Tourist Trap Tactics 2013

Avoid the postcard destinations

This is the perfect time of year to travel. Most of the world is burned out from gallivanting hither and yon during the holidays to visit whatever wretched relative they stuffed into an asylum and pretend is dead 11.75 months out of the year. They are not keen to hitch up their knickers for another globe-trotting jaunt. That means that now is the time to strike. But to avoid wasting your travel dollar on such odious nonsense as “pyramids” or “jolly grand holes in the ground” allow me to suggest some tourist trap destinations to avoid.

1. Stonehenge

If you are really keen on henges, then go ahead and drive by, but it really is some bloody big rocks stuffed into the ground. You won’t even be allowed to get close enough for a really good sacrifice that will use the confluence of mystic energy to imbue you with the savage lust of a jungle panther. It’s a rubbish tourist trap that large men with tin badges won’t let you near, much less relieve yourself on.

Instead, go on down the road to Avebury. The whole town is in the center of a circle of mystic minerals and you’re one pentagram and a little virginal blood—we know you’ve got it—away from communing with a succubus. Otherwise, get yourself a pint in town and a there’s a charming little lass that will happily let you visit her own thrilling henge for a fistful of pounds.

2. Pyramids at Giza

Got a thing for rocks on the ground do you? Well there’s no nice way to say this bit: Fuck Giza. First off, you are right outside Cairo, which is a filthy place run by a B-movie sort of pathetic despot and his gabbling horde of Islamic whack-jobs. Not that there is anything wrong with Muslims, but there is something wrong with a man that wants to be supreme leader and his intolerant minions. If my father were still alive, he’d slap those Egyptian poseurs right in their mouths for sullying the name of tyrants everywhere.

Anyway, Giza is full of hawkers and thieves and if you fancied a quiet meditative night under the stars gazing at a miracle of slave labor, you’ll have to sit on the side that doesn’t have the goddamn KFC/Pizza Hut. There is something decidedly unmystic about the Colonel’s unwholesome leer as you stare at a pile of stones. Make your giblets crawl right into your belly that will.

Go to Dahshur. Big pyramids. Très droll.

3. Times Square

If you think that the hawkers and thieves are thick on the ground in Giza, just trying spending an afternoon in times square. It is an assault on the senses. If you do find yourself waking up thinking you’d like to have your nostrils olfactorily raped while your ears are deluged with cacophonous honking and shouting and your eyes are bombarded with signs that should only be viewed through a pinhole camera then sure, Times Square is the tourist trap for you. If you’d rather not, perhaps avoid it. (Terrible prostitutes in the area as well. Hissing and spitting types that don’t even tuck their manhood away properly.)

Instead: Museums on Fifth Avenue. Art, culture, art…old things in boxes. Great prostitutes. Anyone that looks like a college student: Prostitute, trust me.

4. Grand Canyon

First it’s rocks and now chasms? Look, you want to see a big hole, I really can’t help you. Go stare at the big hole. Doubt the Earth Mother much appreciates you eyeballin’ her special lady bits like that, but whatever suits you.