Sometimes, when we travel, we go somewhere with a lot of hype and are disappointed. Other times, we're going to a place of historic significance with a past of tragedy and trauma.
Sometimes, our travels are work or humanitarian aid-related.
Whatever the circumstances, travel isn't always sunshine and rainbows.
Reddit user General-Mango_ asked:
"What’s the most depressing place you have traveled to?"
Suburban Paris, France
"Outer suburbs of Paris. It's really, really grim and depressing."
~ timfountain4444
"Took a train from Paris to Bayeux and the outer suburbs are lifeless. Run down buildings that all look the same."
"Once you get into the countryside, it’s beautiful."
~ Jan_17_2016
"I figured someone would say Paris mainly because of all the hype. I live in a suburb and the urbanisme has exploded, fields becoming movie theatres and industrial zones."
"My little historic village is preserved for now, but all the changes make me realize it won't be here in twenty years, bar a massive intervention."
~ Sigbac
Disaster Relief
"I’m a registered nurse who volunteered in health services with the American Red Cross."
"It’s really daunting and depressing working at disaster sites. Especially when you arrive right after the incident."
~ thomport
"Also a healthcare worker in Asheville, North Carolina. The Emergency Department was a nightmare before the calvary showed up. There’s a confused helplessness that falls on people when their world is upturned."
"You want to help, but at the same time, you’re only slightly less confused and helpless yourself, so there’s really nothing you have to offer except for bandaging their wounds (physical or emotional) and sending them away, wherever that is."
~ Broken_castor
Terror Háza, Budapest, Hungary
"Terror Háza—House of Terror, museum in the former SS and Gestapo headquarters in Budapest that was later used by the communist government. The cells in the basement had shackles on the walls, and drains in the floor."
"If you went in the room, you did not come out alive."
"I'm not superstitious, but the place had a very weird feel to it, especially in the basement. Thousands of people were tortured and put to death from 1944 to 1990."
~ bigwavedave000
Pripyat, Ukraine
"Pripyat, Ukraine, near the Chernobyl reactors, was one of the most depressing places I’ve ever visited."
"The abandoned apartment buildings, schools with children’s toys left behind, and an eerie silence made it feel like time had stopped after the nuclear disaster."
"It was haunting to see how life had been completely erased from an entire city."
~ BunnieAva
Salton Sea, California, USA
"Salton Sea, California—a shallow, landlocked, highly saline endorheic lake."
"Take whatever backwater, dejected town that makes you think 'man this place is dying' and then kill it and travel 40 years into its future."
"That’s Salton Sea. It’s pure depression porn."
~ Shumina-Ghost
"The Salton Sea is an absolute trip!
"It's like stepping into some freakish other world that had been abandoned and left to rot. The beaches are even covered with dead fish."
"It's kind of a bizarre and fun place to explore at least once, though."
~ HidingInTrees2245
Frozen In Time
"My dead cousin's bedroom. He died 2 years ago and his room is exactly how he left it back in 2022. It’s jarring to go in there and see reminders on his calendar for March 2022."
~ KCHlll
"A buddy of mine died back in 1999 in a car crash. His parents have kept his room exactly the same ever since."
"Whenever I would go visit them, they would say, 'do you want to see his room?' I haven't been to visit them in a long time because I just can't do it."
~ Semi_Lovato
"My best friend died in 1991 when we were 14. His room at his parents' house has not been touched since."
~ Jealous-Network1899
Casinos Worldwide
"When I went into a casino for the first time I decided that it would be a place I'd have no business with."
"Rows and rows, beyond sight, of slot machines. Random chance designed to bring more potential profit to the house than the users. And every seat was full. And nobody smiled. They all just stared at the slot machines and pulled levers for that next chance at a big win."
"It was dark, crowded, and I saw not one person having fun. Just flashy lights and loud carnival sounding noises coming from the machines to set the atmosphere and make people think the place was a happy and fun location."
"And you know some of them are just there to spend money to feel that quick high, and know damn well they are unlikely to even break even. But a lot of them are legitimately addicted to it, and you know they are draining countless thousands for that chance to win big, and any numbers person could tell you in an instant it is not worth it."
"It made me very sad. Seeing so many people, more people than I can count sitting in front of those machines, and again, none of them were smiling."
"Please remember, maybe a couple times you will walk into a casino and play slots and make a profit. But only spend what you are willing to lose, and always remember: the house always wins."
~ killedmayer2
Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA
"I went to Atlantic City for the weekend during the winter with some friends one time. Dark, grey, drab, reeked of cigarettes and desperation."
"And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I started feeling under the weather, so I took a Greyhound bus home that Saturday night."
"Let me tell you, the people who leave AC on a bus on a Saturday night are not a happy bunch."
~ DeltaSteps
Westbury, England, UK
"Westbury. It's a town in southern England—Wiltshire I think—and I don't have anything against it. It just happened to be the train station I was always at at 10pm while travelling home."
"I went between Southampton and Exeter a lot at the time. It always made me depressed."
"Maybe it was the closed café that looked like it would be nice when it's open, maybe it was the hanging baskets of flowers under moonlight and artificial light, maybe I was just homesick."
"But the place always made me sad."
~ DirtyToe5
Dachau Concentration Camp, Germany
"I went to Dachau. We took a train—which was filled with 18-20 year old Europeans—for a 20 minute ride to the camp. Spirits were high, lots of laughing and joking amongst them on the train there."
"Once we got there, it was a memorial park before you entered the camp and it was deathly quiet. No birds chirping, no insects humming, just an eerie silence and it was in the middle of the afternoon."
"That place has a dark haunting energy about it and I’m not even into paranormal stuff seriously. The train ride back that same group of Europeans were dead quiet. Everyone was."
"That night I had a nightmare that people broke into my mom’s and I hotel room and took us away separately. It was such a realistic dream too, the fear, the details of our hotel room were spot on."
"I don’t know if it was a coincidence or not, but I can still remember that dream like it happened to me last night."
"I’m glad I went, but I never want to go to another concentration camp again."
~ Tatertot729
Orphanage In Jamaica
"An orphanage in the mountains of Jamaica. It was specifically meant for physically and mentally disabled children. They received one meal a day, usually the same meal. They were extremely understaffed, I doubt the workers were even paid, honestly."
"There was a room of about 12 hand made bassinets, each with a baby and only one lady to care for them all. There were obvious signs that they were emotionally and physically neglected as a result of the understaffing. Even though the workers were absolutely lovely and poured their heart into these kids, there's only so much they can do."
"I won't go into detail, but it's been 20 years and it still makes me cry, even more now that I'm a mother. I look at my 12-day-old son and I cannot imagine seeing him live like that. No child deserves it."
"One particularly haunting scene was a 12-year-old boy who had arms and legs the width of broom sticks. He lived 99% of his life in a baby crib that he was too tall for, whether he was curled up because of that or whatever his infliction was, I don't know."
"The workers would take him out once a day to cradle him and feed him. He was partially blind and nonverbal. The most we were allowed to do was read to him."
"I wish I had the kind of money it would take to help these places. It's one thing to know that people, CHILDREN, are out there existing in these kinds of conditions. To see it, especially as a 14 year old kid, it's an entirely different, unforgettable thing."
"I love Jamaica and its people, they're resilient and one of a kind. We visited several orphanages, one right in Montego Bay. It's crazy to me that just a few blocks away on the coast are rich Americans splurging on endless jerk chicken and Pina colada, getting their hair braided for 10% of the cost it'd be in the US, just completely oblivious that there are starving children within walking distance."
"I still see one of their faces. She was about 2 and had a shock of white hair amidst her black hair, right above her right eyebrow. I can't remember her name but I remember her face perfectly."
~ Next-Firefighter4667
Indigenous Reservations, USA
"I worked for a while very near a Native American reservation, one of the very poor reservations. I’m a firefighter and we’d respond onto the reservation somewhat frequently for fires or medical emergencies and it was just insane to me how impoverished these people were."
"It felt like I was walking around a 3rd world country and just a few miles away were people so wealthy they created a private road from the local airport to their gated community because they didn’t want to drive on the roads with 'the poors' anymore."
~ styrofoamladder
"TLDR: Americans need to learn American history."
"My Até (Father in Lakhótiyapi) was born and sent to boarding school at Pine Ridge and is enrolled on The Rosebud."
"Both are in geographically desolate areas—Mako Sica (The Badlands)—where crops can't grow and the only animals suited for the area were slaughtered from millions of animals in each of the three major herds to near extinction to starve the Indigenous peoples into submission."
"By the 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie with the United States government, large areas uninhabited by colonizers or settlers were ceded to the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux Nation) 'forever'."
"Then someone found gold in Paha Sapa (Lakhóta holy land the Black Hills), so they took that. Then ranchers wanted the open grasslands for their cattle and sheep, so they took the best of that land. Then they wanted state or national parks, so they took the best land for that. Then they wanted a 'land grant university', so they took the best land for that—all 'land grant universities' are on land stolen from Indigenous ceded treaty lands. Then they wanted an Army or Air Force Base (Ellsworth in South Dakota), so they took the best land for that."
"Is there a poverty-stricken reservation near your state or national park or state university or military base? Now you know why."
"After the government stole back all the best land from every tribal nation—violating their own legally binding agreements without negotiation or monetary or other compensation—tribes were left with the worst land no one wanted."
"Until oil or uranium was found, then they tried to find ways to steal that. When the theft they always relied on didn't work, they just killed Indigenous people to get it after passing laws that if White people married an Indigenous person, the White person would get control of all tribal assets (land, mineral rights, timber) because Indigenous people needed caretakers."
"For decades, Indigenous people couldn't leave the reservation without a pass from the White Indian Agent assigned to their reservation. Abraham Lincoln ordered the execution of 38 Indigenous men for leaving the reservations where they were being starved to death to hunt for or steal food from ranches and towns on their stolen treaty land."
"People who stayed still live without running water of electricity. People who left lost their cultural connection and in many cases their tribal enrollment and Indigenous status—regardless of ancestry or bloodlines."
"Stay and be geographically isolated and unemployed and live in poverty or leave and lose your identity."
"Then people look at reservations and act mystified about the conditions there. If Americans were taught the non-white washed history—the truth instead of the myths and lies—no one would be surprised that the highest poverty rates in the United States are on reservations like Pine Ridge."
~ LLakotaGrl
Baker, California, USA
"Stopped to get gas in Baker, California, on a road trip. I couldn’t help but think of that quote from True Detective, 'this is like someone’s memory of a town, and that memory is fading'."
~ TrentonTallywacker
"Whenever I drive through Baker, I always think about the people who are willing to live here and the surrounding tiny towns on the 395 up to Mammoth."
"I usually rationalize it by just accepting these people don’t want anything to do with civilization."
"Hey, and you can’t beat the world’s largest thermometer!"
~ TheAmishPhysicist
What was the most depressing destination you visited?
