Thursday, October 1, 1998 Published at 13:33 GMT 14:33 UK
Where is the most boring place on earth? Your reaction
I think the most boring place I have ever been to is the Heathrow Airport public viewing platform! There are people sat up there with packed lunches, binoculars and CB radios checking for planes, that they think they haven't already seen, in their notebooks and guides. It's cold, drizzling, and there is just a constant stream of screaming planes taking off. A few brain dead sparrows beg for crumbs. Exciting? I think not!!!
Kristy, Oxford, England
Well, I guess it's all relative. But I've never been anywhere that's got me completely bored. You can always find something to keep yourself occupied. Boredom is a state of mind, after all. Having said that, the LEAST INTERESTING place for me was a semi-submersible oil rig, 100 miles off the coast of northern Sakhalin Island, in the Sea of Okhotsk. It got so bad after four weeks, it gave me a psychosomatic toothache.
If "boring" is synonymous with inactivity, I'd have to say a certain bedroom located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue qualifies.
The absolute most boring place on earth without a doubt is Wilson Borough,PA,USA.
Allendale, New Jersey, USA.
Redditch 'officially'. Yet another new town like Telford, it won an award for the most boring postcard in the UK. The postcard illustrated the town centre's bus station. Need I say
The most boring place I have ever been to is Bognor Regis.
I have to nominate Rainham (Kent) and its housing estates. The focus of life in Rainham is either the library or the small Tesco's. The Kent Coast sea view consists of a great view of the oil refinery on the Isle of Grain, the sea air is stale, clammy and full of London pollution, and the nearest thing to sea beaches is the mud flats. If you want to go for a walk, there are endless roads filled with houses, but you will eventually come out either by the motorway or a busy main road.
It has to be Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. It's flat; in fact it's so flat that you could almost believe the world isn't round. There's two seasons, winter when it rarely rises above -20'C, and frequently heads down towards -60'C with the wind chill. In the summer it's hot, stifling and the bugs come out. There's no in between. You're also about a day's drive away from anywhere with some nightlife. If I ever go there again it'll be too soon.
The three most boring places: 1. Dallas, Texas - at least 600 miles to anything remotely interesting. 2. All of Belgium - too interested in internal racism and beer to be of interest to anyone else. 3. Anywhere north of Watford, England.
Highbury, London, home of Arsenal Football Club, enough said!
I have to wholeheartedly agree that Norfolk and the rest of the Fenlands are completely dull; not merely dull because of the lack of interesting and stimulating pastimes to experience, but geographically too. Completely flat, monotone horizons where its usually gloomy, overcast and damp. The people usually have very little to say and when they do it's usually biased, ill-informed generalisations. You get the feeling that they still believe that the next village is on the other side of the world and they might fall off if they ever went there.
The most boring place on earth is Telford in Shropshire. It is a new town built solely for business and with no regard whatsoever for anybody with an ounce of humanity. The housing estates look like they were designed by three-year olds and everywhere looks the same. There is an indoor shopping centre that is called the town centre but it is not a town. It is a shopping mall with very average shops that close early evening, meaning that anyone who needs to get from the train station to the bus station has to walk several hundred yards, possibly at the mercy of muggers. There is no art gallery, no decent bookshop, no community and the local theatre welcomes at best 3rd rate artists. Their publicity material uses a many years' old picture of Ruby Wax. I've been here ten years and I don't remember her here. The place suffers from some of the lowest wages in the country and is covered in litter. It is just a labour farm. Do you remember the TV ads for Telford years ago? What a joke!
Any small American town, I can't tell the difference between any of them.
Houston, Texas is one of the most boring places on earth unless you like shopping in big malls. These have two uses, besides somewhere for your kids to go and hang out (not that I have any, so in my case it doesn't apply). Shopping in Houston is very economical, goods being considerably cheaper than in England. And they provide a source air conditioned comfort during the long, hot, humid summer months, all 12 of them. As I write it is 98 degrees and October.
Yikes, this may not go down too well, but Canada is a rather boring place. I used to think that Canadians were wrong when they complained that this country had no identity of its own, but they have since convinced me!
Texas is the most boring place I've ever been to, and I've lived in four countries on three continents, and travelled the world extensively.
Doha, Capital of Qatar, in the Middle East is THE most boring place in the World. There are no Theatres, Cinemas, Cultural Centres (apart from the Pearl 'Museum' in the Holiday Inn reception), Bars, Restaurants (apart from, yes, the Holiday Inn).
I'd have to say, from my limited travels, that I feel that the state of New Jersey (U.S.) is the most boring place on earth.
Have not the locals in Norfolk proved Mrs Wilson's point by their reaction and boorish tactics?
I recall spending a miserable couple of hours at Nuneaton station in Warwickshire, one January night, in the snow and wind. Whether boring is more approprate than desolate as a descriptor I don't know. However, it must be a contender.
Moscow. The city itself isn't so bad, but get out into some those housing complexes that dot the tundra, and you've got the miserable place on earth.
The most boring place in the world is London. I hate it.
I agree Telford is extremely dull but it is positively lively compared to Milton Keynes with all the straight roads and roundabouts. Has anyone ever heard a Milton Keynes accent?
The most boring place in the world is anywhere where I don't want to be: bus stops, waiting rooms, the office, conferences, supermarkets, Workington.
One determines by oneself where one is bored to death. If one has something interesting to do, it does not matter where one lives or works - one will have a joyful life even in the middle of the Sahara Desert.
Abbotsford, BC tops the list for the most boring place in which to be incarcerated. Having spent 22 years in this city has been a complete waste of a third of my lifetime.
My vote goes to the town of Canby in the state of Oregon, USA. Perhaps it's different now, but as a child I visited there and found it far less inspiring than many tiny villages in Mexico, which I had also been through on a recent trip by car while on the way to Mexico City. A close runner-up would be most of the state of Texas!
I tend to agree that the grass is always greener etc. Having lived on several continents and travelled to the "four corners" I have to agree that on the whole the USA is, if not the most boring, certainly one of the most boring places in the universe. This is not because the US doesn't have anything to offer, it's because the US is the king of kitsch and obsessed with the material. Also everyone in the US wants to be from somewhere else, hence, millions of Italian/Greek/Irish Americans but absolutely no American Americans.
The House of Representatives in Washington, DC, 50 minutes into a Clinton State of the Union address.
Washington has to be the most boring place on earth. Every day it's the same old corruption and the same old speeches from the people that we've learned to distrust. Nothing ever changes in Washington.
Perth, Western Australia is just sooooooooooooo dull! As the locals will tell you: 'It's not the end of the earth, but it sure as hell has the same zip code'.
The most boring inhabited area on the planet (parts of the Australian Outback came first to mind, but that's too easy) is the North American region that encompasses North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, southern Manitoba and the western half of Minnesota. Flat as a pancake for as far as the eye can see, with a declining population that for the most part still adheres to ultra-provincial attitudes. There's snow on the ground for up to six or seven months a year, which only serves to make the flat, monotonous, mostly treeless landscape look even bleaker.
Bellows Falls, Vermont is tied with Claremont, New Hampshire.
The most boring place on earth is in front of the television.
BASINGSTOKE! Without any doubt, this is the most boring place on the planet. Reading, Berkshire, would run a close second, followed by Koln in Germany, third.
When I was living and working in Huntsville, Alabama, USA, someone in a more advanced state of boredom at work than me had looked up the slang word 'dullsville' in a standard American dictionary, or maybe they had been idly reading the dictionary. Anyhow, the word-use example following the word definition said something like, '...dullsville, as in Huntsville.' Someone really bored could drive over to Huntsville, Texas and see if that Huntsville was the one intended by the dictionary. Nah, that would be too boring.
Definitely Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I've lived here almost twenty years and I'm dying of sensory deprivation. It's a company town, where almost everybody is a right wing, reactionary clone of the other guy, and what little culture there is, is cliquey and incestuous. All of the friends I've known here have left (as well as those I'd have liked to get to know) and I'm starting to see the writing on the wall too. The winters are obscene; the streets are rarely cleared of snow because people don't want to pay more taxes. And everybody's into line dancing and swing music.
Boredom has a variety of flavours. The most intolerable boredom associated with terror is sitting in a hospital emergency room awaiting the disposition of a loved one. Time lasts forever, and one cannot even gather the presence of mind to read a magazine; waiting for one's own impending emergency services when one is completely helpless is equally boring. For the most boring of the sleep inducing variety I think church services win hands down, but on the other hand it is a good place to practice sleeping with one's eyes open, a useful skill for judges and politicians.
My 13-year old son would say our house.
Exeter, England. And the people are the snottiest in all of the UK. They should move to Germany.
It has to be the Isle of Man. Described as '70,000 alcoholics clinging to a rock', it's hard to hold a sober conversation. The only interesting thing to do is count your tax-free money.
Without doubt the most boring place on earth, and I have travelled extensively around it, is Pinner in north west London. They have taken suburbia to its ultimate extreme and, like American cheese, have pasteurised and sanitised it to such an extent that it is bland, boring, disappointing and almost intolerable.
Limerick, Ireland, boring, boring, boring!
Jackson, AL, and I challenge anyone to beat it. A dry county (no alcohol, legally), with a lot of hypocrites at that, two restaurants that are not "fast food", and you will not make a friend or get help from anyone if you weren't born there. I can document cases on that.
Any location that's hosting a 'dry' wedding reception!
There are no boring places - just boring people.
I lived for 6 months in a rural Virginian area (it wasn't even a town) that really had nothing going for it but some really potent "country air". My dad's apt comment when he visited was, "If I lived here I'd be drunk by noon!"
Mattoon, Illinois, USA, is the MOST boring place on the face of the planet. It is of interest to geologists because it is as flat as a pancake...geologists travel to marvel at the sheer dullness of the landscape. For variety and excitement, you can watch the soybeans grow. Once a year the city hosts the world's largest bagel breakfast, where they line tables up and down the main street and celebrate the fact that there is still one factory (the bagel plant) in town that hasn't shut down. Except for that one day a year, where the newspapers are full of the same quotes as the previous year ('Bagels are OK, but I'd rather have a donut') the flat countryside and the soybeans are basically as exciting as it gets.
Sunderland is the most boring place in the world. Dreary and dismal, no life in the city and the inhabitants are miserable and rude.
I've only travelled within North America so I can only give my opinion on boring places within that continent. I am sure however that there are many places that are boring around the world which I have yet to enjoy. The most boring place I have been to in Canada would have to be Wawa, Ontario. This town, like hundreds of others, has absolutely no character to it. Life in this town revolves around your pickup truck, the mini-mall and Thursday evening TV. I'm sure that this occurs all over the place but Wawa stood out amongst the other lack-lustre towns that dot Canada. For the US I don't have a specific place to name. I think the generic "suburbia" of the US is mind-numbing. Mexico may seem like the most exciting place to me simply because it's so foreign to my culture.
Anywhere in the USA!!! All there is, is a bunch of overpriced stuff crammed into malls!! Yuck! If I want to be ripped off I'll stay at home and buy a car.
Enough of the existentialist rubbish - Reading in England. Closely followed by Le Havre in Normandy, France. Some places are just intrinsically boring.
The most boring place I've been to would definitely be Bakersfield, California (USA). The shopping mall is the only distinguishing feature in a town of 250,000 people. It's at least
2 hours away from any major city, basically near a big desert with not many places to go to. And yup it's hot.
I think New Zealand would be pretty boring, but having said that I've never been. But the only interests seem to be snow and sheep.
Yikes, this may not go down too well, but Canada is a rather boring place. I used to think that Canadians were wrong when they complained that this country had no identity of its own, but they have since convinced me! Strip Plazas and Shopping Malls. Straight roads and traffic jams. Night life is very limited and theater culture is the latest musical. The people are hard pressed to understand a well turned phrase and the "sitcom" is king of prime time. If I hear one more DJ hack out more forced laughter, I'm going to break my radio. They cannot go from the stupid to the sublime, because there is no sublime in Canada, it all went south, where it got shot trying to buy a six pack in a late night smoke shop. All I want is a decent chat in a decent pub with a decent beer. I'll forget the theater, but how about a windy road and a car with some soul. I'll trade the content for a well turned phrase. I'll burn the malls for a wet high street and a decent bakers.
The most boring place is anywhere you've been too long.