I’m always suspicious of lists.* For example, who is actually qualified to name the top 100 movies of all time? Surely the starting point would be to have seen every movie ever made – which, of course, is impossible.
So I approached the Travel + Leisure magazine list of World’s Unfriendliest Cities with my usual caution. To be fair to T+L, they make it clear that it’s based on a poll in which readers were asked to rank 266 cities. (This also resulted in a World’s Friendliest Cities list, but how much fun is that?)
I assume that none of the respondents had been to all 266 cities, but I guess if the sample of respondents was large enough (again I don’t know if it was), then some sort of reliable pattern would have emerged. Or at least a snapshot of what constitutes a warm welcome to the readers of T+L.
What worried me was that the losers included some places that I like a lot — Moscow, St Petersburg, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Boston and Frankfurt.
It took a while, but then I realised why I liked those places — in each case I was travelling with someone who was a local, or was able to introduce me to locals. So, rather than the hit-and-run approach tourists often take, I was at least a little immersed in these places.
In Philadelphia, I was staying with an old university friend and his wife, and we went together to New York. In Cambridge, near Boston, I was staying with friends of those friends, and we went to some out-of-the-way places (along with the compulsory “Cheers” bar, the Bull & Finch).
I visited Moscow and St Petersburg with a friend from Belarus, who not only spoke Russian, but was able to secure us cheap, cheerful, apartment-style accommodation in residential areas away from (but close to) the tourist traps.
Some of my worst travel experiences have been when I’ve stayed at those hotels where there’s a kind of false welcome from people who know they are never going to see you again.
My point here is that your perception of how “friendly” a city is very much depends on the people you meet. And that’s always a lottery – especially when you’re travelling solo or on a package deal.
*Apart from this one, which calls me an “influential journalist”.
