As tourism continues to grow worldwide, overcrowded tourist attractions becomes an ever-increasing problem. An ever-increasing solution is to suggest alternative attractions, although seldom as unlikely as the ones we have named here.
Overcrowded: Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Alternative: Taj Auto Mall, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Granted, the Taj Mahal is one of the world’s architectural wonders. But it has become so crowded that visits are officially limited to three hours. At the Taj Auto Mall, on the other hand, you can take all the time you want to look over their inventory of more than 800 used cars. With bad credit or even no credit, financing is as low as 1.9%. And, according to the new management, if you are not happy with your purchase there’s a three-day exchange policy.
Alternative: Viagra Falls, Red Rock Canyon, Nevada
With more than eight million visitors a year at Niagara Falls, lines are often so long to get aboard the attraction’s 600-passenger excursion boat, Maid of the Mist, that visitors who give up in frustration might well call it Maid of the Missed. There are seldom lines to worry about, however, at Viagra Falls, a mountain climbing route at an area known as Panty Wall, in Southern Nevada’s Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. Despite the route’s somewhat titillating name — for those whose minds are so disposed — few climbers call it particularly hard.
Overcrowded: Eiffel Tower, Paris, France
The Eiffel Tower is one of the most recognized and overcrowded tourist attractions in the world. To avoid the crowds, though, and the steep ticket prices, it’s possible to visit replicas in cities all around the world. Few cities, however, have as much justification for creating their own version of the Iron Lady as Paris, Tennessee, whose Eiffel Tower Park contains a 60-foot model of the 1,063-foot icon. And not even the original Paris can claim, as the Tennessee town can, to also be home to the World’s Biggest Fish Fry, held every year in April since 1953.
Why is Italy’s Leaning Tower of Pisa one of the world’s most overcrowded tourist attractions? Because who doesn’t enjoy somebody else’s goof-up on such a grand scale? Especially since the builders already knew, even before construction was completed in the mid-1300’s, that the whole thing was going to tilt. But you know how working with subcontractors can be. By comparison, the Leaning Tower of Pizza, in Minneapolis, has been standing upright since 1952. Still, it gets its crowds, in part because of a pizza menu that ranges from Buffalo Chicken to Italian Stallion. And in part, no doubt, because it has two Happy Hours.
Counting its many, often unconnected, sections, the Great Wall of China is more than 13,000 miles long. But the section most tourist see is not far north of Beijing, where the crowds can be so thick that to walk any length of it is largely an experience of trying to avoid arms and elbows. But at the Great Wall of Clarksville, a Chinese restaurant in Clarksville, Virginia, unless you arrive at the height of the lunch buffet, which has proven so popular they are now serving it seven days a week, you can usually walk right in and have no trouble finding a table.
The modern world has so encroached on the Great Pyramids of Egypt that within steps of them you can find a golf course and an always-crowded Pizza Hut. So why go all the way to Egypt to see great pyramids when downtown Memphis, Tennessee, is home to Bass Pro Shops at the Pyramid, a destination shopping experience housed in the world’s tenth-tallest pyramid? For those hoping to find treasures within the pyramids, the Memphis Pyramid is also home to the Beretta Fine Gun Center, a Ducks Unlimited Waterfowling Heritage Center,and Uncle Buck’s Fishbowl and Grill. And a claim not even the Great Pyramids of Egypt can make, a photo of it appears on Tennessee driver’s licenses.
Overcrowded: Acropolis, Athens, Greece
Imagine you are visiting the Acropolis in Athens. You’ve taken, along with the thousands of other people sharing the experience with you, the necessary selfies in front of the Parthenon, the Erechtheion, and the Temple of Athena Nike. But what you really want to see is a place where you can get something to eat. That’s far more easily done at Sigmone’s Acropolis Meats & Deli, on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Family run since 1975, Sigmone’s not only sells all types of meat in bulk but also offers to-go meals from $6.99.
Overcrowded: Stonehenge, United Kingdom
Alternative: Carhenge, Alliance, Nebraska
Despite so many people visiting England’s Stonehenge that timed tickets must now be purchased in advance, more and more are realizing that visually the ancient attraction is, after all, just an arrangement of big stones whose purpose continues to be debated. There’s no doubt, however, what Nebraska’s Carhenge is about. The thirty-nine spray-painted grey cars, some welded to form arches between others half buried in a circle, will make it clear to future historians that members of the civilization residing in America around the beginning of the third millennium were devout worshipers of the automobile.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,” is a good description of waiting in line to see the Statue of Liberty. About the only time the masses haven’t been out in full force during visiting hours recently was when police evacuated the island the iconic statue stands on while they negotiated with a woman who had climbed part way up the outside of the 305-foot structure and refused to come down. If you like to observe histrionics in a more serene setting, visit the Statue of Liberace, on display in the Viva Las Vegas room of the celebrity wax museum Madame Tussauds Las Vegas.
