Every Country’s ‘Top’ Tourist Attraction, Mapped

Or: the world is full of uncultured heathens, mapped

December 28, 2016 9:00 am EST

Devil’s Pool? 

Castaway Cay? 

The Door-to-Hell Gas Depot? 

These are just three of the top tourist attractions of every country in the world, as exhibited by this comprehensive map.

The examples above? From Zambia (it’s part of Victoria Falls), the Bahamas, and — as intrepid travelers and fans of The Amazing Race will note — Turkmenistan. 

This isn’t a list derived by, say, 100 members of the Explorers Club hashing out their selection over gin and tonics. It’s actually the top choices on TripAdvisor, which is dubious. Which is to say, for a vacation forum website best enjoyed for its comments made by unreasonably dissatisfied guests, we’re pretty sure “best of” lists automatically don’t count. 

Castaway Cay, for example, is less national treasure, more “a private island in the Bahamas which serves as an exclusive port for the Disney Cruise Line ships.” 

There are plenty ridiculous choices to argue. Top attraction in the U.S.? Well, they say it’s Central Park. We’d say: the Grand Canyon. Yosemite. The Empire State Building, if we want to keep it in Manhattan.

Some, however, make perfect sense: India gets the Taj Mahal, China the Great Wall, and Cambodia Angkor Wat. But: 

France’s Musée d’Orsay over the Eiffel Towel (or even the Louvre)?

Is the Medeu Skating Rink really the best Kazakhstan has to offer? 

And seriously, the Harry Potter Studio Tour over literally anything else in the U.K.? 

Check out a few more below. For the whole map, click here. Your mileage will certainly vary. 

Map: TripAdvisor via Vouchercloud 

Meet your guide

Diane Rommel

Diane Rommel

Diane Rommel has written for The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, Travel + Leisure, Wallpaper and Afar, as well as The Cut, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post and McSweeney’s. She once drove from London to Mongolia, via Siberia.
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