Did you see Yakmelk's post and decided he shouldn't have the worst post in the thread?

I have been to London many times. This trip is all about exploring new places.

What is depressing about Helsinki?

I live in Helsinki. There is really nothing depressing about it. It is modern and nice city, but there is not that much to see as it is not very old, only becoming the capital in 1800s. The best part of Finland to see would probably be Lapland and/or nature in general. Turku is also nice city (and the 2nd(?) largest city in Finland), it is the old capital and there is direct ferry from Stockholm to Turku.

Anssi hit the nail on the head about Helsinki based on my time spent there. I imagine living there being a comfortable, though unexciting experience.

It's a place to stay for a night or two while you spend most of your time at Suomenlinna.

Yeah there's nothing wrong with Helsinki it's just not very interesting. Time better spent elsewhere.

It's because everyone already knows how much of a depressing ****hole London is.

Usually I would call this the craziest hot take in the thread, but youve been bailed out by the guy who compared Europe to Lagos and the guy who said Paris is too dangerous to walk around.

It definitely is something to joke about, just like everything else.
This post is getting in the way of my moral position, please stop being a racist.

I would definitely take Helsinki over London every day, they are both lower tier though. Maybe Helsinki in winter time makes it more of a draw now that I think of it.

We haven't had white Decembers last few years, so not all wintertime in Helsinki is great (in fact, to a tourist wintertime Helsinki without snow is probably extremely miserable experience as it is cold, very dark and wet.) Mid-January to late February are probably the best times to visit if you like snow, although even then I'd probably rather go further north as many winter activities are only available there.

You are the guy who "really enjoyed Prague" in addition to now defending London, so I hope you'll understand when I completely disregard your opinion on anything travel related. Perhaps an adventurous baguette in Paris is more your speed.

In which case check out the film "Sex Mission", a communist-era sci-fi sex comedy which was filmed partly down there.

The bad news is that if you cannot find something interesting to do in London, there's something seriously wrong with you. But the good news is that you sure showed OOT you're a more sophisticated traveler than I am!

"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford" - Samuel Johnson

From a traveler's perspective, London is terrific. You enjoy all the great things the city offers and leave before the impact of the negatives is felt.

Of course if you already live in a westernized megacity, you might find London less appealing than say a person who travels there from some village in Eastern Europe or backwater town in the United States.

I went to London for a week once and I found it somewhat boring. Sure it's a huge city compared to other European capitals, but it just didn't have anything particularily interesting. It just felt a like big city without a soul. If you like blocks of big buildings it's probably a great city, but otherwise I don't see the appeal at all.

Capitals like Helsinki/Stockholm/Copenhagen are much more interesting and full of unique features. The latter 2 probably more than Helsinki.

Depends on what you're used to in your normal life. Most people who like to travel like to go places that differ from their home country or city. As much as I enjoyed London, it would not make the list of my top 5 favorite destinations in Europe. That attests to the quality of Europe in general for travelling rather than anything negative about London.

I find that cities such as London, Paris, and New York City are microcosms of humanity. It's estimated that 800 languages are spoken in New York City. That's probably enough to represent the entirety of the human race. Some people might not find that mix particularly appealing. To some, it takes away the area's unique cultural identity: the identity some travelers want to experience and replaces it with a mix of other identities which is something that can be replicated in other massive cities like London and Paris. People want to go Paris, have a baguette or croissant and relax. Those people are in for a wake-up call once they arrive. They might find travelling to smaller, less diverse places more appealing than megacities.

Yeah I'm definitely not here to stan for London.

"London is nothing special if you're coming from a large American city" = very reasonable, a take I happen to agree with.

"London is a boring place to travel" = I definitiely don't think this, but depending on what you're looking for, this could also be a reasonable take.

"London is a ****hole" = LOL, drag him

lol

gtfo with this nonsense chop, and you know I love your African adventures (having had some similar trips of my own).

When/where did you go in London?

I've been to London 4 or 5 times over the last 20 years and covered most of the city. Each time after the initial arrival, the first thing I did was regret coming and wonder why I didn't learn my lesson last time. The second thing I did was escape.

Time for some Real Talk here, people. London is the NYC of Europe. It's a huge, depressing, expensive ****hole that everyone is afraid to acknowledge as being such because the denizens think they are the best people in the world living in the best city in the world and love to yell at everyone about how great their ****ty city is. In truth, the city is nothing more than a incredibly filthy massive cockroach & rat factory, desperately clinging to the stale reputation of its long gone heydays. Filthy, fetid, reeking of piss and full of rude people. Continually dreary and grey, the only good food stolen from elsewhere, a pervasive aura of melancholic despair ever present in the very air the citizens reluctantly inhale as they ponder their meaningless wasted lives and dream of being anywhere else.

That's London.



Exactly this.

By the sound of it you just don't like large capital cities. And while I wouldn't claim it's the best city in the world, I suspect you've probably not covered the more interesting and unusual parts.

"the denizens think they are the best people in the world living in the best city in the world". That would be Paris, not London.

London is a lot like NYC in that there are two types of people: those who like the city and those who were raised there. The former can't shut up about how much they love the city and the latter can't shut up about how much they hate it.

Maybe Paris is like that too. I don't know. The people I stayed with when I visited didn't seem super-excited about living in Paris. Neither did their friends.

I enjoyed living and working in London but I am the type to enjoy where I am at the time regardless of where it is. I wouldn't have wanted to live there forever though. Plus things such as housing costs were quite outrageous.

I also enjoyed Prague

I never realized that people (under 60) complaining about cities being dirty was a real thing. Sure everyone talks about the rats in London, trash on the streets in NYC, turds in the Tenderloin, but I guess it never hit me that this was more than small talk, and that people would actually judge a city on this. Like you're really doing so little in London that this is what captures your attention?

FWIW Charlotte has a sparkling clean downtown. If that's what you're looking for, it should be your first stop on your trip to America!

Go to basically any city in the third world and you'll see that complaining about cities being dirty is very justified. I got a respiratory infection from the air in China. And that city wasn't even the most polluted city in China. Kids would drop their pants and **** in the middle of the streets in rural China.

Oh sure, totally fine. I almost put a caveat in my post about places that pose a legit health risk, like most of the large cities in China.

But complaining about NYC being dirty? Come on

Even some first-world cities are extremely dirty. There was a huge scandal in Naples involving toxic waste and garbage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples...nagement_issue

A similar problem exists in Rome as well. I surely noticed it when I traveled there in 2017.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-star-movement