You forgot the Meat Packing District!

Hey! - Leave Buffalo alone!

In Amsterdam, didn't you notice the prosties in shop windows and the smelly canal? You're right, though, it sucks.

As they say in A Chorus Line, "Suicide in Buffalo is redundant."

Sounds like Michael's leading up to the H.O.T. spots! Where you leading us VV dude?

Hysterical!!!!!!!!!! One of the funniest travelogues I've read!!!!!

X'ing off Key West, which I always suspected was just like your sad description. New Year's Eve in Amsterdam (when it's not so cold you can cut glass with your nipples) is a LOT of fun. Carib-wise, at least San Juan has (had?) a "dark" side, grimy gay bars with glassy-eyed go go boys dancing lanquidly atop formica bars. I have a brother in Buffalo. It's one of my least favorite places to shuffle off to.

Sir, you clearly have never been to Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg TN.
Or Branson MO.
Or Miami FL.
Bloody awful.

Ah,you missed some fun bars in ole Vienna...some vonderful back rooms!

I happen to like Buffalo. I liked Honolulu too, but only because I got to the Woolworth's on the last day it was open and bought a boxes and boxes and boxes of chocolate-covered macadamia nuts for, like, five dollars. But as far as hairy nuts go, the gay bars were horrible. One had so many boring Baptist tourists in it, all wearing wedding bands, that I thought I had walked into the wrong dump. But let me throw in a couple more bore-fests: Carmel, California (pretty, but blahh!) and Orlando, Florida.

Yeah! Why go anywhere Mustofo? You can simultaneously have all five of those experiences in New York?

yes orlando is hell. but so is soho. very similar.

Amsterdam? Ha. For a real pit-stop in Hell, you should try Rotterdam - all the whacked-out squalor, aggressively rude Dutch people and lousy public art of the capital ... plus racist skinheads! Oh, and did I mention that the food sucks?

Truly, the most appalling craphole in all Europe.

vienna is certainly sleepy, but sooo romantic as well! especially if you love music...or if you're jewish. the city of musicians AND the birthplace of modern psychoanalysis=heaven!

Give New Hope, PA's custom corset shop a try!

sweety, come to san juan and i'll show you some culture you'll never forget... my big puerto rican c*** never fails to deliver.

Savannah GA can only be improved by a full on makeover from a class 5 hurricane. Forget the charming book, the movie, the art school of 8000 rich fucks who couldn't draw if you held a gun to their heads, or the pirate ghosts,... hang some signs over the water fountains and you'd have instant re-segregation.

Horrific doesn't describe it.

No wonder everyone hates new yorkers.

My hometown of Austin, TX is pretty bad. "Live Music Capital of the World" boosterism meets the HEAT. I mean how many 95-degree days can you take?

Key West's got Hemingway's house with all the six-toed cats. What more do you want?!

Outside of New York City- everything else is boring. I'm taking about pre-giuliani era

How could anyone possibly forget the most overrated destination in the Tri-State area: "The Hamptons?"

Well lately its Manhattan, since every "as seen on TV" bimbo has moved here. And their men are women too.

I second Orlando. Less to do than in Buffalo and easily the worst city for restaurants i have ever been to.

Buffalo's a great poor man's town--cheap housing, cheap food and drink, nice arts scene.

NYC is far from perfect, but you won't find any other place which millions of people, crammed into a few hundred square miles, prefer to call home. A couple years after arriving I vowed never to venture anywhere else in the US unless really big money (or great sex, same thing) was involved.

I made the mistake of dropping by SF, where some locals kept scolding me for my NY-inspired un-PC humor. Like hello, you're straight rich white male yuppies and I'm the one who's incorrect? But that was a walk in Central Park compared to DC. Right upon arriving I thought I'd entered a mediocre Leni Riefenstahl movie, with all the overweening fascist architecture and the meanest set of residents in high and low places. It had the highest crime rate in the country (still does, if I'm not mistaken), and after setting foot there I stopped wondering why. And this was during a Democrat presidency!

So well, sure, outsiders ought to hate New Yorkers. People can't stand it when you hold up a mirror and what they see's a reflection of themselves.

If you're a celebrity obsessed American jerk off whose idea of "culture" is writing columns about Lindsey Lohan, then yeah, you might find Vienna or Moscow boring.

I spent ten years at the Russian River in California, one weekend.

Hon, ya left out Baltimore. Way overrated!

Have you ever been to Omaha? Well, don't. I got yelled at by some locals for just walking down the street where there was ONE gay bar. Terrifying and cold,cold,cold.

"Hon, ya left out Baltimore. Way overrated!"

People rate Baltimore? Positively?

I have to second the remark about Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg Tenn. I was expecting Gatlinburg to look like maybe a southern version of say Chatham Mass. Not. Pigeon Forge should be seen to be believed - the honky tonk kitsch capitol of the USA.

You forgot the most overrated place on the planet: New York City itself. Laughably provincial, yeah I said it! What other location in the world thinks nothing of importance happens outside of its own miserable borders? By now, it's hopelessly richa dn white - everyone of real interest leaves at 5. All the rest- rich and "poor", whether they admit it or not- are slaves of the most egostistical, empty, soul-destroying capitalistic urban abomination ever created. All else is pure delusion!

It's also racist as hell, with bug nasty social realities simmering just below the glossy surface.

BTW - I'm born, bred and still live here! LOL!!!!!

you go, BTW! bravo! i agree. nyc is as boringly bourgeoisie as it gets and next to hollywood, the most overrated place on the planet. ok, so it has great museums, lincoln center, the metropolitan opera and a myriad of cultural institutions and overpriced restos that almost no one can afford. broadway, except for sondheim, is a museum that died with the 70s and should be laid to rest. the vast majority of the city is ugly, dirty, covered in graffiti, with ostentatious wealth butressed against a sea of crushing poverty. after you've seen the chrysler building, the empire state and yawn, wall street, who cares? central park is nice, but there's lots of nice urban parks throughout the world. queens is ethnically interesting, but hardly any tourists go there. and i totally agree: new yorkers think that the entire world never existed and there is no history or culture before henry hudson appeared on the scene. it's the most provincial mentality i have ever experienced. new yorkers are amazed when you tell them that you would not want to live and die there, even in a 350 square foot condo that costs 1.2m. to hear new yorkers or the rubes that come to inhabit the place trumpet its glories, you'd swear nyc is the place where christ left his sandals or something. as far as i'm concerned, people who think nyc is the greatest are generally hicks who haven't been around or travelled much outside manhattan. poor deluded them! they need to get out more.

other overrated places include:

bangkok - filthy, whores, stench, pirated goods, poverty, corrupt, obnoxious, money grubbing people and did i forget to mention.....whores!

hollywood - blue plastic and the world's biggest pseudo city

las vegas - a giant pinball machine with imitation new york and paris skylines designed from a test tube

rome - the ruins are great, but the rest of the postwar city is pretty ugly and boring

prague - a beautiful and interesting city, but too damned many young, yuppie tourists screwing the place up and driving up prices

los angeles - were it not for the glorious weather and the palm trees, who the hell would go there?

dallas - parking lots surrounded by tall buildings and cowboys

provence - pretty, picturesque and a gastronomer's delight, but played out, run down in places and sacked out with wealthy republicrats and academics on sabbatical. yawn!

underrated places that do not get enough tourist schrift: boston, chicago, malaysia, philippines, brno & plzen czech republic, trieste italy, columbus indiana, san diego, montreal, quebec city, michigan's UP, the great river road, oxford mississippi and even new orleans, run down as it as after katrina, normandy & the ardenne, gdansk.