101 Places Not to See Before You Die

by Catherine Price

[Kevin Costain]

This might be a good read while on a trip somewhere. You could sit there, basking in the glow of some warm-place resort reading a book about unusual travel experiences. The effect of describing what “not” to see, however, turns out to be quite the opposite.

““Some people might argue that San Jose, California, is itself a place not worth visiting before you die. Fair enough.”

It’s a simple passage, but there’s a hint of something there if you let it linger. What’s supposed to come across as irreverent and funny actually feels angry and cynical. By Chapter 9’s opening sentence above, I could recognize that angry voice.

Chapter 12 itself contains only one sentence. It’s kind of a joke-y thing but, I wondered reading this if I should have expected more.

Another moment in the book - an overnight stay at a Korean temple smacks of tourists in another country what have to do things they don’t like and get pissed off because they weren’t served burgers:

“Things went downhill from there. Exhausted and cranky, one by one we began refusing to play monk. If one of the whole points of Buddhism was to cultivate acceptance, why, I asked, did we have to go through such an elaborate meal ceremony? The Venezuelan couple went a step further: they left.”

Also, a mention of the Bay Area RT system and its carpeted floor. This was removed in June of 2015, so maybe it’s not so bad now.

This, frankly, reflects badly on the person in the story, presumably the author. A place “not to see” is that way because you didn’t like it? Really? The core of this book seems to amount to “traveler discomfort.” Clearly we’re all going to have different experiences and levels of tolerance to things, but making a compendium of discomfort seems anti to the goal of offering really horrible experiences as a point of interest (the Running of the Bulls from the bull’s point of view, for example).