save money. Avoid crowds.

 

[VeeDubb]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR

You own me a keyboard cleanup !

 

[dparm]

Also absent from the photos is the inherent danger of visiting some of these places, e.g. kidnapping of westerners in Egypt.

PS: stop visiting sites like Bored Panda that steal and reuse others' content, and have the clickbait stuff all of them.

 

[beanoil]

Originally Posted By: HTSS_TR
Originally Posted By: VeeDubb
That's really good. One of the biggest let downs for me was the Great Barrier Reef. This is what I expected:

This is what I got:

You own me a keyboard cleanup !

Not likely you'll ever see a Squareback Anthias and a Powder Blue Tang together in nature, but for sure you will not see them in the Great Barrier reef. That picture is someone's fantasy.