Tuesday, April 04, 2017

Is Skegness as bad as Pyongyang?

Skegness rated as one of the world's worst holiday destinations.


As a fan of the British seaside experience I was shocked to read that Skegness had been rated amongst the world's worst holiday destinations.

Skegness in May 2015
Skegness in May 2015

The list of 11 Worst Travel Destinations in the World You Should Skip was published by the Destination Tips website in November 2014 and recently picked up by news outlets and social media.

Playing the classic Arnold Palmer Crazy Golf course in Skegness on Miniature Golf Day in May 2015
Playing the classic Arnold Palmer Crazy Golf course in Skegness on Miniature Golf Day in May 2015

We've been to Skegness - aka Skeg-Vegas - on our Crazy World of Minigolf Tour travels and we love it there. There's no other town in the UK with as many miniature golf courses as Skeggy. On our last visit in 2015 we counted nine Crazy Golf, Putting, Adventure Golf and Pitch & Putt courses on the seafront alone, not to mention those in holiday camps and caravan parks in the area and the neighbouring resort at Ingoldmells.

Skegness was also the site of England's first-ever Crazy Golf course. There's still a playable course on the same spot on South Parade.

Skegness - The site of England's first-ever Crazy Golf course. The game has been played on this spot since 1926
The site of England's first-ever Crazy Golf course. The game has been played on this spot since 1926

In addition to Skegness and Pyongyang, Destination Tips also suggests you give a wide berth to:
- Bogota, Colombia
- Ciudad Juarez, Mexico
- Damascus, Syria
- Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Kiev, Ukraine
- Mogadishu, Somalia
- Moscow, Russia
- Port au Prince, Haiti
- Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

My friend Dylan Harris runs Lupine Travel, a company which takes adventurous tourists to far-flung and often troubled destinations. On one of Lupine's excursions to North Korea the holidaymakers played in the first Pyongyang Minigolf Open Tournament.

Miniature Golf course in Pyongyang, North Korea. Photo by Dylan Harris of Lupine Travel
Pyongyang's Miniature Golf course

Maybe there are comparisons to be drawn after all...

Related blog posts:
- Skegness
- Skeg-Vegas!
- Mini Golf in Skegness
- Mini Golf in Pyongyang, North Korea

Link:
- Destination Tips website

3 comments:

James Mullarkey said...

I've been to Pyongyang and it was great https://www.jamesmullarkey.com/2007/04/north-korea/ Also I thought Kiev was lovely https://www.jamesmullarkey.com/2009/07/ukraine-kiev/

Bit harsh all round.

James

Richard Gottfried said...

Blimey!

I'm sure it'd be incredibly interesting to visit North Korea.

Kev said...

Lists like this are mostly just snobbery. We've been traveling around Europe with the kids and Kiev is by far one of the best places we've visited. Much better than a lot of the "destination" cities we've visited. Sure it's run down in places, but there are run down parts of most cities.