Most of my Bahrain trip was awesome, but there was one that didn’t work out. This post is about my Bahrain travel fail, when I visited The King’s Parking Lot.

You probably know which things in your city that a visitor might find interesting. But – imagine if you had never met someone visiting as a tourist. Could you guess what they’d want to see and experience?

My Bahrain travel fail: The Kings Parking Lot

If you want to see everything in a country in just 7 hours of daylight, you have to be organized. Thus on my flight over, I put together a list of places I wanted to visit . Then I mapped them to see if it was feasible. Upon arrival I always try to get local feedback, because often there’s a gem that just doesn’t get publicized.

I hired a taxi driver to tour me around for the day, and he offered to show me some great places that “you can’t leave Bahrain without seeing.” Outstanding! That’s precisely what I was looking for.

However, it appears that his idea of the can’t miss sights greatly differed from mine. He had such a tremendous respect for the Bahrain King and it appears that may have influenced his perspective.

What to see in Bahrain

I saw three types of Bahrain tourist sites.

My pre-arrive plan on what to see

The largest list was what I had on my list already. I put this list together on flight over.

Some of my Bahrain trip included sites that I had researched before the trip. This included fascinating architecture marvels like the Bahrain World Trade Center with wind turbines connected to the building structure.

Great additions from my driver / tour guide

Some were great additions from my driver. I hadn’t heard of what he referred to as the “500 Camels” but it turned out to be a surprising highlight of my Bahrain trip.

Additions from my driver tour guide – Bahrain travel fail

If their recommendations work out, you’ll be more likely to try more. But not every suggestion is going to work out.

For example, he asked, have you ever been to the “King’s Lot” ? It sounded like I was missing but I was so excited about how well his last suggestion worked out. I mapped it, and it’s not that far from my next destination.

We arrived and it’s …a parking lot. I assumed I was missing something. The King often uses this parking lot when he visits this area.  “And we’re standing in it right now!” He was so excited! I figured I heard him wrong, but he repeated it a bunch of times.

It looks like every other parking lot you’ve seen.  A parking lot?

There is a reverence for the royalty that I may not understand. I took a few photos in case I’d catch something more interesting when I review them later. I didn’t. This was my Bahrain travel fail.

The travel fail lesson

People in countries that aren’t well traveled might have trouble imagining what a traveler might find interesting. In this case, my driver was guessing. He’s a driver by profession, but had never met a foreigner coming to Bahrain for anything other than meetings. Thus he hadn’t he could only guess what someone visiting might find interesting.

Still these are all part of traveling. Take calculated risks and talk with locals about where to go.