If you are planning a trip to Europe, here are 10 tourist traps you should avoid

Can we really judge a place based solely on the professional photos that appear in the search bar? The images may show only positive aspects of your travel destination, but they fail to warn you about the pitfalls you may encounter in a foreign country.

Nobody enjoys being duped, especially while on vacation, which is why it’s critical to do your homework to avoid being taken advantage of. And who better to tell you about these scams than locals? Someone on Reddit asked Europeans about tourist traps in their areas, and the responses are a must-read for anyone planning a trip to Europe in the near future. In the gallery below, you can read about some of the worst tourist traps as told by people who have visited them.

#1 Oktoberfest – Germany

“The annual Oktoberfest. Or, more broadly, believing that visiting Bavaria entails visiting Germany. It’s similar to going to Texas.
Outside of Bavaria, anything Bavarian. In Berlin, the Hofbräuhaus is a tourist trap. Sure, the beer is good, but it’s difficult to find bad beer in Germany. Skip the Hofbräuhaus in Munich as well and head to one of Bavaria’s smaller towns. From personal experience, I recommend visiting the Allgäu. On average, every village has a brewery. I’m sure Bavarians will respond.

I’m trying to say avoid Munich (though it does have great museums).
If you must visit Bavaria, keep in mind that Schloß Neuschwanstein is a 19th-century castle, not an old one. It is, however, ridiculously beautiful, and I would not fault anyone for visiting it.
Closer to home, there are large flea markets in Berlin, particularly in the Mauerpark. It’s a hotspot for hipsters, expats, and tourists. Oh, and most restaurants near famous landmarks are also overpriced.”

#2 Spain’s restaurants

“In Spain, if a restaurant serves lunch at noon, it’s probably a tourist trap.” We eat lunch here between 2:30 and 4 p.m. Look for locals as a general rule. Avoid it if there are no locals eating there.”

#3 Pisa – Italy

“I believe that the advice to “do not eat in restaurants that are really close to monuments” and “do not eat in restaurants that have a menu in more than two languages” is universally sound.
Italy-specific: (as I mentioned a few days ago in another thread) if your itinerary includes more than two days in Venice and/or more than half a day in Pisa, spend the extra time in other cities.”

#4 Girls with umbrellas – Poland

“Poland. Girls holding umbrellas In many popular tourist destinations in many cities, avoid pretty, young girls with pink umbrellas. They will invite you to a strip club, where they will give you the first drink for free, intoxicate you, and then rob you of your money (including credit card money).”

#5 Restaurants that serve paella for dinner – Spain

“If you’re in Spain, avoid any restaurants that serve paella for dinner. We only eat paella for lunch, which is a sign of a tourist trap. And if there are pictures of the food in the window, that’s a bad sign.”

#6 Romeo and Juliet’s balcony in Verona – Italy

“The balcony of Romeo and Juliet in Verona.” 10,000 people crammed into this tiny alleyway to see a balcony that I later discovered was built after the play was written.”

#7 Santorini and Mykonos – Greek

“You don’t have to spend a fortune on Santorini and Mykonos, there are literally thousands of islands just as good as those and you’ll pay 1/5th the price with only a fraction of the tourists.”

#8 Brussels – Belgium

“Avoid the area around the “rue des bouchers/beenhouwersstraat” in Brussels at all costs. All tourists think it’s a maze of cute pedestrian streets, but it actually contains the town’s WORST restaurants, complete with all the typical red flags (photos on menus in 12 languages and waiters hailing you in a sort of Esperanto).

They advertise on message boards “Belgian menu – Belgian beefsteak with a Belgian beer for 15 euro.” When you order it, you’ll always get “aaaaah, we’re sorry, we’re out of Belgian beefsteak.” But you can have the Belgian mussels on the menu, that’s our special as well” – and guess what, they’re a lot more expensive and terrible.

A few years ago, I was invited to a restaurant there on the spur of the moment by foreign colleagues, and it was even worse than I had imagined. They had no idea I was a local (we were a large group and spoke English), and I called them out when they tried to mislead a colleague about how to serve a (expensive) Belgian beer. The waiter’s Pikachu expression was priceless.”

#9 Copenhagen – Denmark

“In Copenhagen, I’d say Nyhavn.” It’s not so much about going to the area, which I always recommend, as it is about eating there. It’s pricey, and you can easily find better not far away. That being said, you do pay for the privilege of eating at Nyhavn, so if you’re willing to do so, fine.
Furthermore, the Little Mermaid has become a running gag among Danes. Every tourist must see it, and every tourist will be let down. Randers, my hometown, has only two tourist attractions. An indoor rainforest that is completely worth the price. And an Elvis museum designed to look like his Memphis home, which is expensive and not worth the money.”

#10 Monastiraki Market – Greek

“Literally ALL of Monastiraki Market is filled with tacky tourist shops selling overpriced poor quality tourist cr*p about the Acropolis and the ancient Greek world, as well as poorly pressed T-Shirts with cringy Greek stereotypical one liners that will probably fade after a few washes, not to mention the huge amount of pick pockets in the square and the narrow streets.

When visiting Athens, do yourself a favor and skip the tourist shops of Monastiraki; if you really want to buy some souvenirs, just enter one, they are all exactly the same anyways, then go eat in one of the tavernas in Monastiraki or something, (except Bairaktaris, which is an unpopular opinion with some Greeks, but their food is cr*p, and their restaurant is filthy, don’t @ me), and then”

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