The obligatory Red Bull or Beer Chang T-shirt need not leave Thailand.

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Kitsch ‘Made in China’ copies of The Little Mermaid and tin soldiers. Oh, and those plastic helmets with Viking horns. Oh, and anything to do with Hans Christian Andersen. This is the year of the bicentenary of his birth so you’ll do well to avoid the Hans Christian Andersen wine/ cookies/dolls/badly-translated books of his fairytales/etc.

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Stroget, the long pedestrianised shopping street, has some good places on it, but - rather like London's Oxford Street - has acquired too much tourist tat. The smaller streets running parallel and at angles either side are much more interesting. There are some very good antique shops in the city - concentrated around Bredegade (beyond Kongens Nytorv).

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At Mitad del Mundo, or middle of the world, you can have the all-important photo taken of yourself with one foot in the Southern hemisphere and one foot in the Northern hemisphere. You can also buy a little something for the relatives back home: a genuine panama hat, for instance, or perhaps a stuffed llama.

www.mitaddelmundo.com

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It's erm... either a back massager or a vibrator. Nothing really epitomises kitsch and the whole cult of kawaii (cute) better than the bubble-headed cat Hello Kitty. What could be a more appropriate souvenir of subverting this wholesome image? Just pray you don't get stopped at customs!

Kabukicho in Shinjuku and Shibuya have many ...ahem... shops for adult entertainment which are almost all staffed by sweet old ladies or young students making a yen or two. Hello Kitty products are easy enough to spot.

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Every major city has one: Chinatown in London and New York; Le Quartier Chinois in Paris; Berlin is actually building one. So it may surprise you to learn that even cities in China have Chinatowns too.

In Shanghai it’s the Yu Yuan area, a sealed-off district where development is not quite as rampant as elsewhere and the atmosphere of old China still pervades. At its centre is the famed Yu Yuan teahouse and classical gardens, plus the temple of the city god. Yu Yuan is pretty commercial these days – most of the area’s business is in selling tourist tat, but it’s still the place to go for Chinese arts and crafts.

A bit tricky to get to by Metro. Your best bet is a taxi.

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Any T-shirt, tea towel, apron, flag or mug emblazoned with the silhouetted image of the bull from the Osborne sherry adverts, superimposed on the Spanish flag. Tourists think it looks cool and “Spanish” – but the jingoistic image is satirised in areas of the country where there is strong regional feeling.

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There is absolutely no excuse for coming to Dublin and returning with a big green furry hat.

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Don't buy a digeridoo or any cheap Aboriginal dot paintings (if you want proper Aboriginal art, go to a gallery and buy certified stuff, otherwise it will only have been "handpainted" by British backpackers).

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Avoid anything (posters, T-shirts, trinkets) featuring a London bus or a member of the Royal Family.

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Any tasteless item to be found in the Manchester United superstore at Old Trafford: overpriced and over-red.

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Don't buy any 9/11 memorabilia - it honours the tacky, not the dead.

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All the T-shirts claiming the wearer is from the FBI or CIA or on a witness protection scheme.

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Never buy a brand of tequila that does not say “100% agave” on the label. These are only partially made from the blue agave plant, do not taste as nice and carry with them particularly vicious hangovers.

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The corporate money-making machine that is the Lakers basketball team doesn't need your help to put money in the bank, so resist the temptations of the $70 string vest.

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Mao Zedong watches are good cheap fun, but you’ll be lucky if the Great Helmsman’s ticker lasts more than a month. Leave them behind.

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Any genuine chunks of the Berlin Wall disappeared a long time ago. The small coloured bits now available are all fakes. Don’t buy them. The same goes for furry Russian hats.

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Little wooden dolls that fit inside each other, often with the faces of leaders in descending order, Lenin last, of course.

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Firstly, these piranhas – that come with their own wooden stands – are menacing and desperately ugly to look at. Secondly, they don’t come from Rio. They come from the Amazon – almost 2,000 miles away.

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And the worry beads. No thanks…

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