10 Once-Popular Tourist Destinations No One Visits Anymore

Trends in travel change all the time, mostly because of Instagram, it would seem. Places no one knew about suddenly become popular, and others become forgotten. Because of war, climate change, crime or simply because there were better offers on hand, these are ten places that were once popular tourist destinations but are now being avoided or ignored.

Beirut, Lebanon

Once known as the “Paris of the Middle East”, Beirut used to be a financial and business hub. Thousands of tourists would flock there to experience the combination of Mediterranean and Eastern culture. For decades after World War II, it saw many rich western visitors who were circling the Mediterranean.

But in 1975 the Lebanese Civil War broke out, lasting a full quarter of a century. This left many of the city’s iconic hotels and attractions bullet-ridden and home to soldiers instead of tourists. And while the early 2000s saw an increase of tourism in the city, violent hostilities with neighbouring Israel, assassinations and recent suicide bombings have turned many people away from what was once a popular tourist destination.

Acapulco, Mexico

While today many of us get our travel advice and inspiration from Instagram influencers, they were hardly the first celebrities to endorse a location and boost tourism there.

As far back as 1920, the European elite were taking their cues from royalty on where to travel to next, with Acapulco recommended by the future King Edward VIII himself. And the visitors kept coming. Who wouldn’t want to follow in the footsteps of John Wayne, or see where JFK and Jackie Kennedy honeymooned? But now, instead of Hollywood celebrities, you find gangs and cartels. Acapulco has become Mexico’s Murder Capital, a title not likely to draw the tourists in. Tourism still comes to the third most dangerous city in the world, but almost all are Mexican visitors. Criminals do not make any effort to hide in Acapulco’s shadows, and poorer citizens, particularly taxi drivers, pay weekly fees to these gangs for protection they usually do not get.

Jersey, Channel Islands

The Channel Islands are not particularly high on anyone’s travel bucket list these days, not even for those from the UK or Western Europe who might actually have heard of them. What was once a thriving seaside resort island has had to find a replacement for its tourism industry. This is because cheap airfares to other destinations became widely available and travel by sea a less appealing option.

The decades after World War II saw a sharp increase in visitors to the islands looking for some carefree sunshine. Even the Beatles came for a visit, playing a concert there in 1963. But most hotels have shut, and many tourist attractions only exist in faded brochures from a forgotten era. The island has instead become a tax haven, a sort of Cayman Islands for Europe, taking advantage of its lax tax laws to pull in profits from tax evaders, Soviet oligarchs, even corrupt African officials. But none of this money could bring the tourists back.

Chacaltaya Ski Resort

Bolivia’s only ski resort used to be the highest in the world. Until the snow melted.

Founded in the late 1930s by a local man who later perished in an avalance, the resort is only reachable by a narrow dirt track. Scientists predicted the Chacaltaya Glacier would melt by 2015 because of rising temperatures, but it was a full six years earlier than this that the last of the ice disappeared. There has been no skiing here since 2009, unlike previous years when visitors from all over the Americas and beyond would come to this unique place. Located close to the country’s capital La Paz, the area can still boast the world’s highest restaurant at 17,519 feet above sea level, and amateur mountaineers sometimes come to the summit. But Chacaltaya is still hardly more than a ghost town these days.

Socotra, Yemen

Yemen’s central position in the Middle East, close to the Horn of Africa, has meant it was a popular destination for foreign visitors for centuries. And Socotra, with its unique biodiversity and isolated location in the Indian Ocean, has been wondered at for even longer. Alexander the Great and Marco Polo are just two famous travellers who witnessed the island’s mystique for themselves.

When an outbreak of terrorism began in the late 2000s, followed by the ongoing Yemen Civil War in 2015, Socotra was lucky enough to stay out of the way, hoping to cling on to a tourism industry that had been so important to the Yemeni economy. But it didn’t succeed. Also in 2015, two cyclones ripped through Socotra. And the UAE established a military presence on the island, causing unrest and tension between foreigners and locals. With embargos in place between Yemen and surrounding countries, there is very little movement in or out of Socotra. Travel to the island is limited to cargo ships that may not make it, and souvenir shops see no business, their wares dust-covered and forgotten.

A small number of tourists brave the journey to see the UNESCO World Heritage Site and its unique dragon-blood trees, but compared to the 3000 or so visitors a year the island saw up to 2013, these numbers are almost nothing.

Varosha, Cyprus

Up until 1974, when the island nation of Cyprus was abruptly cut in two, Varosha was a French Riviera-style destination, welcoming celebrity visitors like Brigitte Bardot and Elizabeth Taylor. The romanticized memories of the displaced locals involve an artistic hub, golden beaches and high-rise, luxurious hotels.

There were 15,000 Greek Cypriots living in Varosha during this tourist heyday. When the Turks invaded the island in July 1974, they fled the area, thinking they’d be able to return to their homes within a few days. But the Turkish Military fenced off the neighbourhood and threatened to shoot anyone stepping foot in the former resort quarter. Decades later, the displaced are nowhere closer to going home. The few people brave enough to sneak through the fences and risk the guards’ bullets have found trees growing uninhibited through hotels, bullet holes in walls and even 1970s style clothing covered in dust on forgotten mannequins.

With the uneasy peace between the Greeks and Turks on the island not always reliable, it does not look like Varosha will be opening up to tourists again anytime soon.

Pyramids of Meroë, Sudan

When we think of pyramids, it is probably Egypt’s Great Pyramids of Giza that come to mind. But far to the south, along the Banks of the Nile in the Meroë region of Sudan, lies hundreds of pyramids, almost as old and just as unique. Unknown to most people, Sudan has twice as many pyramids as Egypt. But with the division of the country in 2011, an ongoing refugee crisis and economic sanctions imposed by the West, tourism in Sudan has dropped to about 10% of what it used to be. Credit cards and iPhones do not work and little tourist infrastructure can be found in the country.

But the intrepid traveller willing to make the journey will find a desert full of temples and pyramids, crowd-free. Kings and Queens are buried here, known as the “Black Pharoahs”, adopting the same traditions of their sometimes-allies, sometimes-rivals in Egypt to the north.

Villa Epecuén, Argentina

On the shores of Lake Epecuén lies a crumbling ghost town. No one lives here anymore and the only visitors are those who want to see the wreckage left behind. One of the saltiest lakes in the world, Lake Epecuén was the reason for both the creation and the destruction of Villa Epecuén.

From 1921 until 1985, this was a spa resort town, the minerals from the salty lake waters bringing in flocks of tourists wanting to sample the healing thermal baths. Then the lake flooded. And the flooding didn’t stop until the entire town was submerged ten metres underwater eight years later. The town was a forgotten Atlantis until climate change reared its head again, with a long spell of dry weather and drought in Argentina causing the lake to recede to normal levels. And so Villa Epecuén saw daylight once more. But the damage had been done. The train station built especially for the 20,000 tourists that came each summer, the hotels, the museums and the hippodrome, all gone. The only things left standing are the town’s slaughterhouse and the dead trees bleached white by the salt.

Montserrat

Plymouth is still officially the capital of Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. But there is no one living here now, mainly because the city is buried in volcanic ash, a modern day Pompeii. Any building that wasn’t buried in ash is now buried in vegetation after being abandoned.

Tourism was once a huge part of the Montserrat economy, but the island now relies on aid from the UK and Europe to survive after the 1997 eruption of the Soufriere Hills volcano. Of course, this being a Caribbean island, the population of 5000 is still bolstered by some travellers coming to this once-popular tourist destation, but with 60% of the island now an off-limits exclusion zone, the likes of previous celebrity visitors like Paul McCartney and Elton John are nowhere to be found.

The Dead Cities, Syria

No one knows for sure why Syria’s Dead Cities were abandoned. With most of the several hundred villages still fairly intact, war can’t have been the reason. Climate change, declining economy and plague have all been debated. Some say they should be called the forgotten cities, not the dead ones. But what is known is that they were once centres of pilgrimage to thousands of Christians traveling to see where saints lived and died.

Found across Syria in the region south of Aleppo, these villages no longer see any pilgrims. They hardly see any visitors at all. Most are from the 5^th to 8^th centuries, but there are also the remains of an Iron Age temple dating back to 1200 BCE. Before the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011, tourism was a large part of the country’s economy. But that all changed, especially for the region near Aleppo, which has been heavily damaged by the fighting.

The Syrian government has been trying to bring the tourists back through a media campaign, but a lot of people feel that videos of happy swimmers and beautiful coastlines is not exactly a realistic view of the current state of the country.

Have you ever heard of or even been to any of these once popular tourist destinations no one visits anymore?

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