15 Popular Tourist Foods That Are a Total Rip-off
One of the high points of traveling is to eat local cuisine. Unfortunately, the dishes that everybody is raving about often have a high price associated with them, and leave the wallet lighter than the appetite. Some foods just don’t live up to the hype, whether it’s an overpriced gimmick or a hyped up delicacy.
These culinary traps are tempting to look at on Instagram but they’re more expensive than they’re worth. Let’s look at 15 tourist overhyped foods that could seem be like a rip off to your debit card.
Street Vendor Lobster Rolls
You’re standing on a lush, green grassy beach with a boardwalk. The air doesn’t do justice to the smell of buttery lobster, but you can’t help but follow that siren’s call. Before you know it, you’ve dropped $30 on a roll smaller than your palm. You paid a premium for an illusion: Sometimes, these lobster rolls are pre-packed and reheated but are often marketed as freshly caught.
Paella on Tourist Strips
Paella is very traditional in Spain and when you order it in touristy places you’re usually disappointed. Fresh seafood, saffron, and rice can be a symphony, or a precooked mix reheated in bulk, often of poor quality and lacking in authenticity. The markup? Locals would pay at least triple that.
Hawaiian Luaus
Feeding under the stars with a Hawaiian backdrop is dreamy, but many luau meals for tourists are a letdown. You’ll get a fire dancer and ukulele show, but the food is usually mass-catered portions that don’t really justify the $100+ ticket price. The roast pig may not be, but the sides? Think about buffet-style mediocrity.
Gondola Gelato
Venice! You’re eating gelato and gliding down canals. Be warned: Those picturesque waterfront shops selling cones for €8 are targeting your tourist heart (and wallet). You’ll be cold, both figuratively and literally, and it’s often more air than flavor.
Famous Parisian Croissants
When in Paris, you can’t miss out on croissants, but not the ones at the cafés directly across from landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower. You’ll pay $7 for a pastry that might have been frozen and reheated. The best croissants are from those neighborhood boulangeries, not tourist hotspots, a local will tell you.
Tokyo’s Vending Machine Sushi
Japan’s sushi is world -amous, grabbing it from a fancy vending machine is a nice modern twist. The problem is that you save time but you lose taste and quality. These are factory-made sushi packs, nothing like the craftsmanship you’d find in a local sushi bar.
Times Square Pizza Slices
That $6 slice from a pizzeria on Times Square is more cardboard than heaven, but it’s legendary New York pizza. It’s not the quality, it’s the location. You can get better slices for half the price, a few blocks out of the tourist zone.
Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar
A sweet souvenir, Turkish delight is sold in prepackaged boxes in tourist-heavy areas. They are overpriced and overly sugary, lacking the balanced flavor of artisanal versions. It is better to buy your from trusted confectioners, not market stalls with eye-catching displays.
Caribbean Coconut Drinks
Picture a coconut fresh from the tree, drinking the juice, sitting on the sandy beach. Sounds blissful, right? Until you’re charged $15 for a coconut with a straw. The tropical dream tourists are chasing means many vendors hike prices. Locals? Those people are paying a fraction of that price.
Major Attractions of Italian Pasta Dishes
Ordering pasta at a trattoria near the Colosseum might seem romantic, but you’re probably eating microwaved spaghetti with canned sauce for twice the price you would pay at a real family-run place a few streets away.
In Southeast Asia, fried insects
The locals don’t often so much as take a bite of the fried crickets and scorpions touted as daring delicacies. These critters are sold by vendors in tourist hotspots at inflated prices because visitors want a story to tell back home.
All Inclusive Resorts Mexican Tacos
The tacos served at all-inclusive resorts are rarely the stuff of culinary dreams. They are bland tortillas, overly seasoned meat, and a complete lack of authentic toppings. Mexican street tacos are better for your taste buds and wallet.
Train Stations, Swiss Chocolate
Switzerland is known for its chocolate, it’s common to find that buying it at train stations or tourist shops will cost you double or triple what you’d pay at a local grocery store for the same brand. What can I say? Pretty box doesn’t always mean better chocolate.
Australian Kangaroo Steaks
Tourists are frequently attracted to kangaroo steaks as a ‘have to try’ novelty item. In tourist-heavy restaurants, it’s always overpriced and poorly cooked, and you wonder why anyone would eat it. It is bought fresh at markets by locals and prepared properly.
Frozen Margaritas in Cancun
Frozen margaritas seem like the perfect accessory to a party paradise in Cancun. Those $15 slushies from beach bars are usually watered down with cheap tequila barely showing up. They are more ice than anything else.
Disclaimer: This list is solely the author’s opinion based on research and publicly available information.
Affordable Home Entertainment: 11 Must-Have Finds For Enhancing Your Family Movie Nights
Affordable Home Entertainment: 11 Must-Have Finds For Enhancing Your Family Movie Nights
How to Clean Your Smoker Grill Combo Like a Pro
How to Clean Your Smoker Grill Combo Like a Pro
10 Best African Photo Safaris You Must Experience
Even if you’ve been on a safari in the past, an African photo safari is something you want to experience or at the very list add to the top of your bucket list.
But first, what is a photo safari? The phrase “photo safari” is not a common sentence structure but its meaning can be deduced easily. An African photo safari in general context means going on an adventure with the sole purpose of taking high-quality pictures.
10 Best African Photo Safaris You Must Experience
