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It’s a perennial challenge for holidaymakers… how to get far from Nomading crowd of tourist traps.

Because the wonders of the world aren’t wonders for nothing and we all want to see them, and all of us at the same time.

But here’s what we forget, we have it in our own hands, or legs, to veer slightly off the hubs to avoid the tourist premiums.

Now because we prefer others to do the heavy lifting for us we’ve left it up to app Getnomad.

Who have compiled a list of reviewers’ biggest tourist traps.

Off the beaten track

Many we’ve visited for ourselves but few that have stung me.

Because what God, or the merchants who think they are, takes with one hand he gives with another.

In the form of a world nearby where you can feed and water yourself for regular Earth Money before moving on to your tourist site.

What the Romans did for us

Find yourself as a backpacker looping around Rome at the end of a 100km Via Francigena walk and you’ll learn the best deals.

So rather than dining in the shadow of the Trevi Fountain which ranks high on the Nomad list.

You can pick up a pezzo slice at a trattoria take-away and sit on the Spanish Steps or Wedding Cake, the Victor Emmanuel II Monument.

Barca loner

And when it comes to Barcelona, second with Getnomad, then it’s not for nothing that Christopher Columbus points away from Las Ramblas.

To the Catalonian city’s districts and beachfronts for your tapas and Rioja.

Capital growth

Doggone it: With rellies away from Royal Mile

With 30 years of life experience around Edinburgh and Dublin I know my way around the Scottish and Irish capitals.

And that dining at The Witchery next to Edinburgh Castle comes at a price you won’t pay halfway down at Deacon Brodie’s.

Where you can learn about how he inspired Robert Louis Stevenson to write Dr Jekyll & Master Hyde.

Equally those who follow the tourist trail to Temple Bar will discover a packaged Oirish Dublin for foreigners for the price of an organ.

While almost anywhere on either side of the Liffey will open up real Dublin and Dubliners and not empty your pockets.

Check it out

Bulking out the top 5 in the Nomading crowd of tourist traps are Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco and Wall Drug, South Dakota in equal first.

With the Wharf marked down for being ‘dirty, run down and overcrowded,’ with its only redeeming feature its seals.

And the Wild West world of Wall Drug described as ‘very crammed and tacky.’

While the Cold War equivalent can be found at Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, an experience you can savour elsewhere for nothing.

Getnomad helpfully flags up the most expensive tourist traps worldwide.

Now or never

And whisper it, their reviewers have only turned on Elvis Presley here with a graceless attack on Graceland.

For its $84 cover charge which zeroes in on perceived poor organisation and long queues.

And ignoring its cornucopia of prized Presley artefacts and his and his family’s grave all set against Elvis’s music.

And seeing that you’ll have made a conscious decision to go to Tennessee for its music.

We’d say don’t scrimp and save… it’s now or never.

You barter you bet

Similarly it’s probably more of a First World reaction to poopoo the $70 Petra charge.

And yes, there are stalls selling Indiana Jones bullwhips.

But spending a day at one of the Wonders of the World for the price of a lunch for two is a small price to pay.

Those of us with more Western sensibilities do, of course, need to adapt to the bartering culture of the Middle East and North Africa.

And in truth all our travel experience are relative.

So full disclosure here, Jordan’s souks and Turkey’s Grand Bazaar in Istanbul good.

But I still shiver at the memory of being fleeced in Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakech in Morocco.

So, of course, my fellow Bandanini and Bandanettes this is just our take on what is happening far from Nomading crowd of tourist traps.

Share with us your views and…

MEET YOU ON THE ROAD

America, Countries, Food

Jimbalaya in New Orleans

28th January 202328th January 2023 funtime65

Son of a gun, we’ll have big fun on the Bayou as we go Platinum Jimbalaya in New Orleans.

Or if you’re being particular Jambalaya and a crawfish pie and a fillet gumbo but I took to Cajun cuisine the first time I sampled it.

On the forecourt of the American Travel Fair in Washington DC where the New Orleans delegation held their liquid breakfast.

Food for thought

That liquid being the famous local delicacy Sazerac.

And the jambalaya being a spicy rice pot of chicken andouille sausage, shrimps and veg.

Crawfish pie, well being crawfish which tastes a bit like lobster under a crust.

While gumbo is the Louisiana state dish, a soup of meat or shellfish, or maybe both.

With the Creole Holy Trinity of celery, bell peppers and onions.

New Orleans Saints

All of which was consumed with relish and all before 10am.

Before the Saints came marching in and led us into the conference room.

Those Saints being the famous Preservation Hall Jazz Band.

Well we’re being seduced again by the tastes and sounds of New Orleans.

As the Big Easy delegation are the first out of the traps with details of their American Travel Fair party.

Which this May is being held in San Antonio in Texas.

And where helpfully their gig will be at the Westin Riverwalk where we’ll be staying…

Well, we are always where the party is at.

Rhythm in the heart

Of course New Orleans is just eight hours by road across the Deep South and served by road, rail, bus and air.

Or you could go Platinum with a 14-night fly-drive Southern Rhythms trip from €1519pp.

And what’s best is that this offer takes in and ticks off five states, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama.

But let’s get the Irish Travel providers and American experts to give us the highlights…

Their pitch is that we will get to tap your feet to the beat in Nashville, Memphis, Lafayette and New Orleans, the region that gave rise to every form of contemporary American music.

And visit Natchez, perhaps the best preserved antebellum town in the South.

As well as historic buildings in Atlanta, where the spirit of Scarlett O’Hara is still in the air.

Although for all her fineries we’d be more Downstairs and all that jazz.

And Jimbalaya in New Orleans.

America, Countries, Music, UK

Hank Williams in Alabama

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As with so much in life where my great hero Billy Connolly goes I will follow which means to Hank Williams in Alabama.

Billy oft tells the story of how he first got into the banjo, his great musical love.

And the start point of his legendary entertainment career.

The Barras street market in Glasgow might seem an unlikely place to discover a Country legend.

But then many of the best people (Billy and Bandanaman) grew up in these streets.

And it was on one such stall that Billy’s dad bought Hank’s I’m So Lonely I Could Cry which prompted Billy to buy a banjo.

Hank’s for the memories

Billy, whose television travelogues are among the best anywhere, takes us to Hank’s gravestone in his Tracks Across America.

And texts his children and gets a photograph to tell him he’s there.

This year is a very special year for Hankophiles.

Hiram ‘Hank’ Williams was born on September 17 in Mount Olive, Alabama.

And Alabama naturally makes a big deal of their favourite son with a Hank Williams Trail.

It kicks off with a visit to his childhood home preserved as a museum in Georgiana, where he learned to play guitar from Black street musician Rufus “Tee-Tot” Payne. T

Then drive an hour north to Montgomery, where Hank moved in his teens, and pick up lunch as he did at Chris’s Hot Dogs.

Alabamaversary

Visit Montgomery’s Hank Williams Museum to see his stage costumes, guitars, and the 1952 blue Cadillac in which he died, aged just 29.

You can pay your respects at his grave, like Billy did in homage to Hank Williams in Alabama.

In nearby Oakwood Cemetery, marked by a marble cowboy hat.

Of course, in a state where music is in the very air, there is always an anniversary.

Muscle memory

And April 23, 2023 marks the 60^th anniversary of Rick Hall’s FAME studios in Muscle Shoals.

The studios have attracted artists from Alabamian Wilson Pickett, who recorded “Mustang Sally”, Aretha Franklin and Etta James to Alicia Keys.

A new behind-the-scenes tour takes visitors into Hall’s personal office and showcases his collection of instruments.

Of course this being the Deep South then music is all around you so why not make an odyssey of it in neighbouring states.

And take in Tennessee and the best that Nashville, Memphis and Dollywood have to offer.

And Mississippi and its Blues trail and its Grammy Museum.

America, Countries, Culture, Music

The Deep South have a lot to sing and write about

2nd September 20212nd October 2021 funtime65

‘Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy… that’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.’ And doesn’t Harper Lee’s state Alabama and the Deep South have a lot to sing and write about.

That great novel, To Kill A Mockingbird was 60 years old last year.

And it is regularly listed as one of the public’s favourite books and Harper Lee is rightly celebrated in the Deep South state.

So much so that the good residents of her own Monroeville homestead live the story every year.

With the locals actually becoming part of the cast alongside Jem, Scout, Boo Ridley, Atticus Finch and Tom Robinson.

Part of the cast

Every April and May, a version of Mockingbird is put on by people from the community.

And you’ll see the jury preside over Tom Robinson’s trial is selected from the audience before each performance.

While just a short drive away lies Montgomery where Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald lived from 1931-32 and where Scott worked on Tender is the Night.

You can visit the Jazz Age couple’s Felder Avenue home is now the site of the F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum.

And a two-bedroom apartment that can be booked by literary lovers on Airbnb.

The Sound of the South

It is no coincidence that Hollywood mines the Deep South for epic movies.

William Faulkner, the Poet Laureate of the South says it better than ya’ll could.. certainly this scribbler.

Faulkner is the author of the classic The Sound and the Fury.

And he opined: ‘I discovered that my own little postage stamp of native soil was worth writing about and that I would never live long enough to exhaust it.’

And you can learn much more about Faulkner and other alumni from the Magnolia State including Richard Wright and Eurdora Welty on The Mississippi Writers Trail.

All of which is a good bookend to the Mississippi Blues Trail which of course is richly infused through the Civil Rights Struggle.

While Faulkner will forever be linked to the Deep South, that too is the case for Tennessee Williams. Well, how could it not as he carried it around the state in his name?

Good ole Southern Boys

Like many famous Tennessee legends, like BB King and Elvis Presley he is in fact a Mississippian.

The Deep South includes Alabama, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi & Tennessee.

And to immerse yourself in the region is to step right into the pages of these great storytellers.

Yes, truly, the Deep South have a lot to sing and write about.

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Far from Nomading crowd of tourist traps