5 People Who Became Unwitting Tourist Attractions

When the girls turned 10, their father finally managed to regain custody of them. Unfortunately, the whole "trapped in a human zoo" thing left the girls so sheltered that, even at 19, one of them still wasn't able to tell the difference between nickels, dimes, and quarters. But who needs that nickel and dime stuff when Ontario's government awards you $2.8 million as compensation? To say nothing of all the royalties they must have gotten for inspiring that one Simpsons episode where Apu learned the dangers of selling his children to a zoo. It seemed like an odd lesson to teach at the time, but apparently it was not common knowledge to the Canadian government.

Case in point: In 1792, Joseph Palmer wrote a guide to England's Lake District called A Fortnight's Ramble to the Lakes in Westmoreland, Lancashire, and Cumberland, which told readers of the lakes, pubs, and castles he'd visited. It also spent quite a bit of time describing people that he'd run into, like the daughter of the innkeeper at the Fish Inn. "Her hair was thick and long," he wrote, "with full eyes and lips as red as vermilion; her cheeks had more lily than the rose (...) the fair Sally of Buttermere."

One little problem: She was 14 years old at the time.

Atlas to Cruttwell's Gazetteer
"But she could be 15 by the time you reach here, so visit now!"

Palmer didn't give her real name (Mary Harrison), but that didn't matter; dudes weren't too interested in what to call her. After all, who needs to call when you have her real address? Have you ever had one of those Facebook privacy leaks make one of your supposedly private posts public? Imagine that it was a bikini pic, and that Facebook auto-published it to Yelp.

Less-than-reputable men flocked to the inn as fast as their horse-drawn carriages could carry them, all because a book told them that an underage waitress there was kinda attractive. We guess it had to be good for the inn's business, but Mary -- surprise! -- didn't like it at all. When Palmer got wind of what was happening, he tried to undo his misdeeds by writing a follow-up to his guide, explaining that Mary was actually very plain and getting all chubby.

Jesus, dude. Stop helping.

National Portrait Gallery
"All that butter's starting to go to her mere, amiright, travelers?"

Publicly insulting her didn't even help. The horny tourists kept coming until Mary finally agreed to marry one of them: the honorable Alexander Hope, MP. Except it later turned out that the man was really John Hatfield, a conman and a forger who had no money, but already had a wife. He was later arrested on charges of bigamy and impersonating nobility and was hanged. Mary was likely sentenced to a lifetime of cheesy pickup lines from skeevy travel writers. Although the profession would later get its comeuppance ...

That kind of popularity does not come without a price: One day Mayle came back home to discover that two Italian tourists had broken into his house. He found them swimming in his pool, excited to be peeing in the same water that's touched the Peter Mayle.

To his horror, Mayle soon realized that what his readers were really interested in wasn't just the picturesque town of Menerbes, where he lived, but rather Mayle himself. One European newspaper, without permission, told its readers to visit Mayle in his Provence home. Another included a handy guide for how to get there, presumably accompanied by a quick tutorial on lock-picking and knot-tying.

Emile Garcin
This is why real celebs choose gated mansions over quaint villas every time.

Before he knew what was happening, scores of travelers made the author's home their primary tourist destination, coming in without knocking, touching his stuff, and being completely baffled when he threw them out. On one occasion, Mayle found a photographer from a British tabloid hiding in the bushes, hoping to get some naked photos of the semi-famous travel writer in his 50s, because the British tabloids are severely misinformed about what constitutes "the people's interest."

Another time, some 20 Japanese women tried to enter the author's home because a travel agent said the building was open for tours. The continuous home invasions finally became too much for Mayle, and he went into exile in the Hamptons. A few years later, he once again relocated to France in a different home that he now protects with a pump-action shotgun. Word is it's a very tastefully appointed shotgun full of Old World charm. Come see it today!

Word spread, and in no time people from all over the world were stopping by just to gawk at the abused corpse of some random immigrant. This wasn't a pharaoh, a king, or even a celebrity -- this was just "some dude." We're not even completely sure what his name was: Various sources have called him "Concetto Farmica," "Forenzio Concippo," "Frezzo Consceppo," or "Formico Cansetto." Of course, this being turn-of-the-century America, casual racism triumphed over all, and most visitors just called him Spaghetti. No, seriously -- they really called him that. The fact that there isn't some sort of mysterious plague wiping out their descendants right now is perhaps the most definitive proof that the supernatural does not exist.

Spaghetti stayed on display for more than 60 years until the Funeral Directors Association decided to give Cancetto a proper burial. The McDougald heir put him in a bronze coffin and, for some reason, poured two tons of cement on it. Hey, we know we just proved that ghosts aren't real, but you treat a dude's body like that for six decades and you hedge your bets a little, you know?

JW Ocker
Stay dead, Spaghetti. Non-zombified carnies are scary enough.

In a short time, Nohara became a local tourist draw. People came up to him to take pictures, have a chat, or buy him a hot meal. All this despite the fact that it's unlikely Nohara had showered once since settling at the airport.

Hmm, we wonder why he had all those "love problems" in the first place?

AFP
"Cool, now get one of us peeing on him. He won't mind!"

Nohara's fame as an international hobo of merit grew until a Japanese woman named Oyuki invited him to visit her in her Mexico City apartment. Nohara left the airport immediately and never went back, although we do want to point out that Oyuki already had a husband at the time, so there probably wasn't a happy ending for everybody. Then again, who knows? If Oyuki had two hands and her husband had an open mind ...

Ryan Menezes is a writer and layout editor here at Cracked. Follow him on Twitter.

Related Reading: Down for more messed up tourist attractions? Check out this statue of turtle bestiality on display in a normal-ass town. If you're more a fan of XXX tourist attractions, we've got a list of those, too, but it is not safe for work. Rather plan your next vacation around badassery? We're happy to help.