Most Boring Tourist Attractions in the World

The best time for a Solitaire game is when you are bored, but you probably never plan to be bored on vacation. However, not every stop on an itinerary will yield life-changing results. Some are so dull they make global news headlines!

That’s why we set out to help you avoid boredom on your travels by rounding up the attractions that are sure to prove so tedious they bore you into mediocrity with their drab, dull, and lackluster offerings. We analyzed 66.7 million Google reviews of 3,290 popular tourist attractions worldwide, spanning 384 cities across 71 countries, focusing on 11 keywords indicative of tiresome, lifeless, and downright boring impressions.

We ranked the attractions by the frequency with which tourists mentioned boredom-related keywords, comparing the mentions to the total reviews for each spot. Even if you are a seasoned traveler, read on to ensure you have the knowledge you need to avoid booking a certifiably dull vacation!

Key Takeaways

• Branson Scenic Railway in Branson, MO, is the most boring attraction in the world.
• Museums comprise 33% of the top 100 most boring attractions.
• Four LEGOLAND Discovery Centers are in the top 25 most boring attractions worldwide.
• Georgia is the most boring state, with many attractions and extensive reviews indicating boredom.
• The U.S., Canada, and Australia hold the respective #1–3 spots for countries with the most boring tourist attractions.

Top 100 Most Boring Attractions Worldwide

A Flourish table

You can leave your passport at home for most of our dull journey because the U.S., which comprises only 38.5% of our data, holds 62% of the world’s 100 most boring attractions.

First, on our trek across the world of boring attractions, is the Branson Scenic Railway in Branson, Missouri, where you hop aboard the boring express in the land of misery! What makes it the #1 most boring attraction worldwide? It has the highest proportion of reviews, labeling it boring compared to its total number of reviews.

The next stop is our #2 most boring attraction: The Illuminarium Atlanta in Atlanta, Georgia! This cinematic 360-degree immersive experience offers visitors views of natural wonders and cultural moments. Unfortunately, the Illuminarium appears to be a fully immersive experience of boredom.

Then we hop over to our #3 most boring attraction: The Jurassic Jungle Boat Ride in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, where the park's theme appears far from amusement. This Jurassic adventure is an indoor boat ride through an animatronic dinosaur park. According to the reviews, these dinos are ghosts of their former selves, perhaps worthy of a museum like their fossilized brethren for which they allegedly represent.

Our honorable mention is the Salem Witch Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, the world's 4th-most boring tourist attraction. Despite having the highest number of reviews labeling it boring globally, it ranks 4th because reviews from bored visitors occur far less frequently than positive reviews.

Speaking of museums, they comprise 33% of the world's top 100 most boring attractions, and despite what you may assume, it is not just art, history, and science museums that top the charts. The Museum of Ice Cream in New York, the Hershey Story Museum in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and the International UFO Museum in Roswell, New Mexico, are some of the most boring in the world!

While museums may seem like a logical fit for a dull attraction, you may not assume the same of a family entertainment center. However, four LEGO/LEGOLAND Discovery Centers all rank in the top 25 most boring attractions worldwide! Discovery Centers are smaller versions of the LEGOLAND Theme Park, and according to our data, they removed fun from the original formula, too.

The U.S. States with the Most and Least Boring Attractions

Our analysis reveals that the U.S. holds the majority of boring attractions globally, so we drilled down on the states with the most lackluster attractions. We ranked states based on how often attractions were called boring in reviews compared to the total number of attractions with any reviews labeling them boring in that state. By this metric, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Tennessee are the nation's top three boring states.

Four Georgia attractions are in the top 100 Most Boring Worldwide list. Besides the Illuminarium Atlanta, the world’s #2 most boring attraction, Georgia has 21 certifiably boring attractions, including four on the top 100 most globally boring list. One of the infamously dull LEGO Discovery centers calls Georgia home.

The Children’s Museum of Atlanta is Georgia's third most boring attraction. The last Georgia location on the list of the top 100 most boring attractions is the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta. It’s a museum dedicated to the history of the Coca-Cola Company. Perhaps too many thought they would find the secret Coke recipe there.

Why is Massachusetts #2 on the boredom barometer, with just four attractions earning yawns? According to a chorus of reviewers, these few spots are so mind-numbingly dull that even after applying some fancy logarithmic math to even the playing field, the state's boredom factor skyrockets, securing its place as the runner-up in the national snoozefest.

With its 104 boring attractions, Florida might seem like the boredom capital at first glance. Yet, it only ranks as the 5th most boring state because each attraction garners very few yawns from visitors. Despite many attractions being labeled boring by reviewers, this sentiment is such a minority that Florida only pans out as the 5th most boring state.

On the flip side, with only one attraction labeled boring by one person, North Dakota is the least boring state in the U.S.

On a regional basis, the U.S. South has the most boring tourist attractions in the country.

The Most Boring Tourist Attraction in Every U.S. State

A Flourish table

Museums consistently make our top lists of most boring tourist attractions. However, interestingly, museums are the most boring attraction in only 27% of the U.S. but are the most boring for 32% of countries globally.

As we said before, it’s not just art and science museums that top the charts; it’s niche, specialty museums, too. The Ghost Town Museum in Colorado Springs, Colorado, lives up to its name, earning it the most boring in the state. Although it might deliver on its empty promise, perhaps visitors find the reality of a dead town duller than their imaginations.

There is a theme in the data that tourists allegedly find death boring. Specifically, the Museum of Death in New Orleans is the dullest in Louisiana!

There is also a theme that the less we publicly know about a subject, the more boring tourists find its specialty museum. This theme is true of Georgia’s 4th most boring attraction, the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, and the #1 most boring attraction in New Mexico, the International UFO Museum in Roswell. It also appears true of the International Spy Museum, the #1 most boring attraction in Washington, D.C., where you apparently need a double-0-level clearance to uncover some excitement!

Along with museums, science-themed attractions consistently top the charts for the most boring attractions by state. The Adler Planetarium in Chicago is the most boring stop in Illinois. Reviewers consistently say it is far overpriced for what mostly amounts to reading articles on a wall. However, one reviewer said the Planetarium’s location provides beautiful city views as an apparent silver lining to its boring interior contents.

More broadly, science centers that serve as kernels for science discovery and learning are the most boring attractions in seven U.S. states: Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, and Washington.

When Boredom Comes in Spades

Not every stop on your vacation will be a winner, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t be! If you find yourself sitting around bored or waiting for your other vacation companions to finish with a stop, try playing an online game. You don’t have to feel guilty because, as the data shows, some tourist attractions are boring!

Try a game of Spades, Pyramid Solitaire, Mahjong, Yukon Solitaire, or one of our many other free games the next time you are stuck in the queue at a bustling tourist hotspot or discover that your sense of travel vastly differs from your companions, leaving you loitering about. Unlike a boring vacation, you can’t lose anything playing a game on Solitaired; no subscription is required! It can even be a way to recoup time lost at a boring attraction!

Methodology

In March 2024, we analyzed 66.7 million Google reviews of 3,290 popular tourist attractions worldwide, spanning 384 cities across 71 countries.

We focused our analysis on keyword mentions indicative of a bored tourist. Those keywords were "boring," "bored," "bore," "boredom," "tiresome," "dull," "drab," "lackluster," "lifeless," "mediocre," and "tedious."

To ensure we focused on keywords used in a negative context (in other words, to avoid "This place is great if you are bored!" or "You will never be bored here!"), we used natural language processing (NLP) and keyword-in-context (KWIC) analysis.

We began with a list of 1.4 billion reviews for 5,026 tourist attractions before narrowing to our final 3,290. We removed attractions with less than 2,000 total reviews and removed reviews containing positive uses of our keywords.

We calculated a Boredom Frequency for each attraction by stacking the number of bored reviews against the review total. The attractions with the highest boredom frequencies are the most boring. At the country and U.S. state levels, we used a logarithmic scaling formula with linear weighting combining boredom frequency with the number of boring attractions to arrive at our rankings.