Exposing Travel Hype: Overrated vs. Underrated Destinations - Are They Worth The Hype?

[Music] welcome to no borders with Brian and Carrie one of the things we want to talk about and what we're going to discuss today is we have traveled now for 2 and 1 half years going over that actually and we have been to a lot of places that we feel are very underrated and just not on people's radar uh but then we've also traveled to a lot of areas are very much overrated we feel right and we do know this is our opinion yeah this is our opinion and we'll we'll get some uh we'll get some feedback on on some of our our uh overrated destinations but um let's that's fine we'll start with the underrated destinations just so we can like ease into this a little bit um uh you know some of these destinations um I was excited to go to just because I'm always excited to to travel wh wherever um but once I got there um I felt why doesn't anybody else come here right you know and and to me um I'm glad that not everybody goes to that destination because we've been to other places where everybody does go and uh it takes a little bit of the um I don't know the atmosphere just isn't the same now um let's start let's start with our I think our number one choice yeah for the underrated for the underrated was was Vietnam um we found Vietnam amazing it was amazing and you know it's just kind of one of those places that's not quite a tourist destination net people don't uh which is this isn't everybody I get that but for the majority the masses right they're planning a vacation and they don't go where do you want to go let's go to Vietnam you know and most people are let's go to Thailand or let's go to you know Mexico you know I know my friends were like Vietnam wow that's that's crazy yeah well not really it's not and you know the thing is is that the value you get for your money in Vietnam is incredible it was one of the cheapest locations that not cheap we hate to say that word but it was the most affordable place that we have travel to um for the accommodations you got were amazing um and the beaches were incredible the least expensive beaches we've ever been to right right so you get that complete tropical VI amazing food and all at a very very affable price uh so I'm it's kind of a surprising one for us that it's not going up higher on people's list of places to go to well it's because it's underrated it is under people don't think of it and they should so the underrated part um isn't meant to be a negative in any way as a matter of fact it's meant to be a positive it is a positive and um I think think that uh the more people that go and explore um Vietnam um I mean we know that if you're from New Zealand or Australia Vietnam's on your radar you love it you go there um but where we're from Vietnam's on anybody's radar no no I mean it's never been I mean I may have I don't know I've heard it a few times of people I want to go to Vietnam so uh you know I just think that it is some place that people should consider more uh and you know even if it's a place you don't want to commit to for say your entire vacation say you're flying over and you are doing Thailand uh it's a very quick flight over to just hop into Vietnam and just explore it for even a week or whatever and just get a little taste of it and see what you think so that way you're not fully committing maybe to just going to that area you can fly right into dang one of my top places yes so far so so Vietnam is the top of our underrated list yes now our second underrated location uh this one just immediately blew us away as soon as we got there we didn't have expectations and that is Romania yeah well the reason why went we went to Romania in the first place was because we had to get out of the shangan so uh we spent our 90 days all in Spain all in the shangan we had to get out yeah and we had to get out we also had to go somewhere that would allow us to come in uh during covid right and it happened to be Romania and so that's where we ended up and we spent uh two months a little over two months traveling through Romania and um yeah we and we went to I think nine different cities something like that like yeah so we moved around pretty quick which isn't our typical style but we saw we felt like we saw a lot of Romania and we are excited to go back and unfortunately they just recently did enter the shenen so it's not one of those places that you get to exit out and then hop over to there so uh but you know there is just so many amazing things that you can say about Romania you the people were so incredibly welcoming uh they love their country they want you to love their country the food was wonderful I gained a few pounds I gained a few pounds in Romania those your B those are my Balon the start of the Balkans for me the the food was great pound real meat and potato very heavy uh which was interesting because we were going there in the summertime and I I remember looking at some of their popular dishes and I'm thinking H how appetizing is this going to be verying 90° weather it didn't bother us at all me eating we ate it all we loved it and we also drank the beer which was inexpensive and great beer um well in our first experience with the beer is you know we got into uh into Bucharest and you know we've gone to so many different areas and people always say oh there check out this place they have craft beer and you go there and you try it and we're usually a little disappointed we can be a little bit maybe considered beer snob yeah a little bit of beer snob we come from an area where we we are lucky to have such amazing beer uh but boy we we got to the place and we tried it and we were like oh my God this this pretty good beer this is a great beer and we were going to be there for two and a half more months so we're excited for that um the transportation isn't the best uh there that's a work in progress so hopefully they they get that up and going a little bit different well now that they're in the shangan maybe they will maybe they will yeah no the transportation was was a little bit lacking um but it didn't uh keep us from getting to where we needed to go no we've got around F we got around fine eventually and brob is still one of our top five destinations that we love going uh we love to go to um we just feel like U more people should go to Romania than are going to Romania yeah you know um so that comment that we got from our host or actually we heard that from a couple people the girl that we talked is that it was it's set up for tourism without the tourists and I would say that's very much true it's not a place that you go to you in the because we were there in the middle of summer right and it wasn't one of those places that we were like oh my God so so busy overwhel sure there were people but not crazy another thing I'd like to bring up about Romania and Vietnam for that matter um they're both safe they're both safe countries um you think of these these countries Romania you know what is it where is it some people haven't asked us where's Romania well it's in Eastern Europe and it's very safe it's very safe and I would say that any of these places that we're listing today that we felt safe and then and then also good for solo travel if you were looking to solo travel absolutely yeah so if you have not considered putting Romania on your list uh we feel it is very much underrated and it should be on everybody's radar next up and this is one of our favorite countries and it didn't shock us that it's our favorite country um but I think we were were a little surprised that it moved up our ranks so fast um and that's turkey mhm a Turkey um every place we went in Turkey from Istanbul to capid doia Andia and fedia um we really really enjoyed we put all of those cities on the top of our list and each one of those cities we went to next knocked the last one down a little bit that's how much we liked it well and and I would say that you know when we were originally going to Turkey we went with the idea that um sure we want to see turkey but I don't think at that time we at all had any expectation I know I didn't have any expectation that it would rank high on my list I just knew that it was a country that I wanted to visit like there are so many of those countries um but then soon as we got to Istanbul it was like oh wow this is really cool and you know and like Brian was saying each one that we then went to then bumped the other one off of the list because we loved it even more so uh it very quickly went to the top of our list or up there and um but I would say that there are so many things that just make it there I mean it's beautiful well the climate yeah the climate it's a place that you can go in those winter months say the winter our winter and even though it's still going to be a little bit on the cooler side it's not cold it's not cold they got the mountains which you like they have the water which I like so it had everything going for it um the people were friendly the food was great it's just it's just one of those things it's it's a little bit um out of the ordinary exotic and we we just uh we had a great time and affordable yeah uh and another bonus point of turkey is it is out of the shangan so any of those people that are looking for those places to go that are out of shenen it should be one of the top places that you're heading to I would suggest and and you can fly anywhere within the shangan straight to Istanbul and most places will fly you to anelia right well you can fly direct to antelia because we took a flight from Rome to inalia right and then we took a flight uh um um from Dublin now we know Dublin is not in the shangan but but we can fly straight into so they've got places you can fly straight into to get out of shangan which makes it just that much easier that much easier for sure yeah turkey another place add it to your list now the next one is the only place we've gone to a second time third time for me third time for you second time for me we vacationed there together we loved it we got into our travels we started moving around um uh some turmoil started up in a region of the world that we were going to go to so we had to about face and we chose to go back for the second time to Portugal and Portugal is on a lot of people's Radars but it needs to be on more people's Radars especially again if you're from the United States Canada you got to get to Portugal yeah I think there's a lot more people now that we've recently like oh yeah I should add Portugal to the list but it hasn't made it to their list yet you know it's just kind of like ah I will but then there's people because we have some friends that just recently did a trip to Portugal and we were so excited to hear their views because they were doing Portugal and then they were heading into Spain okay well we've all heard of Spain so we were curious what they were going to think of Portugal and they said they absolutely fell in love with it and so and that's that was our feeling I mean that was absolutely our feeling and uh I think that people just people have this intend this tendency to you have those main touristy spots and say you're doing a vacation you know you want to go someplace you're going to like or that everybody has gone to and then whatever I just think that you need to broaden those Horizons a little bit wider and then look at some of these places that are a little bit maybe off the beaten path they're not seen as the top touristy place to go to um you won't be sorry they're underrated right they are underrated and this one definitely fits in that category now in Portugal the cool thing is is that you can really go from such variations of what you're looking for you've got the algar which is your beaches that are absolutely incredible you've got Lisbon which has you in the bigger the bigger city and has everything right around you incredible day trips and then we loved Porto yeah we love Porto and and let's rewind back to Lisbon for just a second they got beaches too and you can get out to those beaches right without a problem right but but you know the is is is where the beaches are at right um Porto um God you go out to Wine Country um you drink the pork you sit there in a patio and have some Sherie it is fantastic we had a great time yeah we loved we loved all of our visits to Portugal and uh very much can't wait to go back and explore more because when we explored the upper areas it was on uh vacation mode and so we were kind of cruising through quicker the only place we've spent extended period of time at this point is algar but we do want to get back to that upper area okay now let's get into the overrated destinations and this is where it's going to be controversial this is where uh our YouTube people are going to um leave us nasty messages really and tell us we're wrong and you know everything else um but for us they were overrated to us and we only have a couple on this list there's really only two so so there's there's only two um but we feel pretty strongly about it you know and it's not that we didn't enjoy our time there because one of them in particular we we spent a lot of time there and we very much enjoyed it there were just a lot of things that started adding up that when we started looking at our other travels and other places we had been we thought well I kind of like that place better or why does everybody come here now we get it and if you haven't been to this first one on the list M you should go there but just remember this podcast we said it's overrated and for us it was Italy Italy was a bit overrated for me um I just found a lot of things that didn't check my boxes yeah now Italy for us and that may sound and be so shocking to some people but I will tell you we did talk to numerous different people about our views on Italy or how we kind of felt and they felt very much the same we are not saying that all of Italy is overrated um we are just saying that when people plan a vacation and they immediately go well where am I going to go in Italy or go in Europe and they immediately oh I want to go to Italy because it's just so well known and they want to see it we get that but there are so many other places that you can go that we felt delivered a lot more like where they just checked so many more boxes a bigger bang for The Bu and I'm not talking M or financial I'm just talking about experience and the food is great the wine is obviously good Tuscany is beautiful the beaches are amazing um gosh you can find that in a lot of places right but then with those other places you can also find a lot more we felt Beauty as far as cleaner more pristine of the the buildings uh and infastructure yeah the infrastructure we felt like that was very much lacking for a place that so many people travel to um we were challenged quite a bit with the the trains and stuff in that area um and and like we said we're not at all trying to say don't go to Italy but just go in one thing we always say is don't set your expectations so high and that could have probably been big fault on our part we did spend 2 and a half months in Italy this last summer um we probably had our expectations that set very high for certain areas and then kind of had them slam down a bit Yeah I think that's exactly what it is we set our expectations so high that when we got there um we were a little bit let down and that's why it's on our overrated list we overrated it and I think a lot of other people do as well now that's just our thoughts yeah other people might go to Italy with these high expectations and they nailed it well you know what have those those same people been to Romania been to Vietnam been to Portugal been to these other fantastic countries that have a lot going for them that are underrated right yeah and I think that you know one way to maybe avoid some of that feeling of um having it be overrated is maybe instead of immediately thinking that you need to centralize yourself in some of the bigger cities the most popular towns find some of those off the beaten path Little Village towns and stay those and then get to the other areas and then cuz when we did go to those areas we found those felt a little more authentic they felt um a little more like Italy to us I guess um but where we got into the big cities I don't care what time of year you go it's busy it's crowded you're in lines every place that you're going to see something and for us that just doesn't feel much like a relaxing experience so right no I I think some of those villages in um in in um tus Tuscany went to thank you I couldn't think of the word tusy um we were blown away yeah and it something that met our expectations uh tropia another one met our expectations imp pulia small beach towns um so there are things that we were blown away by right but when you ask 10 people where they want to go on vacation anywhere in the world five six seven eight of them are going to say Italy and I think it's just because so many people that's just the place to go so yeah I mean we're just putting it out there for we're just going to put it out there we're going to we're going to move on to the second one yeah so our next one that we have that we had so many people tell us uh you really want to go here and this is taking us back over to Southeast Asia um that you really want to go to this area that they loved it and so once again we set our expectations probably Way Beyond where they needed to be um and that is Malaysia now Malaysia for us we're not once again saying that we disliked it it really in comparison even to Italy it just didn't check hardly any boxes for us uh we first started our travels in a place that I mean the Airbnb ended up being just horrible we lasted one day and had to get a refund from Airbnb for it um and so had move on so it wasn't a good start we had a bad start we also had um unsufferable weather the the weather conditions the Heat and the humidity um so that subtracted from our experience right out of the gate now um again we had other vacationers other uh YouTubers actually tell us that you know Malaysia's just you got to go to Malaysia so we went and um I I I think part of the problem also was we had already been um to Thailand into Vietnam we had a we had pretty well that goes into the whole expectation thing I think that that's we were expecting we expecting that um and I think it also one of the things that immediately got us is Malaysia being southeast Asia is not an inexpensive country and so we were kind of expecting a little bit more of that uh and even like eating out and the beers were ridiculous which we get because that's just their their religion and beliefs but um so all of those things that check boxes for us but I would say that even koal and po which is where we spent the most time we just really so the downtown area of qualen where the Twin Towers are and they've got um that beautiful Park area and the mall and stuff but outside of that we really struggled to find you know I've even had people just even recently hey we're here right now where would you suggest going and I struggled even tell them where to go um there weren't really day trips you wanted to do from there there um there was just a lot lacking uh thank goodness we had a great view from our Airbnb that we were in we had a pool we had some friends there that were also there at the same time so that helped uh the time go by a little bit quicker for us but that's not how it should be you shouldn't be like okay I'm looking forward to this time being done right yeah we well you know and and again we're going to get some we're going to get some p push back on this we know a lot of people love it but we know a lot of people love it uh we also know people that that didn't and have the same opinion that that we do and it's not that we didn't like it it's not that it's not a cool place we just think because our expectations were so high that it's overrated yeah and and we will just once again like let you know these are our opinions these are our opinions but there are opinions from our experience in all these places we were in for over a month a month if not more so uh these it's not just a one we vacation in in our opinion we get a lot well you need to do more research on that area well we spent two and a half months there so this is just our opinion that was our research yes okay now what about those countries that we all know of that meet your expectations they're not necessarily overrated they're not necessarily underrated but they're just countries that you know what you're going to get you get there and that's what you got and that's what you get which isn't a bad thing that's actually a really good good yeah so our first place that we would say that about was Spain and that's where we went and that was good that that's was the case because this is the place we went our first stop our first three months of travel was in Spain and it was exactly what we expected um it was beautiful the food was great the transportation was really really good um the people uh not at the friendliest but that was okay again everybody in the world goes to Spain the locals probably get tired of it you know and I get that I'll tell you this though Spain was uh I I I could think of two countries off the top of my head that were so incredibly clean the streets the garbage situation the the trains everything was impeccable and I thought Spain um nailed that and we had a great time we need to go back to we need to get down South we need to get down to Malaga so we went uh just recently we went on a repositioning cruise and um and that was one of the days that was a nice day was we were in cadz uh Spain yes and so we did get to get into that southern area of Spain and once again I remember we walked in there and we right away we're like oh my God it's absolutely gorgeous we need to get back here because it's been two over two years since we've been there so yeah we do need to make our way back to Spain and uh explore more of that area in the southern area well I like to get North too and the Northern Area yeah so so there's a lot to see in Spain let's not even start talking about the wine because that'll be a whole different video Al together a different podcast is the wine in itself so we had a great time in Spain Spain is exactly what you think it's going to be and it's great now what about Thailand Thailand was exactly what we expected I mean we expected I would say you know we had these anticipation the one area that was different than expected was maybe we expected it to be more overwhelming than it was as far as uh the busy chaos and all of that we didn't really find that that was the case um but it was everything you expected the food is amazing the costs are are low um the people were very kind the beaches are really nice it was everything that we kind of envisioned it was everything you thought it would be um the differences in the food from the north to the South um I like pad tie I had more pad tie I never got tired of it no surprisingly you got that I mean there would be stretches of time like days because you eat almost pretty much almost every meal out because it's a lot cheaper to eat out than it is to cook in plus they just don't have the grocery store so that that part would probably classify as a downside for some people but um they the eating out was so I mean you were paying like $150 $2 for a meal so hard to beat that uh but yeah it just checked all those boxes that we expected it to check yeah it was exactly what we thought it would be now there's something to be said for going to a country and you have these Visions in your head of what it's going to be like and then you see it that's what we got in Spain that's what we got in Thailand and then we get to Croatia M and Croatia with the Crystal Blue Water um you know Carrie doesn't like to get into the uh the cold ocean at all to me it was a perfect temperature yeah he finds it refreshing he always says that like my feet are in the water and he goes it's so refreshing and I'm like it's refreshing on my feet that's about the end point of it refresh I'm not going any deeper than that but Kisha was it it's Kisha is beautiful um you know we we didn't spend as much time traveling through as we would like to we have visited de brnik we've also visited uh split for we were in Split for two months mons split went out to havar went to treier um and so you know from what we experienced in Croatia we very much loved it um it's beautiful uh the beaches are great the water is pretty I think um on on our places in the world to go they're they're stacking up we have a long list and we're going to get to them all eventually now one thing that we always say we're going to do but then we always think of that place we haven't been to yet what we want to go to First well Croatia might be a country we go back to a second time because we spent two months in split and we got to a couple other nearby towns but we really didn't get to experience Croatia the way that we wanted to we didn't get to Zagreb we didn't get through all the islands I'd like to take a cruise yeah in Croatia they have these cruises that we originally looked at doing pre-travel like we were going to do it as a vacation and we decided to travel full-time instead uh but they are like a 7-Day long cruise they have maybe 22 people on board they 12 rooms but the cool what was appealing to us was is that you're on the ship or on the boat during the daytime so they serve you breakfast and lunch but then you are in Port and because it's a small boat they bring you right into the main Port so it's not like the cruise ship where you're in town you're in town yeah and then they stay overnight in that town so you can sleep on the boat or if you wanted to get a hotel room your choice um but you get to enjoy those towns later in the day when like cruise ship traffic is left or the tourist traffic is left uh and you get to kind of go and have dinner you you to experience the the night life of whatever that that place has to offer um and then go back to the boat spin the night on the boat get a room it's your choice but for me there's nothing like spending out on a boat right well yeah and to me the rooms were really nice so it wasn't like you were you were roughing it but yeah that was one of the ways that we want to go back and see Croatia but yeah very much what we expected um just a beautiful area and it's Croatia and it's Croatia and you know right in the same part of the world um where we've been to once before about two years ago and we are back now for a second round is Greece now when I say we're not going back to the same countries twice well we're on completely different Islands this time and so the experience will be relatively the same but I'll tell you what Greece um you think you're going to get one thing and that's exactly what you get you do you get the incred inredible turquoise water water you get um The Great Food very friendly people um they go out of their way to help you so we're we're walking down the street looking at our phones or mapping our phones and somebody comes out of nowhere uh where do you guys need to go what are you looking for and and she helped us out she did you know the cars stop for you when you go across the street we didn't get that in Germany I almost got ran over in Germany a couple times no or in Italy they will actually like they get mad at you if you cross in front of them so yeah it is um it has been absolutely wonderful and our month that we spend in sanini we very much love that time and it was exactly what we expected it's sanini it's beautiful the white buildings uh it's Paradise yeah it really is so you're getting what you expect out of those areas now coming up later in the year uh we are heading to Mexico so we're going to be spending our fall in Mexico for three months uh and we're hoping that those areas at least meat expectations well I think they so we've both been to Mexico um on the coast we're going to spend this this round we're going to spend um in central Mexico Inland um some place neither one of us have been we haven't been to and I think it's going to fall into that category of met expectations I don't think it's going to be overrated I don't think it's going to be underrated what I'm not going to do is I'm not going to set myself up for disappointment no like I did in Italy now I believe the food at the street cards the street food is going to be tacos which I love burritos which I love it's going to fit right up my alley I'm going to love love mexic now I just said how much I'm going to love it I'm not set my expectations too high I think that our expectations on the food is set really high just because we have been wanting to travel there for so long and and really explore the area but part of that comes with we are super excited for the food because no place that we have traveled yet has Mexican food you know I mean it's like it's nothing that we just want Mexican food street tacos and I been to Mexico and I have had street tacos and they are delicious so that's why my expectations are so high is because I've already done it and I cannot wait right so well we hope you enjoyed this and uh we hope we didn't offend anybody with our our underrated or over somebody we hope that you look at our underrated areas and maybe just check them out a little bit closer and maybe add them to your next vacation list if you would like to find us on other platforms you can find us on our social media at on Instagram Facebook and of course on YouTube at Brian and Cary and then also on our website at Brian and Cary travels.com we will catch you next time cheers [Music]

Channel: Brian and Carrie

Views: 18,709

Keywords: travel hype, Brian and Carrie, travel destinations, overrated attractions, overhyped tourist places, overrated tourist, overrated travel destinations, underrated travel destinations, travel destinations 2024, overrated tourist destinations, overrated travel, Travel destinations around the world, overrated locations, travel destinations on a budget, budget travel destinations, most overrated places to travel, Top travel destinations 2024, most overrated travel destinations

Id: 74TLybNCBmc

Length: 31min 26sec (1886 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 16 2024