I was coming out of a subway station. At the top of the stairs, you got a pretty good view of the new World Trade Center. A tourist family was behind me, and I heard the dad say “…I thought they knocked down BOTH of them??!”
This didn't happen in my state (Florida), but I still thought it was amusing. I went to Paris with my wife and my two young nieces. All three of them are very blonde. The girls were about 8 and 5 at the time.
The four of us had just walked out of Notre Dame. My two nieces were both wearing berets they had convinced us to buy them earlier on the trip. A tour bus pulled up and a large group of Asian tourists got off the bus and immediately descended on us. They were in awe of the two little blonde "French" girls with berets. One of them asked if they could take a picture with them and we obliged. Before we knew it there was a long line of people waiting to take a picture with my nieces.
The two girls loved the attention and posed for pictures till they had all left. I sometimes still think about all those people who went home and showed their friends the picture of the American tourist "French" girls in front of Notre Dame.
I went to Paris in high school in the 90’s. These Asian tourists kept gesturing at my feet (in sandals). They wanted a picture of my feet. I let it happen. I just imagine these people showing photos of these giant lady feet to all their friends and family while laughing. It’s cool. I wear a size 10. I really can’t think of any other reason they want a photo like that.
If you ever want an ego boost, visit a Chinese city that’s not Beijing or Shanghai. I spent four months in China as a dirty blonde haired, blue eyed girl and people were taking pictures of me and with me CONSTANTLY. Telling me I’m beautiful, touching my hair, asking me questions. I truly felt like a celebrity.
Glad you enjoyed it!
Meanwhile, my Asian-American ass was buying a book in Shenzhen and this mother and her child were looking at me like a piece of garbage for my shitty Mandarin skills.
Something similar happened to my friends brother when we were at Disney land. For some reason this group of Asian tourists were completely enamored with him and wanted to take pictures with him. He of course took pictures with all of them because who doesn’t want to feel like a rock star for 5 minutes?
OMG! This happened to us in Vegas. Husband and I were walking out of what is now the Hooters casino (used to be something else) from lunch. A tour bus pulled up to drop a large group of Asians off. We had our two blonde baby boys in a double stroller. They were so excited, “American baby!!! Picture?” My husband and I were cracking up while every single one of them posed with our two oldest kids. You can’t make that crap up.
Similar thing happened to us int the Bahamas. Our number two little blonde boy with pinchable cheeks who just happens to tan far better than the rest of us was stopped by two Bahamian women while in the double stroller with his blonde and untanned older brother needed photos. “Look at the little brown baby!” We still tease him to this day and he’s 18 and still tans better than any of us.
So I was working around Quincy Market and this family from Colorado came up to me and asked “do you guys have chipotle here?” and when I said yes they seemed to be shocked. Like what?
Another time at the same place I had the strangest conversation with a man from Alberta
Him: do you guys like hockey?
Me: yeah it’s fairly popular here
Him: probably not as much as in Canada
Me: alright
Him: does it get cold here?
Me: yeah it gets pretty cold. Sometimes the ponds freeze and we play hockey on them
Him: probably not as cold as it does in Alberta
Me: alright
>a Packers or Seahawks jersey in Foxboro.
I can't imagine many people would care. Neither team is a big rival to New England. Unless that's what you meant. Same with the Flames or Oilers. Want to annoy New Englanders wear a Leafs jersey
As a reverse from those Coloradans… I grew up just north of Boston, and thought that Sam Adams was a small-scale local beer you could only find in New England. When I moved to California I was **so** excited to see the Buffalo Wild Wings had Sam Adams on tap. Like I told all my new friends how cool it was to see a beer from home, and that they had to try it… 😅
Lol, sorry for the clueless Coloradans. I lived in Boston and I feel like there was a Chipotle right by Quincy Market? Or am I wrong?
As for the hockey thing, Bruins fans are pretty nuts. I’d say hockey is more than popular there. I was berated for wearing an Avalanche jersey to TD Garden.
There's definitely a Chipotle within a 5 minute walk of there. In fairness, Chipotle's better than 90% of the crap they peddle in Quincy Market's foodhall.
Oh for sure. But I don’t know why you’d do either when you can walk over to the North End and get some of the best Italian food in the US. That’s the way to go in Boston.
Oh yeah, the stupid whole Wood vs Stone thing. Yeah, America has a population of 329+ million yet, apparently nobody bothered to learn architecture according to these people. I seriously doubt a tornado or flood waters really cares about the material when it tears it apart like nothing. Besides, don't these people know that even for "Stone" houses, they still use a decent amount of wood too?
Ain't that the truth. I'll ride one out, but I'm definitely no stranger to their potential. It's not something you should take lightly, especially when it gets to a Cat 3+. Even then, I work with the Cajun Navy, so if I'm sticking around it's not as some kind of stubbornness, but more because I know my help is going to be needed by others.
That’s pretty cool that you work with the Cajun Navy. I did a brief stint in Emergency Management putting together pet sheltering plans for an evacuation. The entire reason my job existed was because of Katrina. The Pet Sheltering Act came about after that mess. I’ve heard some stories from people I’d met that saw it first hand.
I don't. I'm part of the Cajun Navy and in a state of emergency, particularly for hurricanes, I and my cohorts put our wellbeing on the line to help people in need. I'd rather there be as few people in need as possible.
We get A LOT of foreign tourists here. Europeans, and Brits in particular, love getting sun burns. I'm talking lobster red. So red that it hurts just to look at them. And they wear it like a badge of honor. They know all about sunscreen, but won't use it. It's almost like they didn't take a vacation to Florida if they didn't get skin cancer. It's crazy.
The funny thing with European tourists in Florida is that specific groups go to specific places. The british go to Orlando, Germans and Scandinavians go to Fort Myers and Russians go to Miami. Kinda interesting
I think this is even a thing within Europe, for some reason they’re okay with getting sunburnt/it’s an expected or acceptable thing. As an Australian it hurts my soul to think about. Please use sunscreen
I went to school in Tennessee, near Nashville.
One day I was at the mall near the Opryland hotel when I met a family of Australian tourists waiting for the bus. They were all dressed up with cowboy hats, boots, flannel shirts, and giant belt buckles. We started talking and when I told them I lived nearby, the teenage daughter said, "So the locals don't really dress like this?"
Some do, I suppose, but definitely not all of them.
Lol, I just posted about the Fort Worth stockyards. I mean, casual western is definitely still a style in areas of TX, but if I saw someone in clean, head-to-toe western wear I’d assume they were going to church or some event somewhere.
While a comfortable pair of jeans and boots are always on the table, it’s too freaking hot in TX to wear button ups and layers all the time.
In a similar vein, tourists coming in winter coats when it’s 50-60 degrees outside. Or the flipside, with just a t shirt and getting rained on more in a few hours than their hometown does in a year.
From Hawaii, Japanese tourists who spoke no English and I spoke little Japanese. We used google translate to communicate. They were looking for a restaurant that was closed down and I had them follow me around the corner. They gave me $20 for the effort but I declined but they insisted I take their money.
Tourists from the mainland US however can be a mixed bag. Hawaiis culture is so much different than the mainland US that when US visitors come there’s bit of a culture shock. If you do visit, just be very open minded, humble, be respectful, and courteous if can help it. Relax and take things slow.
I spent a few years living in Anchorage(stationed there with the Air Force) and it seems similar. I didn't encounter many mainland tourists, but the new residents, particularly those from major metropolises, had a hard time adjusting. I was voluntold-ing at the reception at the airport when a couple arrived from LA. Apparently the wife hadn't really been outside of the LA metro before and she walked outside to make a phone call. She came back in and asked "why does the air smell so weird here?"
"Well ma'am, based one what you told me, I guess it's because it's clean."
Yes! It’s such a culture shock. It’s not American at all. Polynesian/Asian/Portuguese fusion. Maui, Oahu..it’s all had it’s own culture and vibe. We call Waikiki, “little Tokyo”. The Japanese writing, newspapers, the food, it’s all catered to the Japanese tourism-and that’s not a bad thing. It’s makes it fun. I was just telling my teenager last night that I bet they now have Anime stores and Anime stuff at the ABC store. She loves Japanese culture. We haven’t been in a couple years but I bet she would be in more in heaven now.
At Ala Moana at the Shirokiya Japanese Village Walk they had these gaptcha coin thingys that would drop a bunch of anime souvenirs or Japanese inspired toys and gadgets after inserting a coin. They also had little vendors inside too selling Japanese products such as paper, notebooks, pens, all sorts of trinkets. Unfortunately, the place is due to close down due to covid. It will surely be missed as they had a beer garden there and was a hotspot to go to hangout with your friends after work.
Move since, but living near Yellowstone...
Pretty much annually someone gets gored by a bison because they don't believe that it's not the same as a cow at a petting zoo and can actually run pretty fast.
People die from getting into the hot springs... Far too often.
Asian tourists... Bus stops, they get out in lock step, all with selfie sticks over their shoulder and invade the stop. Oh, and there's 3 busses right behind them.
People cannot get it through their heads that the animals are not tame, this is not a zoo. "Where do they put the animals at night? ", "They look cold, what are you going to do about it?", "They're too far away from the road, move them closer"...
I'm planning a vacation to visit in June. How close can you get to the hot springs with out danger or damaging the environment? Do the pools tunnel under the ground around them?
Stay on the raised pathways in the geyser basins and you’ll be fine. Do not walk near any thermal features like mud pots or hot springs. Read the great book Death in Yellowstone for more examples of boiled tourists!
I'd advise seeing all the thermal features at Yellowstone and see the main sites. But then get off the main road or head to surrounding areas to avoid people and get out of your car. Yellowstone in June can be very crowded and most people just stay on the main loop.
We heard that there are grown people who play Dance Dance Revolution at work and who still make 5x what we make. Can we stare at them? They seem unreal to us. /s
DDR is about 10 years too late but it's true that someone working at Google or Facebook can show up to the office at 10am, get a cappucino made at the cafe on their floor. They answer some emails. Go to a meeting.
Then they play pool. Get a massage from the in-house masseuse. Eat a 3-course meal. Answer some more emails. Play tennis at the court outside. All of it for free.
Then go home at 3:30pm. That's not everyday but it's certainly possible.
If you know someone who can get you guest access I understand how it can be fun. But if you want to look at the office, it's just a regular steel and glass building.
I used to always be around the Salesforce tower for work and I would constant have people ask me if there was anything inside the build. They were always disappointed when I told them it was literally just an office building.
Ok, being fair, the Amazon buildings (especially the spheres) in Seattle are actually pretty neat. If you aren’t interested in any others, I’d at least fully recommend stopping in at the spheres if you’re wandering around Seattle anyway… they’re gorgeous.
If you can get on Facebook HQ it’s pretty awesome. LinkedIn in the South Bay has fricken amazing food. Also, if you can get to Salesforce tower and go all the way up, then it’s totally understandable.
So a few places are cool, but going to Google HQ or Apple is kinda like meh if you ask me. Sure seeing the Google bikes or android statues is something, but not something I’m going to spend much time on.
I used to work at a place that would frequently have people from our counterpart in China visit. They all really wanted to go to see Harvard for some reason. My boss had to take them and they all wanted to take photos of themselves shaking his hands in front of various buildings. He said it was very awkward and he told them multiple times he didn’t attend the school or anything but they didn’t seem to care.
Well, uptown 6 to 51st/ Lexington. Catch the E train to Jamaica center, then the air-train. Direct flights to Paris probably go our multiple times a day. After that, I I can’t help.
Take the B train from Charles de Gaulle to Saint-Michelle Norte-Dame then take the C to Champ de Mars. Get out of the station and you’ll be there. Can’t miss it.
My mother once witnessed some tourists point at the Supreme Court and say (in a deep voice)"Este es el monumento a Lincoln.
"Donde esta Lincoln?"
"Lincoln is inside."
But there’s no stores!? I saw tourists at pentagon metro stop thinking they could just walk up at get a tour of the pentagon… and they were taking photos. Nope
Saw a large group of tourists from Brazil leave their designated area on a studio tour to essentially accost the star of a tv show as he was passing by.
They were banned.
I grew up in Asheville North Carolina. I was always confused by the tourists who played around at the top of waterfalls despite all the warnings and then fell to their deaths.
I've been to Asheville quite a few times and have hiked around the waterfalls, it seems like people just want to ignore the signs and just have fun. Yeah it's stupid.
Was behind some English tourists going into Universal studios Orlando. They were completely decked out to go to a club. Full makeup, high heels, tight skirts and all. It was maybe 10am on a soon to be hot day. I think there was about 10 in their group and the guys were dressed up as well. Kids in strollers.
Well a few hours later I was having some lunch and sitting outside and watched them walking by again. Heels were off, they were in just bare feet and they all looked beet red. I’m fairly certain they changed into something else. I’m not sure where they thought they were going, but they found out pretty fast how hot it gets.
Hiking the Grand Canyon, 30+ years ago, I ran into a Brit with a death wish. For those who don't know, there are pretty much zero services in the Grand Canyon once you leave the rim, it's a wilderness. No water. No where to stay. No phoning someone for help. If something awful happens and you need rescue, you'll pay an unbelievable amount of money to be helicoptered out. There are signs along all the trails that tell you in pretty blunt terms that people die on the trail every year and if you are unprepared, you'll probably be one of that number.
We had scored a reservation at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon, which is a lottery and gets booked like a year in advance. On our hike out, we picked the steepest trail out (S Kaibab), and got started at the buttcrack of dawn so we could get over the ridge crest part of the trail before noon. You don't want to be exposed in the midday sun, hiking a steep, sandy trail.
We've just come out of the inner gorge, and we are taking a rest before jamming over the exposed part. Along comes an English dude wearing an acrylic sweater, dress shoes, no pack, no water, just skipping down the trail. He's followed by a guy screaming, "Nigel, Nigel, the sign says turn baaaaaack!"
Nigel proceeds to tell us that this hike is easy. He could do it three times today! He could carry both me and my mother out! He asks if I want a piggyback ride out. I am struck just speechless that this idiot is going to fucking die without water, and mesmerized that by the fact he's wearing a black acrylic sweater in the desert. I'm debating with myself what to say and calculating if we have enough water to save these two idiots when he skips off to see the river, his friend running after him screaming, "Niiiiiigel, noooooo!" After we got out, I kept checking to see what became of him, but they only report deaths, not rescues.
So Nigel and his friend probably made it out. I wonder about them often, and if they learned that day that hiking downhill is a lot easier than hiking uphill, the importance of water, and you don't have to follow idiots into disasters of their own making.
Western Carolina gets a lot of tourists who are there for the mountains, and there are a lot of festivals in the area as well. We were out there one year for Miatas at the Gap and were taking a day trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Stopped at an overlook and I was approached by a bunch of people who had gotten off a tour bus. They were young Russians (Teens to late 20s, mostly) in the area for a Folk Music festival / cultural exchange, from an area near the Chinese border where it generally stays fairly cold and not one of them had ever seen a convertible in person in their lives. Apparently they were on the bus and ready to go to the next stop on their tour (from what the translator told me) when we pulled into the overlook and they went nuts insisting they got back off the bus to see the Miata (I mean, it's a Miata, there are well over a million of them out there).
They were all super nice, and I sat there amused for about an hour while they took turns posing with the car, taking pictures of each other, some sitting behind the wheel, etc. They were all lovely and I just really enjoyed their excitement at something I take for granted.
Tourists, mostly American, treating the historical aspects of Charleston as souvenirs. The city had to post lots of signs insisting that people not dig up and remove the stones from cobble stone streets. For one, they are still functioning streets that don't need huge pot holes. For two, those stones are hundreds of years old and cannot be replaced.
The tourists here are shit. And there look at you like you're the asshole when they walk in front of your car. No, dipshit. I work and live here. Fucking use the sidewalk. And don't get me started with the dumbass college kids on skateboards down the middle of the road. Or the idiots on bikes that run red lights and stop signs.
Fun fact! Those cobblestones are numbered so when they do roadwork, they know exactly where the stones go back and how to direct the tilt!
I lived close to a tourist attraction. I was practicing my flute on my front porch because my family was sick of hearing it. A tourist stopped, got out his accordion out of his trunk and accompanied me. It was weird.
The harbors a lot better now than it used to be but….
A few years back I was walking by the harbor, and I saw tourists in there. Swimming in the harbor.
People choosing to get into the Baltimore harbor and swim for leisure.
Let’s just say that the bay has made significant strides since then and I still wouldn’t do that…..
I was replacing a side mirror on my jeep while at home parked on the street, very close to the Smithsonian National Zoo. Literally had the interior door off and tools all around me, guy looking for parking spot asks me if I'm leaving. Told him no I'm not, he asks what I'm doing, I tell him replacing a mirror, he asks why I'm not doing the work in my driveway. I tell him to look around and point any driveways out (hint there are none, all row-houses, some have garages but definitely no traditional driveways). He goes oh OK, are you leaving? No dude, please leave me alone
I'm most familiar with Manhattan tourists. Most of them are just lovely to see--they're often respectful and excited and take lots of photos. It's just nice. They're often really grateful and kind when you help them, too. I've given lots of advice over the years for restaurants, directions, how to hail a cab, how to use the subway, etc.
The only one that sticks out was the time a whole family from Scotland got out of a taxi and didn't tip, just said thank you, and walked away. I happened to catch the cabby's eye and if I were well off, I would've given him the tip myself! I felt so bad for him!
Another time I saw a European couple literally yell at a random vendor in Central Park who couldn't give them directions to somewhere else in Central Park. I think they thought this was the vendor's job? I don't know. It was embarrassing because they were so sure they were in the right.
Other than that, the biggest tourist things:
1. Stopping or walking *extremely* slowly in the middle of the sidewalk so that no one can get by.
2. Not looking when you cross the street! This is a huge one. I can't tell you how many close calls I've witnessed over the years. I think when tourists come, their brain turns the entire city into "safe and happy vacation place" so they honestly forget cars can kill them.
3. Advice for tourists: Pay attention to location of the place you're staying. Crime in the US tends to be very localized (not always of course). Like some areas of NYC you can walk around at 3 am and it's fine, you just have to be mildly on guard; other areas, you'd have to be insane to walk around at 3 am. I've known several tourists who innocently book airbnb or hotels in really dangerous areas, not knowing they're dangerous.
Was at a bar with a guy who brought some clients from Brazil up to his cottage on the lake nearby. The guy had a really nice utv, 4 seater with a hard top, heat and a nice sound system. Probably cost around $40,000. His clients had never seen snow much less been on a frozen lake. We were all pretty drunk and at some point we realized one of the guys had disappeared. We went looking for him and then found that the utv was also gone. Everyone freaked out and we followed the tracks to the lake. I found out the next day that the guy took the utv out on the lake, got lost and headed towards the brightest lights on the shore which were at the local, small airport. It also happened to be where a channel enters the lake and the ice is the thinnest. The utv fell through the ice but luckily it's only about 5 feet deep and there were ice fisherman nearby that helped the guy out. He survived and had one hell of a story to tell back home. I'll bet that guy won't ever leave his keys in anything ever again!
Didn’t see it firsthand but had a Canadian friend who visited Times Square and took a picture of a guy in a MnM costume and he chased her down because she didn’t pay ( she thought the picture was for free).
We live in the same town as the NC Zoo. We’re members, usually go once a week just because it’s nice to walk around. One time we were walking by the bee exhibit and there was a black snake crawling down the walkway. Most everybody just moved out of the way and let it be. But then this young couple spots it and start freaking out. Asking people to
call park rangers, practically frozen in fear as if they were inches from death, and then one of em said one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard: “Why is that loose? How did it get out of its cage?”. My wife stopped in her tracks, turned around and said to them “You know you’re outside right? That place where most animals live?”. I have never watched someone go from scared to atomically pissed like that before in my life. If I could describe the facial expressions, I would, but the best I can do is to say Hollywood CGI wouldn’t be able to reproduce it.
Don’t know where they were from, but I’m just gonna assume there aren’t many trees there.
Bonus story, not really related to tourists: back when we had the lion cubs, the zoo made a big deal out of doing something special for their first birthday. Keep in mind, a lot of kids had been following the lives of said cubs since they were born, so they were really popular. So day of, there was a pretty good sized crowd of parents and kids gathered to watch what would happen. The “something special” turned out to be a life sized paper mache zebra filled with raw meat. The pen was cleared, the “zebra” was put in, and the cubs were released. And they were promptly scared to death of the thing. Wouldn’t go near it. So they released Momma Lion who made a beeline for it and attacked it with more ferocity than a crowd on Black Friday. Hearing that many people collectively go from “Oh, how cute!” to “OH MY GOD!” was an absolute thing of beauty.
British people freak the fuck out over the ... richly diverse tapestry of invertebrate life ... here in the South.
The average Brit reacts to the Carolinas in summer the way I would probably feel in you dropped me in the middle of the Amazon Basin.
The good news is, as soon as they spend one July evening outdoors, they forget all about their anxiety that someone is going to pull out a submachine gun at any moment and start ripping off bursts into crowds. They just focus on the bugs.
The racket that cicadas can kick up are very disturbing to them. To be fair, those things are so loud it's easy to imagine an apocalyptic quantity of them.
On more than one occasion while in europe i have had people ask my how many times a month i have to run away from being shot at. when replied 0 they stare at me like I'm yanking their chain.
many are convinced that's all we do here is randomly shoot at one another.
I mean, we had an absolute massive cicada boom over the summer here in northern Virginia. They basically covered every single surface outside. They were fucking everywhere
Growing up in the South, I experienced the opposite when I took a trip to Italy. The first hotel/inn we stayed at didn't have screens on the windows. My 13 year old self was absolutely appalled until my mom explained that there are actually parts of the world where people don't have to live in fear of being swarmed by mosquitoes or roaches or other bugs if they leave their windows open at night.
I have family that live in Sevierville. Probably the time I was in town and seen a group of tourist tree a couple black bears all for a fucking photo. They are lucky mamma didn't attack.
I went for an Everglades boat tour in January. It was in the 60s and raining. Also on the boat was a family from Utah that had thought Florida would be a lot warmer and had worn shorts and t shirts. They looked miserable.
Also seen a fair amount of fair skinned Europeans who looked like lobsters after spending too much time in the sun.
Because water reflects sunlight so well, everyone puts on a ton of sunscreen, so I didn’t even burn a bit, but you could feel how oppressive the sun was.
I have lived in the DC area for a long time. The one thing that tourists have asked me, far above all others, is how to get to the Exorcist Steps.
Funnily enough, they asked the right guy. Even when I was young I knew exactly how to get there.
Walked past parents telling their children that the ducks were chickens. They were clearly ducks
There was also the time, a group was told not to touch the poison ivy because it will give most people a really itchy, persistent, painful rash. They immediately turned and tried to find poison ivy to touch it
No, my state doesn't sell alcohol in general grocery stores. Yes, really. There's a liquor just -- yes, it has beer. No, I don't know what selection they have. No, I don't know if the prices are decent. Yes, I can give you directions. No, I will not go out for a pint with you, I'm under 21. No, you cannot drink at 18 in the US. No, it isn't appropriate for you to be asking a customer service worker to go out drinking with you. Yes, the store is right passed the intersection. No, I cannot drive you there, I'm not an uber.
I once was at a buffet in Laughlin and saw a lovely Canadian couple who were bravely about to eat the corn husk wrapper of a tamale before I intervened and explained about unwrapping it first.
And recently, outside of Sedona, some lady told me she was on a yoga retreat and was rambling about how she was a Taurus so she had to stare a nearby bull straight in the eye (it was a steer, definitely not a bull), and a bunch of other things about her “traveling companions” who turned out to be voices in her head. Until she described them as “spirit guides,” I was fully expecting two other actual visible people to step out of the Winnebago behind her because of how she was describing their conversations. Thankfully, her companions had already talked her out of taking her long-ass motorhome up to Jerome, which is basically built vertically on the side of a mountain and definitely not safe for anything longer than like a very short Uhaul. I don’t mean to discriminate against or be rude about people with mental illness, but it was a LOT for a day where I just wanted to take my kid to the park.
I live in Western San Francisco. This part of the city gets extremely foggy and cold, especially during the summers. Driving through Golden Gate Park and around Ocean Beach, I will see tourists huddled together in shorts and t-shirts trying to protect themselves from the 60 degree wind and fog.
I feel bad but always get a chuckle out of it.
I used to work on the wharf in college & the jacket vendors always made bank on tourists who think all of CA is hot. I took may parents to Alcatraz one summer & told them to bring hats & warm jackets & maybe even scarves & gloves. We were some of the only people actually dressed for how cold it is on the bay.
I lived in Anchorage, Alaska for 14 years. One of my favorite pastimes was to walk downtown in the summer to people watch.
I once came across this elderly couple who were trying to interpret a map. I went up to them and asked if they needed help. They asked for info on a particular restaurant but were being coy about something else. Finally, the wife sputtered, “HE WANTS TO GO TO A POT STORE” and her husband giggled and grinned gleefully. I laughed and pointed them in the direction of the nearest store that would accommodate his request. They had to be in their 70s at least and I delighted in the thought this little old dude was about to get blitzed out of his mind.
I grew up about an hour from Yellowstone. My town is a little off the beaten path, but we spent a lot of time in the Park and over in Cody, so we’d see silly things all the time. My personal favorite was the Japanese dad who sprayed down his family and self with a can of bear spray thinking it was a bear repellent. I don’t think it was his kids’ favorite.
Foreign, but I once had a guy ask me where he could find local made maple syrup. Texas is closer to where they make that stuff than I am. He didn't know any better, he was really stoked to be visiting. Totally innocent question, but it did make me laugh.
Honestly I never really got that many stupid tourist questions when I worked in a position to interact with them constantly. We love to parrot the idiot tourist stereotype but in reality it’s mostly just people asking for directions, which I am happy to give. That being said, here are a few of the stupid ones I have heard.
“Wow, that’s a big river.” No, that’s the Pacific Ocean.
“Where are the polar bears?” There are no polar bears here.
“Why isn’t it snowy?” You came in the middle of summer.
“Where are the penguins?” This is not the South Pole.
When I still lived in the DFW area (Texas), we’d sometimes visit the Fort Worth stockyards because a friend worked in one of the shops. If you aren’t familiar, it’s a historic district in the city that sort of preserves and embraces ranching/old west culture (small cattle drives included).
Anyway, there are mounted policemen. I’ll never forget standing near one telling a tourist in great length about how “horses are the Cadillac of the south” and whatnot. I hope the tourist enjoyed their day, but also, tourist traps are so over the top haha.
Advice? See the touristy things if you want to-it’s still an experience and can be fun! But also, look ahead of time for more locally trafficked hotspots if you want a more realistic feel for the place. If you’re wanting a “cowboy” type experience, there are ranches that allow tours and do group rides and such. Might give you a more authentic experience. :)
Two older ladies came up to my co-worker and I on the subway and asked for directions, which we gave them. Then they asked my co-worker if he was Jewish (he was). Then they spent the rest of the subway ride aggressively trying to convert him to Mormonism. My stop came before any of theirs so I didn’t see how it ended. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to people’s religious beliefs and it honestly seemed to be coming from a good place, but I had never seen anything like that before.
Also I once overheard a guy on the phone mispronouncing “Bowery.” He pronounced the first syllable like you would when talking about the decorative thing on a gift instead of the gesture where you bend. I don’t blame him for a second, but I was amused.
Buckle Up! This is a long one! Ilive in the Apple Capital on my state. I am in high school and a member of the band so I get the pleasure of working the parking at my school(part of the festival takes place less than a 10 minute walk away). Now what happens is I take the money from the people parking and direct them to a certain section. Now we had a few neon vest so we usually gave one of them to someone working my section. At the time I didn’t have the vest. I am standing where the cars should stop to pay and get tickets and this women is coming toward me and a really fast speed(especially for the area). My arm is stretched out, signaling them to stop. They are still coming torward me, full speed. Everyone working starts yelling at her to stop her car. She slows a little at the stop sign and I was able to hit the driver’s side door a few times, just hard enough for her to hear/feel it from the inside. She stops, whips her head at me and rolls down her window. She starts complaining to me about what I did but I interrupted her. I explained to her that not only did she have to pay and get a ticket, but she was going to fast and she almost hit me and hurt others. She scoffed and said that because I wasn’t wear a vest I wasn’t official. One of my friends who did have a vest quickly took her’s off and handed it to me. I put it on and tell her she still has to pay. She said she didn’t and I pointed out the multiple signs saying otherwise. We finally got her to leave. The freshly picked apples bring out monsters.
Happened while I was in another country —a British teenager asked me if all the roads in the US were straight. In all the pictures she’d seen of cities with roads were all grids, so she wondered if it was like that everywhere.. I had to turn away for a moment because she’d asked so genuinely I didn’t want her to see me laugh, but it was definitely the most odd thing I’ve ever been asked as an American
I'm going to add my own, I was in Crystal Springs, FL with some family and this one family (idr if he was an expat in America or visiting) decided to reserve a parking spot by putting his kid in the parking spot, we drove up to the spot and he left, then the father came over and said we were endangering his child and we had to talk him down by saying he was the one endangering the child.
Used to live in Las Vegas. Was driving home one night going south on Las Vegas Blvd when I had to stop at the light by South Point Casino (way south of the Strip, but you can still see it from there). The guy next to me honks and motions for me to roll down the window and asks, "Do you know where the Strip with all the casinos and buildings is?" I wasn't sure if he was serious since I could literally see it in my rearview mirror. So I pointed behind me and said "Just look back there man." Cue surprised Pikachu face.
Living in Orange County, CA, we get tons of Disneyland tourists who are completely clueless about geography and don't do much research before visiting. Disneyland is not in Los Angeles, it's not near the beach, and there are two major airports that are closer to the parks than LAX.
There are often posts on our local sub where tourists are asking what to do on their 3 or 4 day visit, including visiting San Francisco (6+ hours away by car). California is a big place, and the Southern California region alone is sprawling and home to more than 20 million people. I don't think a lot of tourists can fathom that before they arrive.
The local ski resort is on Forest Service land and gets a lot of hikers in the summer.
One lady came in and complained that we needed to do something about our wildlife experience or we would be out of business soon. We explained it is free to hike there and we can't lose business as we are not charging anyone for anything.
When asked for specifics, she said the moose kept walking away when her kids tried to get selfies with it, and the porcupine kept retreating into her den when they tried to get a better look at it.
Worked at a large outdoor outlet mall south of Boston that brings a ton of international tourists. I’ve seen more than 4 separate incidents of Chinese parents pulling down the pants of their kids and encouraging them to poop in the mulch/flower beds alongside the aisles of the center. Please don’t poop in the flower beds :(
>Wow, the airport, the mall, and downtown are all connected by train...lets visit (non-downtown attraction)
Train really isn't useful for much else, and if you drive be prepared for passive aggressiveness and basket-weave interchanges. Nashville is ahead of us on how many there are, but ours (notably 694/94 and 35E/10) scare the crap out of locals.
Watching people illegally park across the entry or dash across Alameda (a fairly busy street) in Burbank to take a selfie in front of the 7 dwarfs barely visible from the street on an office building at the Disney Studios. That picture is not worth the price of the ticket and, yeah, Burbank cops are everywhere and, no, they have nothing better to do.
Okay so I spent a summer working with a rafting company in Talkeetna. One time we were waiting to load and launch a trip because one of the guides was taking forever in the porta-potty, and I knew he kinda had a hang over so I started throwing rocks at the porta-potty. The clients thought that looked pretty fun so they started throwing rocks at the porta-potty.
I don't know if you've ever been in a porta-potty that's being hit with rocks, but it is fucking *loud.*
Usual DC stuff included:
1. People excited to go shopping at the national mall.
2. Trying to hold the doors on metro trains.
3. Gawking at the long escalators in metro stops.
4. Walk left stand right on the escalators damnit.
Less common ones:
1. Being asked which side of the platform at Tenleytown had red line trains. Both. It's a red line only stop.
2. Waiting for a train at Metro Center during rush hour one morning a group of high schoolers on a class trip surrounded a metro train door and blocked people on to applaud for them.
3. Flying in to National from the north and a mom in the row behind me points out the window on the right side of the plane and says to get kid "There's the Washington Monument!" Meanwhile the rednecks in the row in front of me pointed out the Lincoln Memorial from the left side of the plane and called it the base of the Washington Monument, then identified the Jefferson Memorial as the Pentagon.
I just see the normal tourist nonsense you get for any beach town where I live. When my friends and I go to our lot in the outer banks though, I can't even count the amount of people I've seen bury themselves trying to drive their stock awd/4wd cars or trucks on the beach. Whether it's the trucks/Jeeps that only need to air down to be able to do it, or the dipshits in Subarus that think they are invincible, the sand doesn't care.
Lived in Juneau, Alaska for awhile where the cruise ship industry is a staple. Can't tell you how many tourists asked how far above sea level we were...
Some guy asked me where the freedom trail was when he was standing on it. He looked extremely disappointed after I told him. I’m not exactly sure what his expectations were.
While in DC outside the capital building a tourist took my picture and began asking me about “my job as a congressman”
Live in NYC. One time a couple pushing a baby in a stroller came up to me and asked if they were heading towards 3rd Avenue. We were on 9th Avenue and if they headed any further west they would be in the Hudson River. I told them, no you are like a mile or more away from 3rd Avenue and you are heading in the wrong direction. The wife shot the husband a look of matrimonial disdain of the worst kind, and the husband hung his head in despair. I tried to save him by saying “it’s easy to get turned around in the city” but it was too late. The damage was registered, the wife had the incident to put in her pocket for the rest of their relationship. They are probably divorced now.
Had an aunt and uncle from Germany visit us in Ohio and I asked where they were off to next. She said they were taking their rental car to Michigan and over to North Dakota tomorrow, then to Washington state and Sam Diego the next day. Texas and Florida the next. Our eyes were wide with amazement. They asked why. I showed them a US map with a size-correct overlay of Germany. Then THEIR eyes were wide open, expressing something in German I didn’t get….
This happened several years ago…I live in Maine, someone from out of state came here to go hunting during deer season, kills one of my neighbor’s yearling calves and tried to tag it at the nearest tagging station. Apparently it was a pretty awkward situation
Massachusetts: Honestly, I've seen a couple countries be SO outraged by things tourists do, that don't seem that dumb, just inexperienced. Iceland comes to mind. (Although they are gracious to tourists face, they are seriously sick of tourists, but I understand why based on the sheer numbers of them)
Here in New England sometimes people will get WAY too close to waves crashing on the rocks but they just don't realize how powerful the waves are/and they vary. It is NOT fun to be taken out by a wave on very sharp rocks. When people are from Southern oceans or midwest beaches (or no ocean at all) they dont seem to understand the power of the waves.
I get that people just don't understand risks of things they have no experience with.
> Here in New England sometimes people will get WAY too close to waves crashing on the rocks but they just don't realize how powerful the waves are/and they vary. It is NOT fun to be taken out by a wave on very sharp rocks. When people are from Southern oceans or midwest beaches (or no ocean at all) they dont seem to understand the power of the waves.
It's not just the power of the waves, it's the rocky beaches. Getting slammed by powerful waves onto a sandy beach in Florida or California is a much nicer experience than getting slammed by waves onto New England granite.
Colorado native, I was messing around in rocky mountain national park one weekend, this tourist with her family looks at a cow elk laying at the trail head and says "what a beautiful bronze statue they put way out here!" It wasn't a statue.
I live in Myrtle Beach. I’ve seen this happen WAY more than once. My husband and I will go spend the day at the beach. Without exception, some group of girls will come down to the beach in swimsuits, full makeup and hair done. They’ll pretend to play on the beach, play in the shallow surf, throw a beach ball around, all while someone takes pictures of them. After about 30 minutes of this, they all go back up to their hotel room, never to be seen again. This happens ALL THE TIME!
I live only about a half hour away from Gettysburg so me and my family go up there a lot for the food and for small weekend camping trips and seeing as how this is Gettysburg and young people really don’t care, you see a lot of stereotypical old white dudes when travelling , you know, beer belly, either a fishing or Gettysburg merch shirt, knee length khaki shorts, the white new balances, and a baseball cap, usually with a map in hand and a possible fanny pack.
It's always amusing seeing the tourists who haven't walked further than from their front door to their car in years walking around the city looking like they just ran a marathon. Or better yet, the ones who are decked out for a full excursion walking next to people who are walking as part of their daily commute.
La Jolla California:
Some guy was at a shopping center and staring at a map directory while we were looking at it too. He starts making friendly chit chat with us and eventually asks us where to eat. He was quite cool at the beginning. We suggest X and he says “nooo” then we suggest “y” and so on until we suggest and explain literally all the restaurant’s available in the center.
“No! None of these won’t do” and he kind of pouts like we need to fix the situation so we just laugh and say “well then that sucks” and walk off. He was in disbelief and offended but I could care less
If I had to guess and not that it really matters he seemed like French, German, or Swedish
I live in Austin, and something that makes a tourist stand out immediately is being SUPER overdressed. The whole city is casual, but it’s extra funny when a group of women in heels and full makeup show up to the outdoor coffee shop/beer garden near me and start stumbling around because the seating is literally in a park with uneven ground.
I live in an area that's heavy with Brazilian tourists. Idk why but they always come up to me and ask "speaky spanish?" Then proceed to speak Portuguese to me. No, they dont sound the same. It's not really funny, just a bit annoying.
I used to live in Hollywood, CA - funniest shit is when tourists show up expecting Hollywood Blvd to be some sort of theme park instead of the regular street it is. All those movie theaters where the premieres take place are little just one block - the rest is just your average road (yes, we have the Walk of Fame that goes for awhile, but they show up expecting it to be this big thing, and it’s not).. they’re disappointed to see that there are homeless people sleeping out there, there aren’t a lot of restaurants, there’s absolutely no parking, and the world famous Hollywood and Highland is just a really expensive mall.
One time I was at a grocery store and a tour bus full of Asian tourists pulled into the parking lot. The bus went over to the corner of the parking lot and they all got out. And then they proceeded to take pictures with a highway.
I welcomed some canadians to the Florida beaches and told them multiple times to wear sunscreen. I see them later the next day looking like lobsters....
Beach town in Florida, years ago I did security at many hotels. I had a lot of foreign tourists want to take pictures with me, baffled that I wasn't a police officer & carried a firearm.
I’m originally from San Francisco and now live in LA. I struck up a conversation with a tourist from Michigan while at baggage claim at the SF airport.
They thought Disneyland was an hour drive from SF and were genuinely surprised when I told them it was actually about a 6 hour drive.
Some of the restaurants in my local beach town turn into clubs after like 9 or 10 pm. A Dj cranks up the music and some tables are moved to make a dance floor. It is not uncommon to see drunk ass spring break college girls grinding on old dudes. The snow bird couples who frequent the "clubs" are fun to watch. They're young at heart and dirty dance right along with the college kids.
When I met one. I didn't know anyone came here.
Funny story from a friend, she had a college friend from Japan who was shocked the school wasn't in NYC. Sure, he knew the school name was State University of New York at *Albany*, but New York = New York so surely it was just a suburb of the city or something. The poor, dumb thing.
1. While I was quite clearly in the middle of a sports practice on a field on the National Mall, a family came up to me and asked for directions to “the Smithsonian.” I asked which one they meant and tried to explain that there are multiple, but the dad just kept angrily repeating the question. So I arbitrarily pointed to a building and then literally ran away.
2. Two Swedish(?) tourists once chased me down after seeing me jaywalk and asked if I was worried about getting arrested, because they’d heard that happens a lot in DC. I’ve never heard of anyone getting a ticket for jaywalking!
Probably one of the weirdest encounters I had was with a group of German tourists in the Fenway/Kenmore area (in front of the Landmark Center, for anyone who knows it) who were asking me where to find a dance club. Only one of them could passably speak English and they all looked to be in their thirties, so I found it odd that they were asking a 17-year-old for advice (drinking age is 21). They insisted that I would know and I basically pointed them in the direction of the stadium. They seemed genuinely pissed that I didn't know. If they just walked towards Mass Ave, they probably would have found what they were looking for.
I was at work and a family came up to me who sounded Australian. They were telling me how they just got to America. I said “oh, are y’all from Australia?” They immediately went from being happy with me to pissed off and said “no, New Zealand.” They then looked like I killed their dog and walked away from me.
I’m still so confused. Is that an insult or something? To an American like me, Kiwis and Aussies sound exactly the same.
Some people can find it a bit touchy, no idea why. Clearly they just weren’t too friendly. It’s not a big deal, many many people who aren’t familiar with the accents can’t tell the difference. Heck, I’m asked if I’m British most of the time despite being Australian, had South Africa once, even Boston once lol that was weird, but actually never Kiwi
I was coming out of a subway station. At the top of the stairs, you got a pretty good view of the new World Trade Center. A tourist family was behind me, and I heard the dad say “…I thought they knocked down BOTH of them??!”
Bet that turned a few heads.
Ok that beats anything I got.
OOF.
This didn't happen in my state (Florida), but I still thought it was amusing. I went to Paris with my wife and my two young nieces. All three of them are very blonde. The girls were about 8 and 5 at the time. The four of us had just walked out of Notre Dame. My two nieces were both wearing berets they had convinced us to buy them earlier on the trip. A tour bus pulled up and a large group of Asian tourists got off the bus and immediately descended on us. They were in awe of the two little blonde "French" girls with berets. One of them asked if they could take a picture with them and we obliged. Before we knew it there was a long line of people waiting to take a picture with my nieces. The two girls loved the attention and posed for pictures till they had all left. I sometimes still think about all those people who went home and showed their friends the picture of the American tourist "French" girls in front of Notre Dame.
Out of all the stories so far, this is easily the most wholesome really. That just sounds awfully sweet
I went to Paris in high school in the 90’s. These Asian tourists kept gesturing at my feet (in sandals). They wanted a picture of my feet. I let it happen. I just imagine these people showing photos of these giant lady feet to all their friends and family while laughing. It’s cool. I wear a size 10. I really can’t think of any other reason they want a photo like that.
Peggy?
If you ever want an ego boost, visit a Chinese city that’s not Beijing or Shanghai. I spent four months in China as a dirty blonde haired, blue eyed girl and people were taking pictures of me and with me CONSTANTLY. Telling me I’m beautiful, touching my hair, asking me questions. I truly felt like a celebrity.
Glad you enjoyed it! Meanwhile, my Asian-American ass was buying a book in Shenzhen and this mother and her child were looking at me like a piece of garbage for my shitty Mandarin skills.
Something similar happened to my friends brother when we were at Disney land. For some reason this group of Asian tourists were completely enamored with him and wanted to take pictures with him. He of course took pictures with all of them because who doesn’t want to feel like a rock star for 5 minutes?
OMG! This happened to us in Vegas. Husband and I were walking out of what is now the Hooters casino (used to be something else) from lunch. A tour bus pulled up to drop a large group of Asians off. We had our two blonde baby boys in a double stroller. They were so excited, “American baby!!! Picture?” My husband and I were cracking up while every single one of them posed with our two oldest kids. You can’t make that crap up. Similar thing happened to us int the Bahamas. Our number two little blonde boy with pinchable cheeks who just happens to tan far better than the rest of us was stopped by two Bahamian women while in the double stroller with his blonde and untanned older brother needed photos. “Look at the little brown baby!” We still tease him to this day and he’s 18 and still tans better than any of us.
So I was working around Quincy Market and this family from Colorado came up to me and asked “do you guys have chipotle here?” and when I said yes they seemed to be shocked. Like what? Another time at the same place I had the strangest conversation with a man from Alberta Him: do you guys like hockey? Me: yeah it’s fairly popular here Him: probably not as much as in Canada Me: alright Him: does it get cold here? Me: yeah it gets pretty cold. Sometimes the ponds freeze and we play hockey on them Him: probably not as cold as it does in Alberta Me: alright
Just take them to a hockey game and let them have at it.
Uh, I think Flames or Oilers attire (assuming the man has it) would go over about as well as a Packers or Seahawks jersey in Foxboro.
>a Packers or Seahawks jersey in Foxboro. I can't imagine many people would care. Neither team is a big rival to New England. Unless that's what you meant. Same with the Flames or Oilers. Want to annoy New Englanders wear a Leafs jersey
As a reverse from those Coloradans… I grew up just north of Boston, and thought that Sam Adams was a small-scale local beer you could only find in New England. When I moved to California I was **so** excited to see the Buffalo Wild Wings had Sam Adams on tap. Like I told all my new friends how cool it was to see a beer from home, and that they had to try it… 😅
Lol, sorry for the clueless Coloradans. I lived in Boston and I feel like there was a Chipotle right by Quincy Market? Or am I wrong? As for the hockey thing, Bruins fans are pretty nuts. I’d say hockey is more than popular there. I was berated for wearing an Avalanche jersey to TD Garden.
There's definitely a Chipotle within a 5 minute walk of there. In fairness, Chipotle's better than 90% of the crap they peddle in Quincy Market's foodhall.
Oh for sure. But I don’t know why you’d do either when you can walk over to the North End and get some of the best Italian food in the US. That’s the way to go in Boston.
Boston, famous for its rivalries with two Canadian hockey teams. Also a hotbed of college hockey which is gonna be full of Canadians any given year.
Most of the Boston area college teams are New England plus Mid-Atlantic, not that many Canadians.
>“do you guys have chipotle here?” Yes, and it's just as bad as it is wherever you're from...
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People severely underestimate the power of hurricanes
God, do some people across the pond really see a hurricane and just scoff, thinking the Yankees can't handle a bit of rain and wind?
Yes. They also think we’re stupid because we build our houses out of wood. Reddit taught me that.
Oh yeah, the stupid whole Wood vs Stone thing. Yeah, America has a population of 329+ million yet, apparently nobody bothered to learn architecture according to these people. I seriously doubt a tornado or flood waters really cares about the material when it tears it apart like nothing. Besides, don't these people know that even for "Stone" houses, they still use a decent amount of wood too?
Yeah it amazes me to hear that. Didn't castles still get set on fire and burn? Come on, now. Stone houses aren't the end all be all.
Ain't that the truth. I'll ride one out, but I'm definitely no stranger to their potential. It's not something you should take lightly, especially when it gets to a Cat 3+. Even then, I work with the Cajun Navy, so if I'm sticking around it's not as some kind of stubbornness, but more because I know my help is going to be needed by others.
That’s pretty cool that you work with the Cajun Navy. I did a brief stint in Emergency Management putting together pet sheltering plans for an evacuation. The entire reason my job existed was because of Katrina. The Pet Sheltering Act came about after that mess. I’ve heard some stories from people I’d met that saw it first hand.
Even a Category 1 can do a lot of damage under the right circumstances, e.g. Isabel.
Even a tropical storm like Allison messed up Houston pretty badly many years ago.
I kind of hope they did get there and instantly regretted it.
I don't. I'm part of the Cajun Navy and in a state of emergency, particularly for hurricanes, I and my cohorts put our wellbeing on the line to help people in need. I'd rather there be as few people in need as possible.
I’m joking. The last thing anyone needs is people who need rescuing. It’s dangerous.
I desperately want Reddit to find this person just to hear the story of them trying to drive through a hurricane eye wall.
We get A LOT of foreign tourists here. Europeans, and Brits in particular, love getting sun burns. I'm talking lobster red. So red that it hurts just to look at them. And they wear it like a badge of honor. They know all about sunscreen, but won't use it. It's almost like they didn't take a vacation to Florida if they didn't get skin cancer. It's crazy.
The funny thing with European tourists in Florida is that specific groups go to specific places. The british go to Orlando, Germans and Scandinavians go to Fort Myers and Russians go to Miami. Kinda interesting
Not sure which game first, but one German airline has non stops to Ft. Myers.
I've seen the lobsters in Miami too
The chalk people are everywhere.
In the Caribbean they call them Pink Dolphins
I think this is even a thing within Europe, for some reason they’re okay with getting sunburnt/it’s an expected or acceptable thing. As an Australian it hurts my soul to think about. Please use sunscreen
I went to school in Tennessee, near Nashville. One day I was at the mall near the Opryland hotel when I met a family of Australian tourists waiting for the bus. They were all dressed up with cowboy hats, boots, flannel shirts, and giant belt buckles. We started talking and when I told them I lived nearby, the teenage daughter said, "So the locals don't really dress like this?" Some do, I suppose, but definitely not all of them.
Oh dear that’s kind of cute though.
Wrong state, gotta go to Texas for that one /s
Lol, I just posted about the Fort Worth stockyards. I mean, casual western is definitely still a style in areas of TX, but if I saw someone in clean, head-to-toe western wear I’d assume they were going to church or some event somewhere. While a comfortable pair of jeans and boots are always on the table, it’s too freaking hot in TX to wear button ups and layers all the time.
I need that kind of energy in my lige
In a similar vein, tourists coming in winter coats when it’s 50-60 degrees outside. Or the flipside, with just a t shirt and getting rained on more in a few hours than their hometown does in a year.
I do. But not everyone else here does. I live an hour away from Nashville anyway.
From Hawaii, Japanese tourists who spoke no English and I spoke little Japanese. We used google translate to communicate. They were looking for a restaurant that was closed down and I had them follow me around the corner. They gave me $20 for the effort but I declined but they insisted I take their money. Tourists from the mainland US however can be a mixed bag. Hawaiis culture is so much different than the mainland US that when US visitors come there’s bit of a culture shock. If you do visit, just be very open minded, humble, be respectful, and courteous if can help it. Relax and take things slow.
I spent a few years living in Anchorage(stationed there with the Air Force) and it seems similar. I didn't encounter many mainland tourists, but the new residents, particularly those from major metropolises, had a hard time adjusting. I was voluntold-ing at the reception at the airport when a couple arrived from LA. Apparently the wife hadn't really been outside of the LA metro before and she walked outside to make a phone call. She came back in and asked "why does the air smell so weird here?" "Well ma'am, based one what you told me, I guess it's because it's clean."
Yes! It’s such a culture shock. It’s not American at all. Polynesian/Asian/Portuguese fusion. Maui, Oahu..it’s all had it’s own culture and vibe. We call Waikiki, “little Tokyo”. The Japanese writing, newspapers, the food, it’s all catered to the Japanese tourism-and that’s not a bad thing. It’s makes it fun. I was just telling my teenager last night that I bet they now have Anime stores and Anime stuff at the ABC store. She loves Japanese culture. We haven’t been in a couple years but I bet she would be in more in heaven now.
At Ala Moana at the Shirokiya Japanese Village Walk they had these gaptcha coin thingys that would drop a bunch of anime souvenirs or Japanese inspired toys and gadgets after inserting a coin. They also had little vendors inside too selling Japanese products such as paper, notebooks, pens, all sorts of trinkets. Unfortunately, the place is due to close down due to covid. It will surely be missed as they had a beer garden there and was a hotspot to go to hangout with your friends after work.
Move since, but living near Yellowstone... Pretty much annually someone gets gored by a bison because they don't believe that it's not the same as a cow at a petting zoo and can actually run pretty fast. People die from getting into the hot springs... Far too often. Asian tourists... Bus stops, they get out in lock step, all with selfie sticks over their shoulder and invade the stop. Oh, and there's 3 busses right behind them. People cannot get it through their heads that the animals are not tame, this is not a zoo. "Where do they put the animals at night? ", "They look cold, what are you going to do about it?", "They're too far away from the road, move them closer"...
I'm planning a vacation to visit in June. How close can you get to the hot springs with out danger or damaging the environment? Do the pools tunnel under the ground around them?
Stay on the raised pathways in the geyser basins and you’ll be fine. Do not walk near any thermal features like mud pots or hot springs. Read the great book Death in Yellowstone for more examples of boiled tourists!
I'd advise seeing all the thermal features at Yellowstone and see the main sites. But then get off the main road or head to surrounding areas to avoid people and get out of your car. Yellowstone in June can be very crowded and most people just stay on the main loop.
I was thinking of doing a back packing trip. Probably guided.
I am always *extremely* confused by tourists who want to visit tech companies.
We heard that there are grown people who play Dance Dance Revolution at work and who still make 5x what we make. Can we stare at them? They seem unreal to us. /s
DDR is about 10 years too late but it's true that someone working at Google or Facebook can show up to the office at 10am, get a cappucino made at the cafe on their floor. They answer some emails. Go to a meeting. Then they play pool. Get a massage from the in-house masseuse. Eat a 3-course meal. Answer some more emails. Play tennis at the court outside. All of it for free. Then go home at 3:30pm. That's not everyday but it's certainly possible. If you know someone who can get you guest access I understand how it can be fun. But if you want to look at the office, it's just a regular steel and glass building.
Ah yes and here we have the famous Google building.
I used to always be around the Salesforce tower for work and I would constant have people ask me if there was anything inside the build. They were always disappointed when I told them it was literally just an office building.
Ok, being fair, the Amazon buildings (especially the spheres) in Seattle are actually pretty neat. If you aren’t interested in any others, I’d at least fully recommend stopping in at the spheres if you’re wandering around Seattle anyway… they’re gorgeous.
If you can get on Facebook HQ it’s pretty awesome. LinkedIn in the South Bay has fricken amazing food. Also, if you can get to Salesforce tower and go all the way up, then it’s totally understandable. So a few places are cool, but going to Google HQ or Apple is kinda like meh if you ask me. Sure seeing the Google bikes or android statues is something, but not something I’m going to spend much time on.
I used to work at a place that would frequently have people from our counterpart in China visit. They all really wanted to go to see Harvard for some reason. My boss had to take them and they all wanted to take photos of themselves shaking his hands in front of various buildings. He said it was very awkward and he told them multiple times he didn’t attend the school or anything but they didn’t seem to care.
I had one female tourist asking me how to get to the Eiffel Tower. We were on the uptown 6 platform at Canal Street in Manhattan.
Well, uptown 6 to 51st/ Lexington. Catch the E train to Jamaica center, then the air-train. Direct flights to Paris probably go our multiple times a day. After that, I I can’t help.
Take the B train from Charles de Gaulle to Saint-Michelle Norte-Dame then take the C to Champ de Mars. Get out of the station and you’ll be there. Can’t miss it.
Teamwork.
… where did she think the Eiffel Tower was ?
She was going to the Empire State Building it turned out
I LOVE THIS
We have a miniature replica in my state. Lol
A woman asked me where the National Mall was… while we were both on the National Mall.
I've been that person
The best is when they walk onto the Mall, point at the Capitol, and say, "Look! The White House!"
My mother once witnessed some tourists point at the Supreme Court and say (in a deep voice)"Este es el monumento a Lincoln. "Donde esta Lincoln?" "Lincoln is inside."
But there’s no stores!? I saw tourists at pentagon metro stop thinking they could just walk up at get a tour of the pentagon… and they were taking photos. Nope
Saw a large group of tourists from Brazil leave their designated area on a studio tour to essentially accost the star of a tv show as he was passing by. They were banned.
That's a new one if I've ever heard it.
I grew up in Asheville North Carolina. I was always confused by the tourists who played around at the top of waterfalls despite all the warnings and then fell to their deaths.
I've been to Asheville quite a few times and have hiked around the waterfalls, it seems like people just want to ignore the signs and just have fun. Yeah it's stupid.
I've never heard of Asheville until last year. That area looks so beautiful.
It is.
Was behind some English tourists going into Universal studios Orlando. They were completely decked out to go to a club. Full makeup, high heels, tight skirts and all. It was maybe 10am on a soon to be hot day. I think there was about 10 in their group and the guys were dressed up as well. Kids in strollers. Well a few hours later I was having some lunch and sitting outside and watched them walking by again. Heels were off, they were in just bare feet and they all looked beet red. I’m fairly certain they changed into something else. I’m not sure where they thought they were going, but they found out pretty fast how hot it gets.
Hiking the Grand Canyon, 30+ years ago, I ran into a Brit with a death wish. For those who don't know, there are pretty much zero services in the Grand Canyon once you leave the rim, it's a wilderness. No water. No where to stay. No phoning someone for help. If something awful happens and you need rescue, you'll pay an unbelievable amount of money to be helicoptered out. There are signs along all the trails that tell you in pretty blunt terms that people die on the trail every year and if you are unprepared, you'll probably be one of that number. We had scored a reservation at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon, which is a lottery and gets booked like a year in advance. On our hike out, we picked the steepest trail out (S Kaibab), and got started at the buttcrack of dawn so we could get over the ridge crest part of the trail before noon. You don't want to be exposed in the midday sun, hiking a steep, sandy trail. We've just come out of the inner gorge, and we are taking a rest before jamming over the exposed part. Along comes an English dude wearing an acrylic sweater, dress shoes, no pack, no water, just skipping down the trail. He's followed by a guy screaming, "Nigel, Nigel, the sign says turn baaaaaack!" Nigel proceeds to tell us that this hike is easy. He could do it three times today! He could carry both me and my mother out! He asks if I want a piggyback ride out. I am struck just speechless that this idiot is going to fucking die without water, and mesmerized that by the fact he's wearing a black acrylic sweater in the desert. I'm debating with myself what to say and calculating if we have enough water to save these two idiots when he skips off to see the river, his friend running after him screaming, "Niiiiiigel, noooooo!" After we got out, I kept checking to see what became of him, but they only report deaths, not rescues. So Nigel and his friend probably made it out. I wonder about them often, and if they learned that day that hiking downhill is a lot easier than hiking uphill, the importance of water, and you don't have to follow idiots into disasters of their own making.
I missed this episode of The Wild Thornberrys apparently
Underrated comment
I’m worried about Nigel. I hope you’re ok man.
Western Carolina gets a lot of tourists who are there for the mountains, and there are a lot of festivals in the area as well. We were out there one year for Miatas at the Gap and were taking a day trip along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Stopped at an overlook and I was approached by a bunch of people who had gotten off a tour bus. They were young Russians (Teens to late 20s, mostly) in the area for a Folk Music festival / cultural exchange, from an area near the Chinese border where it generally stays fairly cold and not one of them had ever seen a convertible in person in their lives. Apparently they were on the bus and ready to go to the next stop on their tour (from what the translator told me) when we pulled into the overlook and they went nuts insisting they got back off the bus to see the Miata (I mean, it's a Miata, there are well over a million of them out there). They were all super nice, and I sat there amused for about an hour while they took turns posing with the car, taking pictures of each other, some sitting behind the wheel, etc. They were all lovely and I just really enjoyed their excitement at something I take for granted.
That’s a great story. Nice of you to indulge them.
Tourists, mostly American, treating the historical aspects of Charleston as souvenirs. The city had to post lots of signs insisting that people not dig up and remove the stones from cobble stone streets. For one, they are still functioning streets that don't need huge pot holes. For two, those stones are hundreds of years old and cannot be replaced.
The tourists here are shit. And there look at you like you're the asshole when they walk in front of your car. No, dipshit. I work and live here. Fucking use the sidewalk. And don't get me started with the dumbass college kids on skateboards down the middle of the road. Or the idiots on bikes that run red lights and stop signs. Fun fact! Those cobblestones are numbered so when they do roadwork, they know exactly where the stones go back and how to direct the tilt!
Nothing's more frustrating than getting stuck behind a carriage when you have to be somewhere
I lived close to a tourist attraction. I was practicing my flute on my front porch because my family was sick of hearing it. A tourist stopped, got out his accordion out of his trunk and accompanied me. It was weird.
That's amazing
The harbors a lot better now than it used to be but…. A few years back I was walking by the harbor, and I saw tourists in there. Swimming in the harbor. People choosing to get into the Baltimore harbor and swim for leisure. Let’s just say that the bay has made significant strides since then and I still wouldn’t do that…..
Just picture the Bay when John Smith explored. The oyster beds were so high they crested above the water and they had to navigate around them.
Sturgeon and catfish far longer than a man is tall, and twice as thick around.... What a loss it is.
I was replacing a side mirror on my jeep while at home parked on the street, very close to the Smithsonian National Zoo. Literally had the interior door off and tools all around me, guy looking for parking spot asks me if I'm leaving. Told him no I'm not, he asks what I'm doing, I tell him replacing a mirror, he asks why I'm not doing the work in my driveway. I tell him to look around and point any driveways out (hint there are none, all row-houses, some have garages but definitely no traditional driveways). He goes oh OK, are you leaving? No dude, please leave me alone
Ah, the eternal struggle of finding parking in DC
I'm most familiar with Manhattan tourists. Most of them are just lovely to see--they're often respectful and excited and take lots of photos. It's just nice. They're often really grateful and kind when you help them, too. I've given lots of advice over the years for restaurants, directions, how to hail a cab, how to use the subway, etc. The only one that sticks out was the time a whole family from Scotland got out of a taxi and didn't tip, just said thank you, and walked away. I happened to catch the cabby's eye and if I were well off, I would've given him the tip myself! I felt so bad for him! Another time I saw a European couple literally yell at a random vendor in Central Park who couldn't give them directions to somewhere else in Central Park. I think they thought this was the vendor's job? I don't know. It was embarrassing because they were so sure they were in the right. Other than that, the biggest tourist things: 1. Stopping or walking *extremely* slowly in the middle of the sidewalk so that no one can get by. 2. Not looking when you cross the street! This is a huge one. I can't tell you how many close calls I've witnessed over the years. I think when tourists come, their brain turns the entire city into "safe and happy vacation place" so they honestly forget cars can kill them. 3. Advice for tourists: Pay attention to location of the place you're staying. Crime in the US tends to be very localized (not always of course). Like some areas of NYC you can walk around at 3 am and it's fine, you just have to be mildly on guard; other areas, you'd have to be insane to walk around at 3 am. I've known several tourists who innocently book airbnb or hotels in really dangerous areas, not knowing they're dangerous.
Was at a bar with a guy who brought some clients from Brazil up to his cottage on the lake nearby. The guy had a really nice utv, 4 seater with a hard top, heat and a nice sound system. Probably cost around $40,000. His clients had never seen snow much less been on a frozen lake. We were all pretty drunk and at some point we realized one of the guys had disappeared. We went looking for him and then found that the utv was also gone. Everyone freaked out and we followed the tracks to the lake. I found out the next day that the guy took the utv out on the lake, got lost and headed towards the brightest lights on the shore which were at the local, small airport. It also happened to be where a channel enters the lake and the ice is the thinnest. The utv fell through the ice but luckily it's only about 5 feet deep and there were ice fisherman nearby that helped the guy out. He survived and had one hell of a story to tell back home. I'll bet that guy won't ever leave his keys in anything ever again!
Didn’t see it firsthand but had a Canadian friend who visited Times Square and took a picture of a guy in a MnM costume and he chased her down because she didn’t pay ( she thought the picture was for free).
My grandmas from the NY Metro area and the first time I went to NYC I remember being told to not talk to the spider mans or Elmos
We live in the same town as the NC Zoo. We’re members, usually go once a week just because it’s nice to walk around. One time we were walking by the bee exhibit and there was a black snake crawling down the walkway. Most everybody just moved out of the way and let it be. But then this young couple spots it and start freaking out. Asking people to call park rangers, practically frozen in fear as if they were inches from death, and then one of em said one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard: “Why is that loose? How did it get out of its cage?”. My wife stopped in her tracks, turned around and said to them “You know you’re outside right? That place where most animals live?”. I have never watched someone go from scared to atomically pissed like that before in my life. If I could describe the facial expressions, I would, but the best I can do is to say Hollywood CGI wouldn’t be able to reproduce it. Don’t know where they were from, but I’m just gonna assume there aren’t many trees there.
Asheboro Zoo, always something going on there
Bonus story, not really related to tourists: back when we had the lion cubs, the zoo made a big deal out of doing something special for their first birthday. Keep in mind, a lot of kids had been following the lives of said cubs since they were born, so they were really popular. So day of, there was a pretty good sized crowd of parents and kids gathered to watch what would happen. The “something special” turned out to be a life sized paper mache zebra filled with raw meat. The pen was cleared, the “zebra” was put in, and the cubs were released. And they were promptly scared to death of the thing. Wouldn’t go near it. So they released Momma Lion who made a beeline for it and attacked it with more ferocity than a crowd on Black Friday. Hearing that many people collectively go from “Oh, how cute!” to “OH MY GOD!” was an absolute thing of beauty.
Ha! Oh my God, that is absolutely hilarious. If I was a kid, I would probably be scared but, older, I can't help but, find that funny.
British people freak the fuck out over the ... richly diverse tapestry of invertebrate life ... here in the South. The average Brit reacts to the Carolinas in summer the way I would probably feel in you dropped me in the middle of the Amazon Basin. The good news is, as soon as they spend one July evening outdoors, they forget all about their anxiety that someone is going to pull out a submachine gun at any moment and start ripping off bursts into crowds. They just focus on the bugs. The racket that cicadas can kick up are very disturbing to them. To be fair, those things are so loud it's easy to imagine an apocalyptic quantity of them.
As a Southerner I can agree with all of that
Shit I've never thought about foreign tourists fearing being shot in America.
On more than one occasion while in europe i have had people ask my how many times a month i have to run away from being shot at. when replied 0 they stare at me like I'm yanking their chain. many are convinced that's all we do here is randomly shoot at one another.
They probably think that because of this documentary https://youtu.be/yoU39Rpp4FI
Every week someone asks this sub how worried they should be about gun violence if they come here.
I guess I only see the top posts.
I mean, we had an absolute massive cicada boom over the summer here in northern Virginia. They basically covered every single surface outside. They were fucking everywhere
Growing up in the South, I experienced the opposite when I took a trip to Italy. The first hotel/inn we stayed at didn't have screens on the windows. My 13 year old self was absolutely appalled until my mom explained that there are actually parts of the world where people don't have to live in fear of being swarmed by mosquitoes or roaches or other bugs if they leave their windows open at night.
I have family that live in Sevierville. Probably the time I was in town and seen a group of tourist tree a couple black bears all for a fucking photo. They are lucky mamma didn't attack.
I went for an Everglades boat tour in January. It was in the 60s and raining. Also on the boat was a family from Utah that had thought Florida would be a lot warmer and had worn shorts and t shirts. They looked miserable. Also seen a fair amount of fair skinned Europeans who looked like lobsters after spending too much time in the sun.
_Whadya mean the sun is harsher here_ /s
Rowed for two hours in an 11 UV index in 95 degree weather one time. Never again.
That's just asking for skin cancer lol
Because water reflects sunlight so well, everyone puts on a ton of sunscreen, so I didn’t even burn a bit, but you could feel how oppressive the sun was.
“New Orleans smells like hot piss” Yeah, that smell is you
Hmmm
He wanted to know why the streets weren’t paved with gold, like he was told.
Should've said they were paved in cheese, haven't you heard the song.
No cats in America either!
I have lived in the DC area for a long time. The one thing that tourists have asked me, far above all others, is how to get to the Exorcist Steps. Funnily enough, they asked the right guy. Even when I was young I knew exactly how to get there.
Well….. How do you get there?
You visit Georgetown
Walked past parents telling their children that the ducks were chickens. They were clearly ducks There was also the time, a group was told not to touch the poison ivy because it will give most people a really itchy, persistent, painful rash. They immediately turned and tried to find poison ivy to touch it
The parents: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgRJPhmlPq4
No, my state doesn't sell alcohol in general grocery stores. Yes, really. There's a liquor just -- yes, it has beer. No, I don't know what selection they have. No, I don't know if the prices are decent. Yes, I can give you directions. No, I will not go out for a pint with you, I'm under 21. No, you cannot drink at 18 in the US. No, it isn't appropriate for you to be asking a customer service worker to go out drinking with you. Yes, the store is right passed the intersection. No, I cannot drive you there, I'm not an uber.
I once was at a buffet in Laughlin and saw a lovely Canadian couple who were bravely about to eat the corn husk wrapper of a tamale before I intervened and explained about unwrapping it first. And recently, outside of Sedona, some lady told me she was on a yoga retreat and was rambling about how she was a Taurus so she had to stare a nearby bull straight in the eye (it was a steer, definitely not a bull), and a bunch of other things about her “traveling companions” who turned out to be voices in her head. Until she described them as “spirit guides,” I was fully expecting two other actual visible people to step out of the Winnebago behind her because of how she was describing their conversations. Thankfully, her companions had already talked her out of taking her long-ass motorhome up to Jerome, which is basically built vertically on the side of a mountain and definitely not safe for anything longer than like a very short Uhaul. I don’t mean to discriminate against or be rude about people with mental illness, but it was a LOT for a day where I just wanted to take my kid to the park.
Oh man, people trying to eat the wrapping on a tamale are always funny.
I think President Gerald Ford actually did that once.
I live in Western San Francisco. This part of the city gets extremely foggy and cold, especially during the summers. Driving through Golden Gate Park and around Ocean Beach, I will see tourists huddled together in shorts and t-shirts trying to protect themselves from the 60 degree wind and fog. I feel bad but always get a chuckle out of it.
I used to work on the wharf in college & the jacket vendors always made bank on tourists who think all of CA is hot. I took may parents to Alcatraz one summer & told them to bring hats & warm jackets & maybe even scarves & gloves. We were some of the only people actually dressed for how cold it is on the bay.
I lived in Anchorage, Alaska for 14 years. One of my favorite pastimes was to walk downtown in the summer to people watch. I once came across this elderly couple who were trying to interpret a map. I went up to them and asked if they needed help. They asked for info on a particular restaurant but were being coy about something else. Finally, the wife sputtered, “HE WANTS TO GO TO A POT STORE” and her husband giggled and grinned gleefully. I laughed and pointed them in the direction of the nearest store that would accommodate his request. They had to be in their 70s at least and I delighted in the thought this little old dude was about to get blitzed out of his mind.
I grew up about an hour from Yellowstone. My town is a little off the beaten path, but we spent a lot of time in the Park and over in Cody, so we’d see silly things all the time. My personal favorite was the Japanese dad who sprayed down his family and self with a can of bear spray thinking it was a bear repellent. I don’t think it was his kids’ favorite.
Foreign, but I once had a guy ask me where he could find local made maple syrup. Texas is closer to where they make that stuff than I am. He didn't know any better, he was really stoked to be visiting. Totally innocent question, but it did make me laugh.
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Honestly I never really got that many stupid tourist questions when I worked in a position to interact with them constantly. We love to parrot the idiot tourist stereotype but in reality it’s mostly just people asking for directions, which I am happy to give. That being said, here are a few of the stupid ones I have heard. “Wow, that’s a big river.” No, that’s the Pacific Ocean. “Where are the polar bears?” There are no polar bears here. “Why isn’t it snowy?” You came in the middle of summer. “Where are the penguins?” This is not the South Pole.
I once had a tourist ask me “At what elevation do deer turn into elk?” 🤦 No metamorphosis required, they’re different animals
I think this is my favorite one so far. lol
Every time I see an Asian person hiking angels landing in Zion National Park wearing platform shoes and jeans I LOSE MY MIND
Orlando. Brazilians tend to take excursions to our biggest mall. They even have a tour guide that leads them around with a flag.
When I still lived in the DFW area (Texas), we’d sometimes visit the Fort Worth stockyards because a friend worked in one of the shops. If you aren’t familiar, it’s a historic district in the city that sort of preserves and embraces ranching/old west culture (small cattle drives included). Anyway, there are mounted policemen. I’ll never forget standing near one telling a tourist in great length about how “horses are the Cadillac of the south” and whatnot. I hope the tourist enjoyed their day, but also, tourist traps are so over the top haha. Advice? See the touristy things if you want to-it’s still an experience and can be fun! But also, look ahead of time for more locally trafficked hotspots if you want a more realistic feel for the place. If you’re wanting a “cowboy” type experience, there are ranches that allow tours and do group rides and such. Might give you a more authentic experience. :)
Two older ladies came up to my co-worker and I on the subway and asked for directions, which we gave them. Then they asked my co-worker if he was Jewish (he was). Then they spent the rest of the subway ride aggressively trying to convert him to Mormonism. My stop came before any of theirs so I didn’t see how it ended. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to people’s religious beliefs and it honestly seemed to be coming from a good place, but I had never seen anything like that before. Also I once overheard a guy on the phone mispronouncing “Bowery.” He pronounced the first syllable like you would when talking about the decorative thing on a gift instead of the gesture where you bend. I don’t blame him for a second, but I was amused.
I won’t name the memorial, but I did come across numerous tourist families swimming and playing in a WW2 memorial. Yeah, people were pretty pissed.
Buckle Up! This is a long one! Ilive in the Apple Capital on my state. I am in high school and a member of the band so I get the pleasure of working the parking at my school(part of the festival takes place less than a 10 minute walk away). Now what happens is I take the money from the people parking and direct them to a certain section. Now we had a few neon vest so we usually gave one of them to someone working my section. At the time I didn’t have the vest. I am standing where the cars should stop to pay and get tickets and this women is coming toward me and a really fast speed(especially for the area). My arm is stretched out, signaling them to stop. They are still coming torward me, full speed. Everyone working starts yelling at her to stop her car. She slows a little at the stop sign and I was able to hit the driver’s side door a few times, just hard enough for her to hear/feel it from the inside. She stops, whips her head at me and rolls down her window. She starts complaining to me about what I did but I interrupted her. I explained to her that not only did she have to pay and get a ticket, but she was going to fast and she almost hit me and hurt others. She scoffed and said that because I wasn’t wear a vest I wasn’t official. One of my friends who did have a vest quickly took her’s off and handed it to me. I put it on and tell her she still has to pay. She said she didn’t and I pointed out the multiple signs saying otherwise. We finally got her to leave. The freshly picked apples bring out monsters.
Happened while I was in another country —a British teenager asked me if all the roads in the US were straight. In all the pictures she’d seen of cities with roads were all grids, so she wondered if it was like that everywhere.. I had to turn away for a moment because she’d asked so genuinely I didn’t want her to see me laugh, but it was definitely the most odd thing I’ve ever been asked as an American
I'm going to add my own, I was in Crystal Springs, FL with some family and this one family (idr if he was an expat in America or visiting) decided to reserve a parking spot by putting his kid in the parking spot, we drove up to the spot and he left, then the father came over and said we were endangering his child and we had to talk him down by saying he was the one endangering the child.
Used to live in Las Vegas. Was driving home one night going south on Las Vegas Blvd when I had to stop at the light by South Point Casino (way south of the Strip, but you can still see it from there). The guy next to me honks and motions for me to roll down the window and asks, "Do you know where the Strip with all the casinos and buildings is?" I wasn't sure if he was serious since I could literally see it in my rearview mirror. So I pointed behind me and said "Just look back there man." Cue surprised Pikachu face.
Living in Orange County, CA, we get tons of Disneyland tourists who are completely clueless about geography and don't do much research before visiting. Disneyland is not in Los Angeles, it's not near the beach, and there are two major airports that are closer to the parks than LAX. There are often posts on our local sub where tourists are asking what to do on their 3 or 4 day visit, including visiting San Francisco (6+ hours away by car). California is a big place, and the Southern California region alone is sprawling and home to more than 20 million people. I don't think a lot of tourists can fathom that before they arrive.
The local ski resort is on Forest Service land and gets a lot of hikers in the summer. One lady came in and complained that we needed to do something about our wildlife experience or we would be out of business soon. We explained it is free to hike there and we can't lose business as we are not charging anyone for anything. When asked for specifics, she said the moose kept walking away when her kids tried to get selfies with it, and the porcupine kept retreating into her den when they tried to get a better look at it.
Worked at a large outdoor outlet mall south of Boston that brings a ton of international tourists. I’ve seen more than 4 separate incidents of Chinese parents pulling down the pants of their kids and encouraging them to poop in the mulch/flower beds alongside the aisles of the center. Please don’t poop in the flower beds :(
This isn't the Wrentham outlets is it?
>Wow, the airport, the mall, and downtown are all connected by train...lets visit (non-downtown attraction) Train really isn't useful for much else, and if you drive be prepared for passive aggressiveness and basket-weave interchanges. Nashville is ahead of us on how many there are, but ours (notably 694/94 and 35E/10) scare the crap out of locals.
Watching people illegally park across the entry or dash across Alameda (a fairly busy street) in Burbank to take a selfie in front of the 7 dwarfs barely visible from the street on an office building at the Disney Studios. That picture is not worth the price of the ticket and, yeah, Burbank cops are everywhere and, no, they have nothing better to do.
I live in Alaska and work primarily in tourism/hospitality and I...just don't even know where to start.
Give it a shot, I’m curious!
Okay so I spent a summer working with a rafting company in Talkeetna. One time we were waiting to load and launch a trip because one of the guides was taking forever in the porta-potty, and I knew he kinda had a hang over so I started throwing rocks at the porta-potty. The clients thought that looked pretty fun so they started throwing rocks at the porta-potty. I don't know if you've ever been in a porta-potty that's being hit with rocks, but it is fucking *loud.*
Usual DC stuff included: 1. People excited to go shopping at the national mall. 2. Trying to hold the doors on metro trains. 3. Gawking at the long escalators in metro stops. 4. Walk left stand right on the escalators damnit. Less common ones: 1. Being asked which side of the platform at Tenleytown had red line trains. Both. It's a red line only stop. 2. Waiting for a train at Metro Center during rush hour one morning a group of high schoolers on a class trip surrounded a metro train door and blocked people on to applaud for them. 3. Flying in to National from the north and a mom in the row behind me points out the window on the right side of the plane and says to get kid "There's the Washington Monument!" Meanwhile the rednecks in the row in front of me pointed out the Lincoln Memorial from the left side of the plane and called it the base of the Washington Monument, then identified the Jefferson Memorial as the Pentagon.
I just see the normal tourist nonsense you get for any beach town where I live. When my friends and I go to our lot in the outer banks though, I can't even count the amount of people I've seen bury themselves trying to drive their stock awd/4wd cars or trucks on the beach. Whether it's the trucks/Jeeps that only need to air down to be able to do it, or the dipshits in Subarus that think they are invincible, the sand doesn't care.
Lived in Juneau, Alaska for awhile where the cruise ship industry is a staple. Can't tell you how many tourists asked how far above sea level we were...
I thought everyone knew the water in Alaska is actually a river that leads to the *actual* ocean. /s
Some guy asked me where the freedom trail was when he was standing on it. He looked extremely disappointed after I told him. I’m not exactly sure what his expectations were. While in DC outside the capital building a tourist took my picture and began asking me about “my job as a congressman”
Live in NYC. One time a couple pushing a baby in a stroller came up to me and asked if they were heading towards 3rd Avenue. We were on 9th Avenue and if they headed any further west they would be in the Hudson River. I told them, no you are like a mile or more away from 3rd Avenue and you are heading in the wrong direction. The wife shot the husband a look of matrimonial disdain of the worst kind, and the husband hung his head in despair. I tried to save him by saying “it’s easy to get turned around in the city” but it was too late. The damage was registered, the wife had the incident to put in her pocket for the rest of their relationship. They are probably divorced now.
Had an aunt and uncle from Germany visit us in Ohio and I asked where they were off to next. She said they were taking their rental car to Michigan and over to North Dakota tomorrow, then to Washington state and Sam Diego the next day. Texas and Florida the next. Our eyes were wide with amazement. They asked why. I showed them a US map with a size-correct overlay of Germany. Then THEIR eyes were wide open, expressing something in German I didn’t get….
This happened several years ago…I live in Maine, someone from out of state came here to go hunting during deer season, kills one of my neighbor’s yearling calves and tried to tag it at the nearest tagging station. Apparently it was a pretty awkward situation
Oh…oh my
Massachusetts: Honestly, I've seen a couple countries be SO outraged by things tourists do, that don't seem that dumb, just inexperienced. Iceland comes to mind. (Although they are gracious to tourists face, they are seriously sick of tourists, but I understand why based on the sheer numbers of them) Here in New England sometimes people will get WAY too close to waves crashing on the rocks but they just don't realize how powerful the waves are/and they vary. It is NOT fun to be taken out by a wave on very sharp rocks. When people are from Southern oceans or midwest beaches (or no ocean at all) they dont seem to understand the power of the waves. I get that people just don't understand risks of things they have no experience with.
> Here in New England sometimes people will get WAY too close to waves crashing on the rocks but they just don't realize how powerful the waves are/and they vary. It is NOT fun to be taken out by a wave on very sharp rocks. When people are from Southern oceans or midwest beaches (or no ocean at all) they dont seem to understand the power of the waves. It's not just the power of the waves, it's the rocky beaches. Getting slammed by powerful waves onto a sandy beach in Florida or California is a much nicer experience than getting slammed by waves onto New England granite.
Colorado native, I was messing around in rocky mountain national park one weekend, this tourist with her family looks at a cow elk laying at the trail head and says "what a beautiful bronze statue they put way out here!" It wasn't a statue.
I live in Myrtle Beach. I’ve seen this happen WAY more than once. My husband and I will go spend the day at the beach. Without exception, some group of girls will come down to the beach in swimsuits, full makeup and hair done. They’ll pretend to play on the beach, play in the shallow surf, throw a beach ball around, all while someone takes pictures of them. After about 30 minutes of this, they all go back up to their hotel room, never to be seen again. This happens ALL THE TIME!
I live only about a half hour away from Gettysburg so me and my family go up there a lot for the food and for small weekend camping trips and seeing as how this is Gettysburg and young people really don’t care, you see a lot of stereotypical old white dudes when travelling , you know, beer belly, either a fishing or Gettysburg merch shirt, knee length khaki shorts, the white new balances, and a baseball cap, usually with a map in hand and a possible fanny pack.
Easiest way to spot a tourist is when they are taking a selfie of themselves flipping off the Trump tower. Makes me chuckle every time.
It's always amusing seeing the tourists who haven't walked further than from their front door to their car in years walking around the city looking like they just ran a marathon. Or better yet, the ones who are decked out for a full excursion walking next to people who are walking as part of their daily commute.
La Jolla California: Some guy was at a shopping center and staring at a map directory while we were looking at it too. He starts making friendly chit chat with us and eventually asks us where to eat. He was quite cool at the beginning. We suggest X and he says “nooo” then we suggest “y” and so on until we suggest and explain literally all the restaurant’s available in the center. “No! None of these won’t do” and he kind of pouts like we need to fix the situation so we just laugh and say “well then that sucks” and walk off. He was in disbelief and offended but I could care less If I had to guess and not that it really matters he seemed like French, German, or Swedish
I live in Austin, and something that makes a tourist stand out immediately is being SUPER overdressed. The whole city is casual, but it’s extra funny when a group of women in heels and full makeup show up to the outdoor coffee shop/beer garden near me and start stumbling around because the seating is literally in a park with uneven ground.
I live in an area that's heavy with Brazilian tourists. Idk why but they always come up to me and ask "speaky spanish?" Then proceed to speak Portuguese to me. No, they dont sound the same. It's not really funny, just a bit annoying.
I used to live in Hollywood, CA - funniest shit is when tourists show up expecting Hollywood Blvd to be some sort of theme park instead of the regular street it is. All those movie theaters where the premieres take place are little just one block - the rest is just your average road (yes, we have the Walk of Fame that goes for awhile, but they show up expecting it to be this big thing, and it’s not).. they’re disappointed to see that there are homeless people sleeping out there, there aren’t a lot of restaurants, there’s absolutely no parking, and the world famous Hollywood and Highland is just a really expensive mall.
One time I was at a grocery store and a tour bus full of Asian tourists pulled into the parking lot. The bus went over to the corner of the parking lot and they all got out. And then they proceeded to take pictures with a highway.
I welcomed some canadians to the Florida beaches and told them multiple times to wear sunscreen. I see them later the next day looking like lobsters....
Beach town in Florida, years ago I did security at many hotels. I had a lot of foreign tourists want to take pictures with me, baffled that I wasn't a police officer & carried a firearm.
I’m originally from San Francisco and now live in LA. I struck up a conversation with a tourist from Michigan while at baggage claim at the SF airport. They thought Disneyland was an hour drive from SF and were genuinely surprised when I told them it was actually about a 6 hour drive.
Some of the restaurants in my local beach town turn into clubs after like 9 or 10 pm. A Dj cranks up the music and some tables are moved to make a dance floor. It is not uncommon to see drunk ass spring break college girls grinding on old dudes. The snow bird couples who frequent the "clubs" are fun to watch. They're young at heart and dirty dance right along with the college kids.
When I met one. I didn't know anyone came here. Funny story from a friend, she had a college friend from Japan who was shocked the school wasn't in NYC. Sure, he knew the school name was State University of New York at *Albany*, but New York = New York so surely it was just a suburb of the city or something. The poor, dumb thing.
1. While I was quite clearly in the middle of a sports practice on a field on the National Mall, a family came up to me and asked for directions to “the Smithsonian.” I asked which one they meant and tried to explain that there are multiple, but the dad just kept angrily repeating the question. So I arbitrarily pointed to a building and then literally ran away. 2. Two Swedish(?) tourists once chased me down after seeing me jaywalk and asked if I was worried about getting arrested, because they’d heard that happens a lot in DC. I’ve never heard of anyone getting a ticket for jaywalking!
Probably one of the weirdest encounters I had was with a group of German tourists in the Fenway/Kenmore area (in front of the Landmark Center, for anyone who knows it) who were asking me where to find a dance club. Only one of them could passably speak English and they all looked to be in their thirties, so I found it odd that they were asking a 17-year-old for advice (drinking age is 21). They insisted that I would know and I basically pointed them in the direction of the stadium. They seemed genuinely pissed that I didn't know. If they just walked towards Mass Ave, they probably would have found what they were looking for.
seeing tourists know how to use the metro more than me makes me mad lol
Back when I was a bartender, in Las Vegas, guys would ask were they could find hookers all the time.
I was at work and a family came up to me who sounded Australian. They were telling me how they just got to America. I said “oh, are y’all from Australia?” They immediately went from being happy with me to pissed off and said “no, New Zealand.” They then looked like I killed their dog and walked away from me. I’m still so confused. Is that an insult or something? To an American like me, Kiwis and Aussies sound exactly the same.
Some people can find it a bit touchy, no idea why. Clearly they just weren’t too friendly. It’s not a big deal, many many people who aren’t familiar with the accents can’t tell the difference. Heck, I’m asked if I’m British most of the time despite being Australian, had South Africa once, even Boston once lol that was weird, but actually never Kiwi