15 People Talk About The Worst Cities They’ve Ever Been In
“Camden, NJ – where I found my car sitting on blocks with its wheels removed.”
The worst city? Well, that is a tough one. Unfortunately – there is fierce competition in that department. With so many countries stricken by war, poverty, and famine... some people can find something good and beautiful in everything around them, even in places like those.
But we're not about that today. We're looking at the worst places these people have ever visited. Have you ever been to a crazy city like one of these before?
1. Johannesburg, South Africa
“I grew up in Johannesburg, South Africa. It’s entirely unmaintained and has a very unique style of absolute apathetic violence against innocent people. I moved to New Zealand, and years later realized that hearing screams that ended in the sound of a gunshot wasn’t a normal thing to go to sleep to at night.”
2. Slough, UK
“Slough. Full of grey buildings, endless industrial estates, half-hearted ‘modern’ architecture, and mobile phone accessory shops. Surprisingly, it’s expensive to live there. However, it produced my mom, who is the nicest person ever.”
3. Baghdad, Iraq
“Baghdad.
The food wasn’t that great. Traffic. Roadside bombs. The air quality wasn’t great.
For a city I’ve visited not during a time of war, Cairo was one of the most disappointing and disgusting experiences I have ever had in my life. Everything is a tourist scam.”
4. Camden, NJ, USA
“Camden, NJ – where I found my car sitting on blocks with its wheels removed.
Our friends sold their Camden home at a huge loss just to escape what they called ‘a nightmarish place to live.’”
5. Baker, California, USA
“Baker, California.
If you’ve ever driven between Vegas and Southern California, you know what I’m talking about. It’s constantly the hottest place in the summer—literally 10 degrees hotter than 5 miles down the road. The gas prices are insane. They have an alien-themed jerky and hot sauce store (which is pretty awesome). And they have the world’s tallest thermometer because that town is the butthole of the country.”
6. East Saint Louis, Illinois, USA
“East Saint Louis, Illinois. It would have to improve to be considered a ghetto. Broken buildings, broken roads, and broken people. Don’t even slow down on your way through.”
7. Angeles, Philippines
“Angeles in the Philippines.
It’s the home of a former US Air Force base, but that base was destroyed by the Pinatubo volcano.
Angeles became the town where aging and overweight former US military personnel go on vacation to relive the heydays of their youth. It’s a place where you’d rent one or more women for the night for next to nothing. You walk into a bar and see those men feeding shots to young girls, followed by empty laughter because they really don’t have much to say to each other: they’re all just passing time until they go to their seedy bedrooms with the girl for the night and their one shot.
The city has nothing else going for it—no industry or anything. Their lifeblood was cut off when the base closed, and they had to make do with sex work.
We were passing through while visiting the destruction of the volcano and stayed for two nights.
And here’s the thing: I forgot my pouch with money, credit cards, and passport in that seedy hotel with mirrors on the ceiling when I left for the next city, four hours north.
When I returned half a day later to pick it up, the lady at the reception said, ‘We found it and put it in a safe.’ Everything was still there.
(Note: this was 20 years ago. Things may be different today.)”
8. Dubai, UAE
“Dubai. A monument to excess and unhealthy consumerism built on slave labor. Once your awe of the magnificent buildings fades, it feels like a soulless tourist trap with a sinister undertone. Everything just feels off. I think it’s an abomination of a city.”
9. Niagara Falls, USA
“Niagara Falls (US side) was depressing as hell. We went with low expectations because we were only going there for a punk show and figured we’d stay in the tourist district and see the sights, and still left feeling disappointed.
The falls were cool, but the few blocks surrounding them are full of shoddy, crowded tourist traps, and if you leave that small area, you are immediately surrounded by extreme poverty and sketchy neighborhoods.
A local told us that pretty much all of the money made in the area gets sent back to NYC because that’s where the companies that own the casinos and businesses are located, so nothing really ends up going back into the local economy. A lot of nonsense. The show was good, though.”
10. Camden, NJ, USA
“Easily Camden, New Jersey. I only went there to see a show at the venue, but driving to the venue looked like I was in a third-world country. I also took a wrong turn when walking from the show to my car, and it got sketchy really quick. Camden is such a dump!”
11. Paisley, Scotland
“Paisley, Scotland.
I watched a bunch of kids get their asses kicked for gang beat-ins, then bought Chinese food from some guy who tied a t-shirt around his hand to stop the bleeding.”
12. Port-au-Prince, Haiti
“Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
The place makes the infrastructure of Gary, Indiana, look state-of-the-art.
I haven’t been back in 20 years, but it began with leaving the airport. You go through the exit doors to be completely mobbed by people. I can’t tell if they are trying to carry your luggage for money or just outright steal it.
The one time we flew in after dark… holy shit, getting a rental car was an adventure. Evidently, they keep the rental cars off the airport property at night. We got driven to this steel-walled compound to get our rental car. The doors opened, and men with rifles came out to cover our entry. They had this makeshift bunker type of thing they jumped into.
Driving? The roads have potholes you could bury a body in, along with the car that the body was driving in. We used to rent a 4×4 SUV just to drive on the public roads. Power lines were down everywhere, no road signs… just hire someone to drive you.
Police and customs? Corrupt beyond belief.
Poverty? The worst I have ever seen. The tin huts in the shanty towns were about the size of my walk-in closet back in the States. I always recall my driver telling me about the locals eating dirt. There was good dirt to eat and bad dirt to eat. I have no idea what made dirt good or bad to eat (I guess they would mix it with some type of fat and make a pancake or cookie out of it). The water in those shanty towns? It was a common well that looked like a mud puddle where a three-year-old just spent the last 20 minutes tap dancing in it.
The people were wonderful for the most part. There were some really bad parts of town, but for the most part, people were good to us.”
13. Kayenta and Cuba
“It’s a tie between Kayenta, AZ, and Cuba, NM. If you get out of your car, you will be swarmed by feral or abandoned dogs and drunk locals asking for gas money. It’s very tough to avoid colliding with drunk drivers or adopting a dog when driving through.”
14. Blackpool, UK
“Blackpool.
It’s talked up as a great seaside destination with a world-famous pier. It’s awful, dingy, grey, and significantly worse than Scarborough and Bournemouth.”
15. Fayetteville, NC, USA
“Fayetteville, North Carolina. Never go there alone or at night. Most of the shops cater to the tastes of young men because of the military base.”
