You’ve no doubt seen the ubiquitous pink boxes being carefully shepherded through the Portland airport by tourists, giddy to bring home a taste of “quirky” Portlandia. You may have also seen the long lines of customers snaking around the block on 3rd Ave in Old Town, waiting for their turn in this iconic establishment. It is, of course, Voodoo Doughnut that I speak of. Long have I railed against this Portland institution and pleaded with visiting friends not to waste their time there. I’ve maintained for years they’re widely overrated and—dare I say it?—just not very good. And now, my friends, vindication is mine.
A new study was published yesterday by USA Today for a piece entitled, “Top 100 biggest tourist traps worldwide.” In it, they analyzed over 23 million Google reviews of the top tourist attractions in the country. When words like “expensive” and “overrated” were found, the attraction was flagged. And get this—out of 500 overrated tourist attractions in the country, our very own rebel donut shop was number one, baby! That’s right, according to the report, and I quote: “Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, Oregon, is the most overrated tourist attraction in the world,” meaning it had the highest average of reviewers who
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