The Common Type Of European Tourist Trap Rick Steves Warns Travelers To Avoid

Rick Steves is a veritable treasure trove of advice, tips, and guidance for anyone wanting to explore Europe. He's a passionate traveler himself, and his articles and guidebooks are packed with useful hints on how to make the most of your trip. It is easy to see that Steves loves the region, and he is an excellent advocate of immersive travel experiences, as well as trying out under-the-radar spots or unusual attractions that many tours, travel guides, and recommendations leave out.

However, Steves isn't just about good vibes and total positivity. He's also great when it comes to warning tourists in Europe about tours and attractions to avoid. He's particularly strong on tourist traps – things that might seem great at first glance, but in fact are just trashy money-making schemes without much value for travelers. He's highlighted one particular type of tourist trap that he urges visitors to avoid, that being phony commercial attractions that claim to showcase a country's history and culture, but actually offer little value.

In a blog post highlighting the top ten European tourist traps, Steves says, "Lately I've noticed more commercial ventures that advertise aggressively and are on sale all over town with various discounts and promotions ... gimmicky, overpriced, and terrible value." He says that phony attractions tend to be a waste of time and aren't rooted in the real culture of a destination. They might be "famous from a song, a part of a relative's big-bus-tour memory, or advertised everywhere," but that doesn't mean they are worth your precious vacation time or hard-earned dollars!

In his blog, Rick Steves highlights a few phony attractions and tourist traps that he feels are particularly gimmicky or poor value for money. First up is Time Travel Vienna: "45 minutes wasted in a tacky succession of amusement-park history vignettes — much of it only in German," according to Steves. (It's also a fairly expensive attraction at around $29 for admission.) He obviously isn't a fan of time travel experiences, as he also singles out Rome's Time Elevator, calling it "a cheesy multiscreen experience aimed at the attention span of a 12-year-old."

But he is most scathing about torture museums, like the London Dungeon or the Belgrade Medieval Torture Museum. Although in another blog post he says, "in a handful of places, more thoughtful displays can be an insightful (if creepy) window into medieval criminal justice," the majority are juvenile and tasteless, "appealing to the lowest desires of dumbed-down travelers willing to pay $15 to ponder the creative ways in which people have maimed and mutilated others through the ages."

One of Steves' biggest complaints about all of these tourist traps is their lack of authenticity. They tend to be tacky, commercial ventures that don't have original exhibits or artefacts. They rely on the allure of discounts and promotions to reel in unsuspecting tourists who think they are about to get a real history lesson.

Rick Steves is hardly some joyless, stick-in-the-mud who's opposed to every kind of frivolous tourist destination. He's a huge fan of some of the most cheesy, mainstream attractions, and regularly recommends the biggest names in European tourism in addition to the more niche destinations. Indeed, there are plenty of so-called "tourist traps" that Rick Steves loves!

For example, he heartily recommends Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, Denmark, which he describes as a "true magic Kingdom", regardless of whether you have kids or not. He also recommends shopping for Christmas ornaments in Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany's super-touristy medieval town, enjoying Mozart and "Sound of Music" tours in Salzburg, and hiking along the immensely popular Italian coastline of Cinque Terre.

Even Venice, a city that is so overrun with tourists that is has started charging an entry fee, gets the Rick Steves seal of approval. He writes: "Venice is two cities: one garishly touristy and the other so romantic and tranquil that it makes you go fortissimo in describing it." Not all tourist traps are the same in the eyes of Rick Steves, so when he tells you to avoid one, it's best to listen.