You Should Not Vacation in this One New Jersey City

A popular website says one city in the great Garden State is among the worst to visit in the entire country.

Oof.

The editors at mindyourdollars.com recently assembled a list of the 40 worst cities to visit in America.

The best that I can tell, there is no formal methodology to the towns that they are shaming, but they say,

Some places that exist...have less-than-stellar conditions for visiting, such as poverty, high crime rates, and unemployment. Other areas are just not all that exciting, despite having a name that’s “known,” or in many cases, a well-known celebrity just happened to grow up there.

In other words, some cities may not be too tourist-friendly while others are just overflowing with tourist traps.

Big cities, big problems

Some big cities are on the list.

There's really no surprise that places like Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, and Cleveland made the cut, mainly due to high crime rates.

Baltimore's Inner Harbor - Photo by Irina Sitnikova on Unsplash

Big cities have crime issues -- that's a given. Especially these days.

vladans

But what about NJ?

The one city in the Garden State that made their list of the 40 worst places to visit in America?

Atlantic City.

Atlantic City beach (Dennis Malloy, Townsquare Media NJ)

Now, here's where I have an issue with this.

Yes, Atlantic City might not be the safest place on earth, but here's why they put AC on their list:

Atlantic City used to be pretty great, until it wasn’t. It was sometime between 2012 and 2014 that five out of the city’s twelve casinos on the beach were shut down, according to the New York Post. This ended up turning the city into a “slum with high crime and high unemployment, plus a beach and boardwalk grafted on.” In other words, perhaps they shouldn’t have closed down so many of the casinos all at once. I’m thinking they probably regret making that decision.

So they're saying Atlantic City is an awful place to visit because of what happened almost a decade ago?

That's absurd.

Do they not realize that Revel closed in 2014 but then reopened as Ocean Casino Resort and is doing quite well?

Ocean Casino Resort in Atlantic City NJ - Photo: Chris Coleman

The Taj Mahal reopened as Hard Rock -- and, again, is doing quite well.

Showboat is proving that you don't need a casino in Atlantic City to draw people in, not to mention their giant waterpark will be opening in a matter of weeks.

That entire northern end of the boardwalk is rockin' on any given weekend.

No research, no methodology

The thought process that put Atlantic City on this list is nothing short of flawed and obviously unresearched.

It, quite frankly, sucks.

Like calling Camden the ugliest city in New Jersey, this is a cheap shot because it's an easy shot to take.

You can check out the full list of the worst cities to visit in America at mindyourdollars.com.

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