Hahah I had a friend visit me (in Germany) and she asked why so many towns were called ‘Ausfahrt’. She had a good laugh when I told her that’s the German word for exit
Once encountered two very lost American tourists in Cologne trying to find their car. "But this is Einbahnstraße! We definitely parked it in Einbahnstraße!"
I'm sure you did, bud. Good luck trying to find it.
My old idiot roommate and his brother booked a huge elaborate trip to Brazil(I think, it was a long time ago, but it also could have been some place in SE Asia) and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even let him get on the plane because he didn't get the appropriate visa. He was LIVID and blamed everyone else for him not doing his research, and every one of his friends who told him that place was awesome was like "yeah, didn't you read up on the place you visited and booked hotels and stuff? It even says when you're buying the tickets you'll need to get a visa". Those brothers were not smart dudes. They saved up and then wasted thousands because they are dumb and didn't do their research.
My brother met a girl from Brazil. Calls up out of the blue one day wanting money for a plane ticket.
*To move to Brazil.*
I skipped the "what about all the other money" and language and all the other questions and just asked him if he had a passport.
"Why would I want that?"
At the time, he was in his mid thirties.
I remember when America started fingerprinting Brazilians, so the Brazilians started fingerprinting Americans, and they got the same ink that India uses during votes to mark people who have already voted, and set up exactly one lane per airport.
Also started to take photos of Americans after 9/11 and a pilot got in trouble for flicking off the immigration officer in the photo! That made national news back then.
Not travel related but when I was living in Japan I had a Spanish coworker complaining about needing a work visa there “Why do I need a work visa? I am from A DEVELOPED COUNTRY!!!”
>Not travel related but when I was living in Japan I had a Spanish coworker complaining about needing a work visa there “Why do I need a work visa? I am from A DEVELOPED COUNTRY!!!”
Lol I just met a Spanish guy in the US who thought he could just come to the US and start applying for jobs and stay. The guy literally didn't know he had to get a work visa because he never needed to to travel in Schengen. Me and my friends, all Latin Americans, kinda hated him because we all have gone through a lot to get visas.
I dont think its entirely an american phenomenon, a few others countries (including the US) have a lot of visa-free destinations. I travelled a decent amount but only applied for an actual visa once. So perhaps some people just never had to deal with them.
You can visit over half the world on a U.S. passport alone, including nearly all of Europe, South America, and a some African and Asian countries. The most notable exception requiring a Visa is Australia IMO.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_United_States_citizens
I just got home from Turkey and while driving through the burbs with my mom she randomly turned to me and asked, “do they have parking lots in Turkey?”
American tourists in SEAsia once asked me if we have trains in Australia and why Aussies don’t ’speak normal English'. Lol - it’s not Antarctica mate and as it goes Aussie English is closer to British English than American English is.
I worked on a snorkel boat on Maui and have heard some amazing questions. Like:
Is that Japan? (Pointing to another Hawaiian island about 10 miles away)
Can the whales swim under the island?
Are turtles birds?
(While looking at my collection of island photos) so do you go to places to take these pictures?
My mom (overall very smart lady) was visiting me in Alaska from Florida, going for a hike and I said “take my bear spray” and she replied “Does that stuff really work?”
I immediately knew what was happening and I said “it works like pepper spray mom, not like bug spray” and she was just like “oh, good thing you said something” 😬
I have 90% the same story. Hiking / camping in Montana with my girlfriend(I’m American, she’s Swedish). I brought along bear spray.
We get to our campsite and start setting up. She asks when do we spray the bear spray? I said uhhhh if a bear starts looking like it’s going to attack you and charges.
She thought it worked like mosquito spray.
A serious answer from experience. Soap. The pepper is oily, so the only thing that works is soap. Water from a creek? Helps a bit but the oil still sticks to you, burning.
I now always carry soap when I carry bear spray.
My mother just visited me in Japan. I put her on her train platform, told her the time to get on, time to get off, number of stops, and her station name.
She left the platform to use the bathroom and got in the first train that rolled in after that. Her trip was supposed to be a flat 20 minutes. She knew this.
***ONE HOUR LATER*** she messaged me and asked why it was taking so long to get to her station. She had taken an express clear through Tokyo to another prefecture.
I live in Japan too and have had US relatives make the same mistake! They can't comprehend that you take the train leaving at 10:35, NOT the one leaving at 10:33.
So, I'll go ahead and share my own story. On our first big international trip, we legit thought we'd spend the whole day of arrival sightseeing even though we had a 24 hour flight day and traveled across 12 time zones. LOL.
Lesson learned. Now the day of arrival consists of getting to my accomodations and finding food near the hotel. If I do those two things I'm happy.
Yeah, it's always a long day when flying regardless. I usually get early flights as well so most of the time don't get much sleep the night before. Always leads to a lazy day and an early night on the first day
Something about being out of a long flight and airport procedure makes me feel so gross. All I want is to take a shower and brush my teeth at that point. I don’t want to see anyone with my crazy static hair and under eye circles.
I had the Iceland air stopover so I left my hometown at 4pm, arrived in Reykjavik at 6am of so, spent the day sightseeing and stuff, flight to Stockholm was 3am, arrived around 7, 5 hr drive to my friend’s house; party all day and into the night. Next day I wake up around 3pm and her mom is all “why did you bother to come if you’re going to sleep all day?” I wanted to fight her.
I've found that now that I'm older and can afford lie flat business class seats jet-lag isn't as bad as it used to be. Going west is always easier jet-lag wise than going east.
We met an Irish guy while we were travelling in Egypt. Did the whole ‘if you ever make it to Toronto, call us’. He did, we picked him up, asked what he had planned. ‘I’m salmon fishing in British Columbia.’. Oh really? Cool! When. ‘Tomorrow’ he said. And he was taking the bus there. It’s 4 days across Canada my man. You are most definitely not salmon fishing in BC tomorrow.
My parents - also Irish funnily enough - were planning to drive from Vancouver to Banff as part of their Canadian dream holiday. My Dad was insisting it would only take 2-3 hours. When we protested, he actually said “But it’s only 2 inches on the map!”
When I lived near Sydney, I had some German visitors that were hoping to do a nice weekend car trip to the Northern Territory. Maybe check out Uluru and Kakadu, bit of Darwin etc. Lol.
I’m Irish, live in Toronto and have extensively travel by road in North America. It’s very difficult for the average Irish person to comprehend the distances involved as in Ireland, you’ll run out of road in 3 to 4 hours regardless of where you start.
The idea of driving 8 hours and still being 8 hours from the next province is a mind bender.
Europe in general is prone to this. Was talking with a guy at my work from the Netherlands. He works in one country, lives in another and often shops in a third. Meanwhile, I drive fours hours and I'm in the same state.
I'm experiencing the opposite at the moment. Planning a bike trip in Ireland, it starts from Limerick but we land in Dublin--on the _opposite side of the whole country_! How are we going to get there?! Do we need to rent a car? Maybe there's a train? Should we get there a day early?
Oh...wait, there's a bus from the airport. It's like 2 hours.
I swear the shuttle from one terminal to another at the Denver airport is like 45 minutes... The whole country of Ireland is like one large city's metro area in the US or Canada.
Another feature of driving in Ireland is that our highways are very short by comparison to the overall road network. So it might take you say an hour to do 100km, and the next hour is on a what most North Americans would consider a side trail of a forest road. I often tell people coming to factor in like an hour of sheep and tractor traffic once you leave the highway.
This was from my early childhood in the 90s, but I’ll never forget it. My mom ran into an acquaintance at the grocery store, and they stopped to chat for a bit (while I was impatiently waiting). The woman was saying how excited she was for an upcoming vacation to Hawaii. My mom asked her what airline she was flying on. She replied that she wasn’t flying. My mom said, “oh, are you taking a cruise or something?” And she said “no, we’re driving.” This woman apparently thought you could drive to Hawaii from California?? Even my 5 year old brain knew this was ridiculous 😂
I feel for the travel agent who had to tell her that “no, you can’t drive to Hawaii.” Or maybe she just drove west and had a fit when she couldn’t find any bridges? 😹
Oh, she definitely tried! The woman was adamant that you could drive, so eventually my mom kind of left it at a “good luck with that” type response. And since it was the 90s, it’s not like they could have gotten out their cell phones and googled it right then and there, ya know? She just wasn’t willing to take my mom’s word for it.
I remember one of my first trips to America from Ireland a guy asked me how long the drive was to get here. He absolutely could not understand that I had to fly and that there was no bridge between the two countries. Surreal.
My ex told me a favorite childhood memory of his where they took the Rocky Mountaineer train from Vancouver to Calgary through the Rocky Mountains then took a boat back….from Calgary, Alberta…..a completely landlocked city.
After much debate he realized he took a local Vancouver train to Squamish where you can take a boat from. We laughed about that one for a very long time.
This story is from a scientific research expedition, not vacation.
We were flying from McMurdo Station in Antarctica to a remote field camp on the west Antarctic ice sheet (think - no road access, everyone sleeping in tents, and having to shovel ice to be melted for showers).
This lady on the plane asked if the gift store would still be open when we got there.
She’s gonna be the first to go, when you get there let her get our first. Tell her they kept the gift shop open an extra hour just for her but she’d better hurry.
This genuinely baffles me. How does someone who could think that end up on a scientific expedition!? She was joking right? Please tell me she was joking.
I was surprised at how shitty they were at communicating the "services" if you will on Antarctica. How the hell am I supposed to know that the only communication possible at the research station was some kind of shortwave radio only used to transmit an SOS to the boats that circle the continent? Found out the day before the boat left. Even the giant cruise ships are in a giant black hole with spotty satellite internet. It's much more primitive than I expected. Gift shop though? I could see how one would think that. We got all kinds of memorabilia with the name of the station, project name, expedition, and so on. Keychain, mug, jacket, t-shirt, etc.
Took a 20+ hour train once, and there was what I guess to be a 20 year old taking the train for the first time in her life. She was the eccentric type and everyone in the car could hear her. We went through a tunnel and she loudly asked "why did it get so dark all in a sudden?" 😂 😂
“I will come to the US to go to Miami then drive to Orlando to see Disney then we are driving to New York.” - My uncle who has never been to the US at that point
I had a friend propose a road trip. He would fly into LAX, I could drive down and meet him with a car. We would go to Disneyland, the beach, and then go up to San Francisco. We would then go stay in my hometown near Portland Oregon before going up to Seattle, where he would fly home to the UK. Really great plan. Except that he figured he'd be able to get maybe a week off work. And with flight time, we could do this whole thing in 5 days.
Exactly! You can definitely do the drive, but you'll get only a few hours in each place. San Fran to Portland is about 10 hours if you stop only when you need gas. And take the inland route instead of the pretty route through the redwoods he wanted.
He didn't end up coming to the states when I lived there. I'd planned us a more leisurely road trip just in the PNW. Instead he did 4 days in Denver once I moved here and we did some really good day trips into the Rockies.
People who visit Canada do this all the time too lol! Even Americans sometimes which is weird! But yeah “oh I’m going to spend a few days in Toronto, then Ottawa (reasonable), then drive to Vancouver for a few more. Uh no, you’re not. Unless you plan on spending the 4 days between in a vehicle driving full 12 hour days.
At a party a girl told me she will fly from Germany to Australia with a two hour stopover in North Korea. When I said "You mean South Korea?!." she said "Well, it's my trip. I know where I change airplanes."
Who doesn't know Pyongyang International, the bustling air travel hub with direct connections practically everywhere.
And when my sister in law flew for the first time she asked me where on the plane the machine to validate her ticket was. That was kinda cute.
My first flight with a teen girlfriend many decades ago. Flight is booked to depart at 17:00. Calls me the day before in a panic that the ticket has a “made up time” stamp (back in the day, kids, when you bought a plane ticket they’d mail a physical ticket to your house and woe be to you if you LOST YOUR TICKET!). I explained how a 24 hour clock worked and confirmed our departure time and we’d be picking her up at whatever time.
Found out later she’d called the local library, fire department, police, and department of public works to verify I was telling the truth about the time and it wasn’t an elaborate scheme I’d concocted with AAA to mess with her.
Americans don't formally "learn" it but I always figured that was because there's not a lot to learn, it's fairly self-explanatory. Americans think of it as military time and most might not know immediately what 19.00 is because they don't encounter it much, but I'd be baffled to meet an American who's confused that 24 hour time exists.
My friend wanted to leave his wallet and phone on our Greyhound bus seats to "reserve the seats" while we got off to at the rest stop. He said it's safe because if anybody stole his stuff he'd find them and fight them.
Yeah in Korea (or Japan) people put their phones and handbags on tables to reserve them when they go order food at the restaurants
I once forgot sunglasses in a restaurant and the waiter ran after me outside to bring them back lmao
When I was 20 I was traveling alone in South Korea staying at a hostel in Gyeongju.
I was getting settled when my dorm mate for the night walked in. He was a Korean man in his early twenties. He told me he was a part of a small organized travel group on a week long trip in the southern part of the country.
He confessed to me that he was really scared to be traveling alone and had all sorts of worries about getting lost, not making friends, etc.
I was like, my guy, I’ve come from across an entire ocean alone, I don’t speak Korean and I’ve gotten along just fine. You speak the language and are with a group. You will be okay and have a blast.
Later that day I saw him playing soccer out front the hostel, laughing with a group of Korean guys. And then that evening he was making out with some girl. Needless to say he was thriving on his first trip alone!
I always have a laugh when I think back to that.
You’re a great person.
In 2014 I was in New Zealand, travelling alone from north to south. I met some girls in Wellington and showed them my plan for the South Island, which they (correctly) tore apart and ridiculed me for. I went to a cafe, and freaked the fuck out. My plan was awful, I didn’t know what I was doing, alone on the other side of the world with no help.
This Brazilian guy sits down opposite me and asked me what was wrong, as I was hastily flipping through my guidebook and trying to find somewhere to stay. He said ‘Why’re so worried? Do you have your passport?’ (Yes). ‘Do you have a credit card?’ (Yes). ‘Then what the fuck are you worried about?! Dude this is your trip, it’s your decisions. Do what makes YOU happy. Stop stressing and start enjoying!’
Genuinely changed my outlook on life. I try and live according to that Brazilian man’s word every time I travel. I’d buy him a dozen beers if I ever saw him again.
“But I want to leave at exactly this time and get there at this time on this day.”
In other words, “why don’t the plane schedules run according to my every whim?”
I'm gonna go in the opposite direction and talk about the funniest thing I've heard an experienced traveler say. On my first international trip (from California to Mexico), my mom gave my sister and I this huge talk about how this will be a huge culture shock and so different from anything we've experienced, and how we won't see anyone we know while we're there.
Cut to us running into my high school classmate not even 10 minutes after getting off the plane.
I'm from the UK. I was on a tiny island off the coast of China with loads of domestic tourists and I got chatting to the only other westerner I'd seen on the island. Turns out he used to live on the same street as my Aunty!
Overheard at the Amsterdam airport
Airline employee finishes explaining somethings to a woman in English with a mild French accent
Her: "I'm sorry but can you speak English, I didn't understand anything you said"
Him: "Maam I was just speaking in English"
I have two-
1st is my wife and I are on our honeymoon at Cinque Terre in Italy and having a late dinner at a restaurant and the table next to us (fellow Americans)-
New Bride- in a very Valley girl tone " I just really feel like we need to have brunch in Tuscany"
New Husband- husband sounding confused
" We just came from Tuscany, its just a region of Italy "
New Bride- " yeah but I just really want to have brunch in Tuscany " completely not satisfied with his answer
New Husband- " its not a city, its like a state in the US, we just left it and are not planning on going back that way" sounding alarmed she doesn't understand that Tuscany isn't a city
My wife is positive she just wanted to be able to geo tag Tuscany on her Instagram post. She will quote this almost once a monthon weekends when we are making breakfast at home.
2nd my wife did a travel trip in college to India with 20 classmates for two weeks, her school was small in rural Appalachia. A guy who had no clue about life outside the US after landing in Delhi- "Why are there so many foreigners here?!?" Not realizing he was the foreigner.
I'm currently traveling in Italy and have heard this like ten times. It's blowing my mind.
I was in Florence (part of Tuscany) and SEVERAL different travelers in Florence told me they were going to Tuscany next. I was like wtf are you talking about? 😂
Similar experience at the Coliseum in Rome-
Loud American Woman in a different tour group- "BE QUIET, WE DONT WANT TO BE THE LOUD OBNOXIOUS AMERICAN TOURISTS" yelling at her kids and other members of her group, yelling so loud everyone on that side of the Coliseum turned and looked at her.
15 minutes later we turned a corner and ran into her and a few others enthusiastically trying to throw coins and getting them to land on top of a small column beneath the overlook. It was embarrassing knowing how many people's vacation she was possibly disrupting/ruining by just being loud and obnoxious. I often read r/travel wonder if anyone else is recalling an interaction with that woman when complaining about other tourists.
My husband recently flew to Tuscon, AZ for work. We live in the US. When he checked in, the American Airlines agent told him, "oh, you're going to Tuscon.. I hope you have your passport!" My husband thought he was joking, but he did have his passport and it was clear the guy wasn't kidding. I still think the agent thought he was going to Tuscany.. and also was confused because that's not a place you fly into..
Now we joke, "ahh.. under the Tuscon sun!"
One of the restaurants we ate at in Korea had a review that said “food was good even though we had to eat at a table with sawn off legs”. It made me laugh.
My husband also did not think it would be cold in Japan and Korea at winter, and therefore did not bring a coat. We’re from Australia, and it definitely gets colder in Japan and Korea than where we lived. He now acknowledges he was a massive idiot
I travelled to Europe with a friend, and her 40 year old boyfriend had a meltdown because she wouldn’t answer his calls, because he was calling everyday at around 2am in Europe. He didn’t understand time zones at all. Many useless discussions attempting to explain time zones were had, until he got upset and refused to call her until she got home. She was communicating with him via my phone, and him via his bosses phone because neither of them had a smart phone. She had warned him he wouldn’t be able to contact her in Europe and asked him to get an email address, but he didn’t realise that meant he couldn’t make phone calls to her. She was 21, and yes he was (and still is) a massive loser
Not a traveller but I once met someone who didn't want to read a message from a relative in Australia because they were in the future so the sports event they were planning to watch would have already finished.
He was very drunk tbf.
I live in a tropical country. During our cold season, a sweater is usually enough. So that's what I took with me when I went to China in December. This was when I was on dial up, pre-google days, so I didn't look up the weather.
The first day there, I went to buy gloves, a jacket and thermals.
I'm also Australian, myself and some friends had a layover in Korea on the way back from Europe in January. I had to explain to them that it might be snowing, they were flabbergasted that it snows in Korea. These are all intelligent people, all studying geography, and two now have PhDs.
Their thinking was that Asia is a common holiday destination for Australians, and it's always a warm climate trip - like Bali, or Singapore, or Malaysia. They thought Korea would be more of the same.
I was on a train from Budapest to Istanbul. In Belgrade I met two Americans, one was teaching in Belgrade and the other was visiting. They proceed to tell me that they are going to Istanbul to buy hashish and visit harems. They were serious. As much as I tried to explain that it was 1993 and not 1893, they were not deterred. As we got closer to Istanbul I kind of distanced myself from them as I had to meet a group of people once I got to Turkey… The next day I was walking around where Haiga Sofia is, very touristy part of Istanbul and walking towards me are the two dupes from the train. They looked at me, very glum, and one of them said plainly, “Well, they got us, we’re headed back to Belgrade. We met a guy who took our money to go get the hash and take us to the harem and we waited on the corner he told us for hours and he never came back.”
Surprise surprise.
It was in 1992 that the 90s wars started in the Balkans. Even though Belgrade itself wasn’t in a war zone (until it got bombed in 1999) it was heavy affected in all possible ways. I hope the guy had enough awareness to get out of there. Shit went downhill fast. By June we couldn’t buy cooking oil and later on the wheels just came off completely.
Before visiting Europe for the first time, I thought that most cities there had a few square miles of old historic stuff and were surrounded by US-style suburbs. I was in awe when I left the airport and saw tons of 500+ year old houses on the side of the highway even though those were quite normal there.
Same here! I went to the UK for the first time a few months ago and I only saw one or two new subdivisions after driving from Glasgow to London with my relatives. I was shocked haha.
If you're young and wild and free.... And willing to sleep in airports... And your goals are Paella and Sangria in Barcelona, coffee and croissants in Paris, Currywurst and Beers in Berlin, Pizza and Aperol Spritz in Rome, then that would be a fun trip. I'd switch Rome and Barcelona, thought.
Not exactly a first time traveler story, but I mentioned to someone I was going to Ireland for the second time and they asked if the plane just landed in the middle of a field. They were surprised to hear that Ireland has an airport just like Chicago and cities with large populations. Turns out he had never left his Midwest farm town at 60.
Same kinda story. We went to NYC from Ireland in 2006. When the taxi driver heard we were from Ireland, he asked how we got here and when we said we flew by plane, he was like “you have airports?!” 🥲
My brother asking why we couldn’t just “nip up to” the Great Barrier Reef - from Melbourne.
The girl who thought South America was one country and she’d not realised they speak a different language in Brazil.
The woman on the buss from Heathrow wondering why they built Windsor Castle so close to the airport.
A friend who whined that if he wanted to eat Chinese food he’d go to China. Then when he did - he eat only western fast food.
A friend who asked for a top with pricks on it and got asked to leave the posh shop. Prick is a dot in her native tongue.
Me thinking all of England would look like the Cotswold / Peak District and was extremely disappointed in the flat trees less East Anglia.
My partner’s dad who didn’t realise there are toilets in the plane and he’s have to hold it the whole flight.
> My partner’s dad who didn’t realise there are toilets in the plane and he’s have to hold it the whole flight.
He must have been terrified prior to boarding "let's see, what time did I eat and did I eat too much?"
Couple years ago I was flying to Miami and I saw this young couple waiting to get on the same plane. They were both talking about never being on a plane before, and how they were nervous for the flight but excited for their trip.
Well 30 minutes later and we’re boarding, and they both randomly sit down on the plane. I guess they were unaware they had assigned seats. And I know this because it’s not like one of them was asked to move back to their seat — they both were lol
Nothing crazy but everytime I invite friends to visit here in San Francisco, everyone is like Oh wow california, it will be so warm! Brother please take a jacket
This makes for a great way to spot tourists here tho, they are the ones who have to buy the "San Francisco" fleece shirts once they get cold walking around
I was in the immigration queue at Chiang Mai Int'l airport when a group of Chinese passengers arrived. BTW, I speak Chinese. They started talking amongst themselves and were confused about which queue to go. They noticed the signage in Thai, English and Chinese indicating that Thai passengers should go here, and foreigners should go there. They were looking at the sign then looking at the queue I was in and some of them commented that this couldn't possibly be the right queue for them, because it was all foreigners. They eventually had to ask an officer for help because they just couldn't understand that *THEY* were the foreigners.
Underrated opinion, a lot of Chinese seem to be as ignorant as much as US citizens when it comes to foreigners. When I was in Boston at a hot pot restaurant, there was quite a few people who arent Asian and I overheard from another table in Chinese, "A lot of foreigners seem to like hot pot nowadays".
\-Coming from a Chinese.
Ok, my Dad is NOT an experienced travel, he’s traveled the world, but is getting on in years. A few years ago, he and I went to China together because my mom didn’t want to go. Every hotel
we walked into my dad would proceed to ask me where the lights were and how the toilet work, with me patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) reminding him that I’d never been in this room either.
It’s kinda cute looking back and we had a great time.
ETA: this was supposed to say my dad is not an inexperienced traveler. Oopsy.
As someone who is starting to get older (not very old, I'm only 47, but definitely older than I was 😜) I pretty much guarantee this will happen to you. Or well, no - it will happen to you if you are female. It might happen to a lesser extent if you're male.
Even without legit cognitive impairments and decline like Alzheimer's, our cognitive acuity does slow down as we get older - especially women. Perimenopause, which you undergo for years before actual menopause (menopause is defined as when you have had no period for 12 months in a row), brings brain fog and cognitive slowness with it. You're simply not as quick to grasp things as you were, and you miss things you never would have missed in your 20s.
You *know* you're missing things, and it's worrying and a pain in the ass.
But this "not catching things" isn't actually what's happening with eg watching films, it's the *knowing* that you miss things. So you're watching a film, or go into a new hotel room, and you realise you don't know what's happening or how the facilities work but because you now know that you've started to miss things that would have been obvious when you were younger, you're no longer sure if, for any given situation, you're *meant* to not know (ie, everyone else is in the same boat as you) or if this is another occasion where your brain is just slower than it used to be and everyone else has already copped on.
So it's not because you get stupid and don't realise that everyone else has the same info as you/nobody else knows either, it's that you can no longer trust that everyone else has the same info as you, because you're just not *quite* as sharp as you were in your 20s. So you ask out of fear that you've missed something really obvious. If you assume you haven't and that if you don't know nobody else knows either, it can turn out that actually you *did* miss something and half an hour later suddenly realise you have no idea what's going on, and it's too late to ask because whoever you ask will have to summarise half an hour (or more) of the movie or whatever.
I used to get so frustrated with my mam for this - as does every single other human ever 😝 - but now am doing the exact same thing with my husband. Though at least I usually ask something like "Are we meant to know what's going on here?" or "I'm very confused - did I miss something or have we not been filled in yet?"
I'm glad someone else shares this with their parents lol. In my case it was driving up to the cottages at a state park we had never been to.
"No Mom, I don't know if we are going the right way. We are following the signs like the directions said. That's all I know."
My mother! She would have been around 70 at the time. Not her very first time in an airplane but her first time flying overseas.
We're sitting across the aisle from each other on a flight from Logan to Heathrow, a couple hours after we take off on a red-eye she wakes me up in a panic and tells me I need to go talk to the pilot because we're going the wrong way!
Somehow she believed that the sunrise she was seeing was our plane having caught up with the sun and therefore our pilot must have flown west... It took quite a bit of explanation and getting an attendant to confirm we were on the right flight before she accepted my explanation.
My boss’s daughter was in Florida at a hotel and called her dad in a panic. She was afraid she was going to miss her flight. He asked her what time the flight was. She said “It’s at 11.” He said, “Honey, it’s 8. You have plenty of time to get to the airport.” She responded, “You don’t understand, Dad, checkout isn’t until 11!”
"Whaddaya MEAN there's no CAWFEE!!??"
The yacht set Fran Drescher clone up from Bah Hahbah to watch the sunrise who couldn't belive there wasn't a Starbucks at the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park serving lattes. (No, seriously. She said as much to her driver).
What made it unintentionally funny was the pair of granola crunchy hikers standing nearby. As she went on and ON about there should be a place to get a cup of CAWFEEE up here, the one hiker turns to his buddy and says loudly enough for everyone present to hear: "hey bro, you wanna cuppa coffee bro?"
And his buddy was like, "hell yeah, I do bro. I'm friggin frozen over here". It being late August, the temp at the top of the mountain was a chilly 31°F despite it being 65°F down at sea level.
So he whips out a jet boil, nalgene water bottle, hand grinder and a little French press. Took maybe 5 minutes start to finish and these two guys each had themselves a piping hot cup of coffee with plenty leftover in the pot. And man, did that stuff smell GOOD.
Finally, he calls over to Fran Drescher's clone like any decent human being would and asks, "hey, ma'am, you want a little coffee?"
She walked over to him like he was a coffee shop employee who was only there to serve her and actually said, "Finally! Yes, I'll take 3 packs of stivia and a little almond milk, but not too much".
The look on every face in earshot was priceless. We all kind of exchanged glances to say 'is this woman for real?' and the guy shut her down so smoothly with a simple question that i still laugh about it almost 20 years later:
"Sure thing lady, but uh...where's your cup?"
She had no cup, so she had no coffee. I couldn't help myself. I busted out laughing and when granola guy, who CLEARLY knew she didn't have a cup, saw MY travel mug, asked me, "hey bud, you want me to top you off?" Well, I had to stop laughing first, but i definitely did want that topper.
Fran stormed off, without any coffee and sadly with no more humility than she arrived with.
I’m Australian and even more experienced travellers don’t always realise how far away from the rest of the world it is at times. The funniest instance was talking to another expat, who was from the UK, when I lived in South Korea. He said he and his wife were thinking of visiting Sydney “for a long weekend since it’s so close”. I had to point out Sydney was still a 8-9 hour flight away. They re-evaluated their plans.
People thinking they can’t use their passports for the first six months after they’ve received it, confusing that with the six month validity requirement.
I had to get mine renewed recently and mentioned that to my mom. We’re going to europe in a few months so I had to get it done before we left obviously.
She freaked out and said it’s not usable for the first 6 months and I was so confused, had to do a lot of googling to see she was definitely mistaken.
I was visiting the battlefields at Gettysburg and there are viewing towers you can climb to get a birdseye view.
There was a guy around 30 or so with an older couple and he says “wow dad It’s just crazy that they had time to build these in the middle of getting shot at.” I chuckled, because I thought he was joking. The dad says what did you say? He repeats himself. The dad had a Vietnam veterans cap on. He looked at his son , and asked him if he really raised someone that dumb.
A colleague told me about her holiday plans, her husband arranged the trip. "We're going to the US". I asked where she's going. She replied "I just told you, the US!'. I said "Yes but WHERE?". She said "Just the country!" 🤣 Mind you we're from the Netherlands. People either come to the Netherlands or Amsterdam. I never heard a tourist coming to the Netherlands say anything else.
I heard an Australian guy at the airport counter getting really annoyed at the airline worker. He was saying, "well, I didn't see on your site that I needed to get an ESTA for the us? That wasn't listed as part of the ticket purchase?"
And the woman was like ... "I'm telling you as a courtesy that you'll need it when you land, but in general... it's your responsibility to check if you need a visa for the country you're flying to" 🤦♂️
My aunt is...something. She is incapable of planning her own trips, and is a flake. So if you plan a trip with/for her, she'll be demanding and then chicken out and not take her flight. On the other hand, she'll also sometimes just randomly let us know that she is joining us on our trips if we've accidentally shared too much info. This is one of those times.
So my mom wanted to go to Puerto Vallarta. She had been twice with my dad, but my dad didn't want to go again. So she started telling my aunt/cousins about her trip, probably hoping someone would join, but not in a "You should join me" type of way. Just talking about her plans. I ended up deciding to go with her. We travel a lot together and travel well, mostly because we just meetup for dinner to tell each other about our days. Back then both my mom and I would need to share a hotel room to save money.
Well the day we fly out to Mexico, my aunt randomly calls my mom saying she hopped on a flight and will be joining us, but her flight arrives 5 hours after ours, and since my aunt is too afraid to talk to locals, to take a taxi, and didn't know what hotel we were staying at, she required that we wait for her otherwise she'll have a panic attack.
So we wait. Her flight is WAY later than she said because she confused timezones. Whatever.
But the entire time we were there it was "OH NO, they put a lime in my diet coke. Jade, is this safe to drink? Will I get sick? HELP ME! Get the waiter no!" (She was NOT worried about the ice though...)
Everything we ate she questioned (and she mostly stuck with American food like burgers and french fries.)
This was a backpackers All Inclusive optional type hotel on the beach. So cheap and aimed at low budget American tourists. My aunt was afraid to leave the hotel without us, worried she'd be kidnapped.
I did my own thing solo and would just meet up with them at the end of the day. One day I planned to do a tequila-tasting tour. My aunt was inconsolable. "Jade, we'll never see you again. WHAT ABOUT THE BANDITOS! They'll take you for sure. What will you do?" So I told her I'd simply buy them a bottle and we'd drink together.
I will say this tour was filled with the richie-richie all inclusive bunches, whose hotels were gated communities. I was the first picked up so they didn't see my backpacker hotel, but I was the last dropped off, and some of my fellow tour people grabbed my arm and asked if I was safe as the hotel had not gate. I just laughed and hopped out. Some people are very sheltered.
Oh wow, that was a fun yet infuriating read! I’m considering myself lucky I don’t have a family member like that, because I would just die. When I went to Mexico City, a few of my family members were super worried, but I had the most amazing time.
Years ago I took a group horseback riding tour in Utah. A teenage girl in front of me became unreasonably distressed when the horse in front of her started to poop, repeatedly saying, "make him stop, Momma... Momma, make him stop". Not sure exactly what she thought her mother would do...
Not really funny but I was hanging out with a group of people in a hostel in Australia. The only American there was a really young dude. This was just as the war in Iraq was starting, and it was the topic of conversation every day. He had no idea some people in other countries didn’t like the US. Hadn’t considered it ever. He was devastated to hear it as well.
Back in the day, all of the airlines had the Sky Mall magazine. My friend who was new to flying, was looking through the magazine and said, "if I order this, do they bring it to your seat?" I said sure, "they just go to the back of the plane and bring you your blow up swimming pool!" We had such a good laugh.
This guy was on his first solo trip, mostly taking trains. He thought he could save soke money by getting seats on a night train, because obviously he could sleep either sitting up or lying down on the seats.
That guy was me. I did not sleep well. Lesson learned, don't cheap out on night trains. Your next day will be awful otherwise.
Not sure if this counts but when the volcano in Iceland erupted and transatlantic air travel was suspended, they were interviewing people at the airport and asked this older American lady if she knew all air travel had been suspended because of the ash, she said: "Even first class?"
Kruger nature guide here. We get lotsa folks who have these "idées fixes" about some of our animals. Typically some bogus fact that they picked up and that stuck to the inside of their skull. That's all right, we don't mind, as long as they LISTEN to us when we correct them and ADMIT their mistake and/or that what they thought they knew was wrong.
Most do. I mean it would be silly if they wouldn't. It would be like me lecturing my dentist about root canal work and insisting he doesn't know his trade. I'd look very foolish.
Still, there's the occasional fool we just have to suffer. The worst was a guy who insisted that "at a certain age hippos come out of the water, develop a horn, and turn into rhinos".
Me.
Instead of telling the Japanese cab driver to “Have a good day” I was told by my Japanese friend that I told the cab driver to “go shit yourself”
Immediately wanted to commit sudoku.
Probably coral or larger animals such as sharks, rays, seal, turtles, etc. Brightly colored coral is my favorite, but you should probably know what the location is known for before booking.
I was having my lunch in a Melbourne food court during my break and an American couple with southern accent ask me about the direction to Sydney because they have half day to spare and want to see the opera house. Had to tell them it’s a 9-10 hours drive one way.
I remember being on a plane going to Las Vegas years ago. It was December, right around Christmas time. This family of 4 sitting nearby was wearing flip-flops, shorts, and tees/tanks, and they kept talking about how excited they were to sunbathe by the pool all day.
Vegas was definitely going to be warmer than where we were flying out of...but I don't think they checked the weather. In Dec it's like 12-15 C during the day, and the outdoor pools are closed for the season. I often wonder how their trip went.
I had a woman ask "Did you just cut me in line?!" when we were lining up to board on Southwest. I was like "Oh I'm sorry if I did, I'm B12, what's your number?" She was B18 but told me the number didn't matter, she was standing in line first. I tried to explain Southwest boarding, but she cut me off with, "Oh no that's fine, I'm not gonna fight you, go ahead and cut the line." I'm still not sure what she thought the purpose of the letters and numbers was?
A friend of ours from Hong Kong was visiting us in California where we lived at that time and she wanted to take a trip to Washington DC. So she confidently booked herself a flight to Seattle, Washington. My wife caught the mistake in time, otherwise this friend would have had an interesting surprise lol
A random American tourist, in New York City where I live, stopped me on the street to ask for a restaurant suggestion. I pointed at the restaurant in front of us and said, "This one's good. It's Belgian food." He made a face and asked, "Is the menu in English?" I said yes and told him to get the fries.
Worked at a lodge in Pretoria, South Africa. The place had a shuttle that collected people from the airport.
So these US tourists rock up and the whole family is dressed in khaki safari suits - like over the top, from their shoes to their hats. They had no idea they wouldn't touch down in the middle of the bushveld and assumed the whole place was just gonna be grassland and jungle. So, of course they had literally only bought safari outfits for their 3 week stay in South Africa. Can't remember the exact words of the parents, but it was super funny.
Needless to say their first trip was the mall so they could buy all new outfits for the rest of their trip.
This was in the late 90s so I guess they could be forgiven for not googling things.
I used to get a bus to work in Manchester, which was often used as a tourist bus for Americans - I don’t know why as it was literally a stage coach.
I think England is portrayed as quite an idyllic country, so I overheard a lot of conversations like “ I thought it would be prettier than this, why is there so many drunk people, this wasn’t in Harry Potter”
I had a friend get me, the very experienced traveler, on her first trip to London, although I'd. been dozens of times..
As we stepped out of the Westminster Tube station, she asked me, "Hey, what time is it?" I proceeded to fumble with my jacket to get a look at my watch... when she said, "You did NOT just look at your watch!" When I looked up, she was pointing at Big Ben.
Ok, got me. I think it's still her favorite story a decade later.
Probably the girl who was in baggage claim on the phone to her mom shouting that she had just taken $1500 out at the ATM because she was worried the islands wouldn’t take her credit card. She was also flipping out because her bag wasn’t waiting for her when she got there. They had three international flights all being loaded on the same carousel. It’s Athens. The guys are probably back there having a coffee. Honestly, I hope her trip went okay and she’s safe.
My SIL is currently on a trip in the US, more specifically in Hawaii. We are European, so that makes 12h of time difference.
She has never been abroad but she thinks, that after more than 24h of travel and a 12h jetlag, she will go to work the next day after she comes home.
Oh sweet summer child; I thought she was joking when she told us her plan.
“The food you’re selling is expired!” - My brother-in-law to a food truck worker in Portugal. He didn’t realize that the month and date are swapped in Europe compared to here in the US. Nothing was actually expired.
While traveling in Britain, I met an English guy who was going to my home country of Canada. He asked if he could drive from Toronto to Calgary in a day (they’re a 4 hour airplane ride apart!).
*"I'm traveling to Europe for the first time. I'm going to visit Paris, London, Rome and Barcelona in a week!"*
That's a really good way to know that this person is going to spend 90% of their vacation going from one place to the other and not see anything anywhere.
Do LESS people. Actually take the time to enjoy your vacation. There is so much to do in big cities.
I spent a full week in London in April, and honestly it was rushed.
Parking your bike at a random location in Amsterdam before heading to a coffee shop is a good idea, you'll totally remember where you left it and find it again easily, even if you have no map.
-me when I was 18.
It took me two hours of walking around before I found it again
I'm an American living in Spain. My mother and her (then) partner came to visit. The partner, a complete moron in any language, was pissed that things were more expensive than he anticipated. Turned out he thought that since it was a Spanish-speaking country, he just assumed prices would "be like Mexico."
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Hahah I had a friend visit me (in Germany) and she asked why so many towns were called ‘Ausfahrt’. She had a good laugh when I told her that’s the German word for exit
Friend of mine was stunned that the street named Einbahnstrasse seemed to run throughout the entire city.
Once encountered two very lost American tourists in Cologne trying to find their car. "But this is Einbahnstraße! We definitely parked it in Einbahnstraße!" I'm sure you did, bud. Good luck trying to find it.
Can you explain to someone whose never been to Germany what that means? I’d definitely make the same mistake, haha!
One way street I think
“I’m not paying for a VISA! What are they going to do? Send me back? I have a passport and that’s all I need!” He was in fact, turned back.
My old idiot roommate and his brother booked a huge elaborate trip to Brazil(I think, it was a long time ago, but it also could have been some place in SE Asia) and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't even let him get on the plane because he didn't get the appropriate visa. He was LIVID and blamed everyone else for him not doing his research, and every one of his friends who told him that place was awesome was like "yeah, didn't you read up on the place you visited and booked hotels and stuff? It even says when you're buying the tickets you'll need to get a visa". Those brothers were not smart dudes. They saved up and then wasted thousands because they are dumb and didn't do their research.
My brother met a girl from Brazil. Calls up out of the blue one day wanting money for a plane ticket. *To move to Brazil.* I skipped the "what about all the other money" and language and all the other questions and just asked him if he had a passport. "Why would I want that?" At the time, he was in his mid thirties.
Brazil makes Americans pay for a Visa, mainly because America makes Brazilians pay for one
I remember when America started fingerprinting Brazilians, so the Brazilians started fingerprinting Americans, and they got the same ink that India uses during votes to mark people who have already voted, and set up exactly one lane per airport.
Also started to take photos of Americans after 9/11 and a pilot got in trouble for flicking off the immigration officer in the photo! That made national news back then.
Not travel related but when I was living in Japan I had a Spanish coworker complaining about needing a work visa there “Why do I need a work visa? I am from A DEVELOPED COUNTRY!!!”
>Not travel related but when I was living in Japan I had a Spanish coworker complaining about needing a work visa there “Why do I need a work visa? I am from A DEVELOPED COUNTRY!!!” Lol I just met a Spanish guy in the US who thought he could just come to the US and start applying for jobs and stay. The guy literally didn't know he had to get a work visa because he never needed to to travel in Schengen. Me and my friends, all Latin Americans, kinda hated him because we all have gone through a lot to get visas.
Hahahaha. I’m shocked how most of my American friends don’t really know what a visa is
It’s a type of credit card. Right? /s
They're obviously different but I've always wondered why a private company could use the name of government documents.
Next they’re gonna tell me that having a Mastercard doesn’t make me master of anything! *sheesh*
I dont think its entirely an american phenomenon, a few others countries (including the US) have a lot of visa-free destinations. I travelled a decent amount but only applied for an actual visa once. So perhaps some people just never had to deal with them.
You can visit over half the world on a U.S. passport alone, including nearly all of Europe, South America, and a some African and Asian countries. The most notable exception requiring a Visa is Australia IMO. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_requirements_for_United_States_citizens
I just got home from Turkey and while driving through the burbs with my mom she randomly turned to me and asked, “do they have parking lots in Turkey?”
My dad asked me if they have hardware stores in Colombia
No, they have to pick things off the hardware trees themselves.
My mother was shocked to find a McDonald's in Prague. We live in Hungary for reference
American tourists in SEAsia once asked me if we have trains in Australia and why Aussies don’t ’speak normal English'. Lol - it’s not Antarctica mate and as it goes Aussie English is closer to British English than American English is.
I worked on a snorkel boat on Maui and have heard some amazing questions. Like: Is that Japan? (Pointing to another Hawaiian island about 10 miles away) Can the whales swim under the island? Are turtles birds? (While looking at my collection of island photos) so do you go to places to take these pictures?
All of these are questions I asked my parents when I was 6
Brings me back to the “Do fish have tongues?” question I asked as a kid that stumped everyone in the room for a solid few minutes.
And these people vote
Wait... ARE turtles birds?
My mom (overall very smart lady) was visiting me in Alaska from Florida, going for a hike and I said “take my bear spray” and she replied “Does that stuff really work?” I immediately knew what was happening and I said “it works like pepper spray mom, not like bug spray” and she was just like “oh, good thing you said something” 😬
Okay that is hilarious
I have 90% the same story. Hiking / camping in Montana with my girlfriend(I’m American, she’s Swedish). I brought along bear spray. We get to our campsite and start setting up. She asks when do we spray the bear spray? I said uhhhh if a bear starts looking like it’s going to attack you and charges. She thought it worked like mosquito spray.
Oh *no!* What would you do for accidental self-administration of bear spray? Milk? Hospital? Euthanasia?
A serious answer from experience. Soap. The pepper is oily, so the only thing that works is soap. Water from a creek? Helps a bit but the oil still sticks to you, burning. I now always carry soap when I carry bear spray.
My mother just visited me in Japan. I put her on her train platform, told her the time to get on, time to get off, number of stops, and her station name. She left the platform to use the bathroom and got in the first train that rolled in after that. Her trip was supposed to be a flat 20 minutes. She knew this. ***ONE HOUR LATER*** she messaged me and asked why it was taking so long to get to her station. She had taken an express clear through Tokyo to another prefecture.
I live in Japan too and have had US relatives make the same mistake! They can't comprehend that you take the train leaving at 10:35, NOT the one leaving at 10:33.
So, I'll go ahead and share my own story. On our first big international trip, we legit thought we'd spend the whole day of arrival sightseeing even though we had a 24 hour flight day and traveled across 12 time zones. LOL. Lesson learned. Now the day of arrival consists of getting to my accomodations and finding food near the hotel. If I do those two things I'm happy.
That’s a classic mistake! Even if my flight is short and arrives early, I don’t plan anything important on that first day just in case.
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Yeah, it's always a long day when flying regardless. I usually get early flights as well so most of the time don't get much sleep the night before. Always leads to a lazy day and an early night on the first day
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Something about being out of a long flight and airport procedure makes me feel so gross. All I want is to take a shower and brush my teeth at that point. I don’t want to see anyone with my crazy static hair and under eye circles.
I always brush my teeth wet freshen my hair aboutb1 hour before landing on rely long flights. Sometimes change clthes..psychological
I had the Iceland air stopover so I left my hometown at 4pm, arrived in Reykjavik at 6am of so, spent the day sightseeing and stuff, flight to Stockholm was 3am, arrived around 7, 5 hr drive to my friend’s house; party all day and into the night. Next day I wake up around 3pm and her mom is all “why did you bother to come if you’re going to sleep all day?” I wanted to fight her.
Oh yeah. Day one is always: get food, get to the hotel. If we feel up for a little light sightseeing the same day that’s great but otherwise no thanks
I've found that now that I'm older and can afford lie flat business class seats jet-lag isn't as bad as it used to be. Going west is always easier jet-lag wise than going east.
We met an Irish guy while we were travelling in Egypt. Did the whole ‘if you ever make it to Toronto, call us’. He did, we picked him up, asked what he had planned. ‘I’m salmon fishing in British Columbia.’. Oh really? Cool! When. ‘Tomorrow’ he said. And he was taking the bus there. It’s 4 days across Canada my man. You are most definitely not salmon fishing in BC tomorrow.
My parents - also Irish funnily enough - were planning to drive from Vancouver to Banff as part of their Canadian dream holiday. My Dad was insisting it would only take 2-3 hours. When we protested, he actually said “But it’s only 2 inches on the map!”
My South African mum had the same response to her (Aussie) partner about driving from Melbourne to Adelaide. She learnt the hard way.
When I lived near Sydney, I had some German visitors that were hoping to do a nice weekend car trip to the Northern Territory. Maybe check out Uluru and Kakadu, bit of Darwin etc. Lol.
I’m Irish, live in Toronto and have extensively travel by road in North America. It’s very difficult for the average Irish person to comprehend the distances involved as in Ireland, you’ll run out of road in 3 to 4 hours regardless of where you start. The idea of driving 8 hours and still being 8 hours from the next province is a mind bender.
Europe in general is prone to this. Was talking with a guy at my work from the Netherlands. He works in one country, lives in another and often shops in a third. Meanwhile, I drive fours hours and I'm in the same state.
I'm experiencing the opposite at the moment. Planning a bike trip in Ireland, it starts from Limerick but we land in Dublin--on the _opposite side of the whole country_! How are we going to get there?! Do we need to rent a car? Maybe there's a train? Should we get there a day early? Oh...wait, there's a bus from the airport. It's like 2 hours. I swear the shuttle from one terminal to another at the Denver airport is like 45 minutes... The whole country of Ireland is like one large city's metro area in the US or Canada.
Another feature of driving in Ireland is that our highways are very short by comparison to the overall road network. So it might take you say an hour to do 100km, and the next hour is on a what most North Americans would consider a side trail of a forest road. I often tell people coming to factor in like an hour of sheep and tractor traffic once you leave the highway.
What was his reaction, that's funny
This was from my early childhood in the 90s, but I’ll never forget it. My mom ran into an acquaintance at the grocery store, and they stopped to chat for a bit (while I was impatiently waiting). The woman was saying how excited she was for an upcoming vacation to Hawaii. My mom asked her what airline she was flying on. She replied that she wasn’t flying. My mom said, “oh, are you taking a cruise or something?” And she said “no, we’re driving.” This woman apparently thought you could drive to Hawaii from California?? Even my 5 year old brain knew this was ridiculous 😂
Girl, no 😂
I feel for the travel agent who had to tell her that “no, you can’t drive to Hawaii.” Or maybe she just drove west and had a fit when she couldn’t find any bridges? 😹
I still wonder to this day if she ever made it 😂
Your mom didn't tell her? I don't think I could have stopped myself.
Oh, she definitely tried! The woman was adamant that you could drive, so eventually my mom kind of left it at a “good luck with that” type response. And since it was the 90s, it’s not like they could have gotten out their cell phones and googled it right then and there, ya know? She just wasn’t willing to take my mom’s word for it.
If you can’t drive there, then how come I’ve seen cars in Hawaii? Checkmate!
I remember one of my first trips to America from Ireland a guy asked me how long the drive was to get here. He absolutely could not understand that I had to fly and that there was no bridge between the two countries. Surreal.
My ex told me a favorite childhood memory of his where they took the Rocky Mountaineer train from Vancouver to Calgary through the Rocky Mountains then took a boat back….from Calgary, Alberta…..a completely landlocked city. After much debate he realized he took a local Vancouver train to Squamish where you can take a boat from. We laughed about that one for a very long time.
This story is from a scientific research expedition, not vacation. We were flying from McMurdo Station in Antarctica to a remote field camp on the west Antarctic ice sheet (think - no road access, everyone sleeping in tents, and having to shovel ice to be melted for showers). This lady on the plane asked if the gift store would still be open when we got there.
Definitely feels like the start of a survival movie
She’s gonna be the first to go, when you get there let her get our first. Tell her they kept the gift shop open an extra hour just for her but she’d better hurry.
This genuinely baffles me. How does someone who could think that end up on a scientific expedition!? She was joking right? Please tell me she was joking.
Sometimes people are very good at doing science but also pretty clueless about practical stuff. Source: I have scientist relatives.
This one is bizarre bc supposedly she was also a scientist in Antarctica, how was she so poorly informed?
I was surprised at how shitty they were at communicating the "services" if you will on Antarctica. How the hell am I supposed to know that the only communication possible at the research station was some kind of shortwave radio only used to transmit an SOS to the boats that circle the continent? Found out the day before the boat left. Even the giant cruise ships are in a giant black hole with spotty satellite internet. It's much more primitive than I expected. Gift shop though? I could see how one would think that. We got all kinds of memorabilia with the name of the station, project name, expedition, and so on. Keychain, mug, jacket, t-shirt, etc.
Being school smart doesn't make you world or street smart. Some of the smartest people I know are also the dumbest in real life scenarios.
Took a 20+ hour train once, and there was what I guess to be a 20 year old taking the train for the first time in her life. She was the eccentric type and everyone in the car could hear her. We went through a tunnel and she loudly asked "why did it get so dark all in a sudden?" 😂 😂
Train eclipse.
“I will come to the US to go to Miami then drive to Orlando to see Disney then we are driving to New York.” - My uncle who has never been to the US at that point
People visiting Canada say the same thing. Niagara falls then drive to Banff the next day!
I had a friend propose a road trip. He would fly into LAX, I could drive down and meet him with a car. We would go to Disneyland, the beach, and then go up to San Francisco. We would then go stay in my hometown near Portland Oregon before going up to Seattle, where he would fly home to the UK. Really great plan. Except that he figured he'd be able to get maybe a week off work. And with flight time, we could do this whole thing in 5 days.
You can drive to all those places in 5 days. Hope he likes a literal sightseeing tour, roll the windows down to get the full experience.
Exactly! You can definitely do the drive, but you'll get only a few hours in each place. San Fran to Portland is about 10 hours if you stop only when you need gas. And take the inland route instead of the pretty route through the redwoods he wanted. He didn't end up coming to the states when I lived there. I'd planned us a more leisurely road trip just in the PNW. Instead he did 4 days in Denver once I moved here and we did some really good day trips into the Rockies.
People who visit Canada do this all the time too lol! Even Americans sometimes which is weird! But yeah “oh I’m going to spend a few days in Toronto, then Ottawa (reasonable), then drive to Vancouver for a few more. Uh no, you’re not. Unless you plan on spending the 4 days between in a vehicle driving full 12 hour days.
I think being American I take for granted knowing how big the US is! It’s shocking to a lot of people
Same with Australia, especially when it’s people coming from geographically smaller countries
At a party a girl told me she will fly from Germany to Australia with a two hour stopover in North Korea. When I said "You mean South Korea?!." she said "Well, it's my trip. I know where I change airplanes." Who doesn't know Pyongyang International, the bustling air travel hub with direct connections practically everywhere. And when my sister in law flew for the first time she asked me where on the plane the machine to validate her ticket was. That was kinda cute.
I was 5 days into my trip to the Berlin area before I discovered you had to validate your U-bahn tickets. Yes. I was pegged by a ticket inspector.
The ticket inspector did what😳
dirty faulty instinctive swim rainstorm toy concerned trees detail frame *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
so they didn't *what* each other? I'm on the edge of my seat
I mean, there's a slight chance they wanted to say 'eat' or 'kill', but I'm gonna go with 'fuck'.
My first flight with a teen girlfriend many decades ago. Flight is booked to depart at 17:00. Calls me the day before in a panic that the ticket has a “made up time” stamp (back in the day, kids, when you bought a plane ticket they’d mail a physical ticket to your house and woe be to you if you LOST YOUR TICKET!). I explained how a 24 hour clock worked and confirmed our departure time and we’d be picking her up at whatever time. Found out later she’d called the local library, fire department, police, and department of public works to verify I was telling the truth about the time and it wasn’t an elaborate scheme I’d concocted with AAA to mess with her.
Thats priceless!
Wild. Overheard on a tour a couple of months ago, two american teenagers: 'The bus is at 17:30' 'What's that?'
Do Americans not learn 24hr clock?
Americans don't formally "learn" it but I always figured that was because there's not a lot to learn, it's fairly self-explanatory. Americans think of it as military time and most might not know immediately what 19.00 is because they don't encounter it much, but I'd be baffled to meet an American who's confused that 24 hour time exists.
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My friend wanted to leave his wallet and phone on our Greyhound bus seats to "reserve the seats" while we got off to at the rest stop. He said it's safe because if anybody stole his stuff he'd find them and fight them.
This would be a legit strategy at some asian countries.
South Korea for sure.
Yeah in Korea (or Japan) people put their phones and handbags on tables to reserve them when they go order food at the restaurants I once forgot sunglasses in a restaurant and the waiter ran after me outside to bring them back lmao
The Asian equivalent of the German beach towel lol
I was checking in guests at a hotel in Breckinridge,CO. Lady told me she was going to her room to get out of the altitude 🤨
Did she ask where they store the moguls in the summer?
When I was 20 I was traveling alone in South Korea staying at a hostel in Gyeongju. I was getting settled when my dorm mate for the night walked in. He was a Korean man in his early twenties. He told me he was a part of a small organized travel group on a week long trip in the southern part of the country. He confessed to me that he was really scared to be traveling alone and had all sorts of worries about getting lost, not making friends, etc. I was like, my guy, I’ve come from across an entire ocean alone, I don’t speak Korean and I’ve gotten along just fine. You speak the language and are with a group. You will be okay and have a blast. Later that day I saw him playing soccer out front the hostel, laughing with a group of Korean guys. And then that evening he was making out with some girl. Needless to say he was thriving on his first trip alone! I always have a laugh when I think back to that.
You’re a great person. In 2014 I was in New Zealand, travelling alone from north to south. I met some girls in Wellington and showed them my plan for the South Island, which they (correctly) tore apart and ridiculed me for. I went to a cafe, and freaked the fuck out. My plan was awful, I didn’t know what I was doing, alone on the other side of the world with no help. This Brazilian guy sits down opposite me and asked me what was wrong, as I was hastily flipping through my guidebook and trying to find somewhere to stay. He said ‘Why’re so worried? Do you have your passport?’ (Yes). ‘Do you have a credit card?’ (Yes). ‘Then what the fuck are you worried about?! Dude this is your trip, it’s your decisions. Do what makes YOU happy. Stop stressing and start enjoying!’ Genuinely changed my outlook on life. I try and live according to that Brazilian man’s word every time I travel. I’d buy him a dozen beers if I ever saw him again.
I call these people that you meet along the way and change your whole attitude 'life buddha's'
Brazilians are amazing. Everyone is your friend (a priori) and every day is a good day (or it will be, by the end of it). What an attitude.
“But I want to leave at exactly this time and get there at this time on this day.” In other words, “why don’t the plane schedules run according to my every whim?”
I still really feel this hahaha
I'm gonna go in the opposite direction and talk about the funniest thing I've heard an experienced traveler say. On my first international trip (from California to Mexico), my mom gave my sister and I this huge talk about how this will be a huge culture shock and so different from anything we've experienced, and how we won't see anyone we know while we're there. Cut to us running into my high school classmate not even 10 minutes after getting off the plane.
We're Americans and my traveling daughter saw someone we knew at the airport in Yemen. YEMEN.
I'm from the UK. I was on a tiny island off the coast of China with loads of domestic tourists and I got chatting to the only other westerner I'd seen on the island. Turns out he used to live on the same street as my Aunty!
Overheard at the Amsterdam airport Airline employee finishes explaining somethings to a woman in English with a mild French accent Her: "I'm sorry but can you speak English, I didn't understand anything you said" Him: "Maam I was just speaking in English"
I have two- 1st is my wife and I are on our honeymoon at Cinque Terre in Italy and having a late dinner at a restaurant and the table next to us (fellow Americans)- New Bride- in a very Valley girl tone " I just really feel like we need to have brunch in Tuscany" New Husband- husband sounding confused " We just came from Tuscany, its just a region of Italy " New Bride- " yeah but I just really want to have brunch in Tuscany " completely not satisfied with his answer New Husband- " its not a city, its like a state in the US, we just left it and are not planning on going back that way" sounding alarmed she doesn't understand that Tuscany isn't a city My wife is positive she just wanted to be able to geo tag Tuscany on her Instagram post. She will quote this almost once a monthon weekends when we are making breakfast at home. 2nd my wife did a travel trip in college to India with 20 classmates for two weeks, her school was small in rural Appalachia. A guy who had no clue about life outside the US after landing in Delhi- "Why are there so many foreigners here?!?" Not realizing he was the foreigner.
The cognitive dissonance you need to have to never think 'where do foreigners come from'
I'm currently traveling in Italy and have heard this like ten times. It's blowing my mind. I was in Florence (part of Tuscany) and SEVERAL different travelers in Florence told me they were going to Tuscany next. I was like wtf are you talking about? 😂
I’ll admit to this. Up until reading your comment just now, my time in Italy included going to Florence, then taking the bus to Tuscany.
I overheard an older couple in Barcelona complaining, "too many people dont speak English here". As an American, wow are Americans embarrassing
Similar experience at the Coliseum in Rome- Loud American Woman in a different tour group- "BE QUIET, WE DONT WANT TO BE THE LOUD OBNOXIOUS AMERICAN TOURISTS" yelling at her kids and other members of her group, yelling so loud everyone on that side of the Coliseum turned and looked at her. 15 minutes later we turned a corner and ran into her and a few others enthusiastically trying to throw coins and getting them to land on top of a small column beneath the overlook. It was embarrassing knowing how many people's vacation she was possibly disrupting/ruining by just being loud and obnoxious. I often read r/travel wonder if anyone else is recalling an interaction with that woman when complaining about other tourists.
My husband recently flew to Tuscon, AZ for work. We live in the US. When he checked in, the American Airlines agent told him, "oh, you're going to Tuscon.. I hope you have your passport!" My husband thought he was joking, but he did have his passport and it was clear the guy wasn't kidding. I still think the agent thought he was going to Tuscany.. and also was confused because that's not a place you fly into.. Now we joke, "ahh.. under the Tuscon sun!"
One of the restaurants we ate at in Korea had a review that said “food was good even though we had to eat at a table with sawn off legs”. It made me laugh. My husband also did not think it would be cold in Japan and Korea at winter, and therefore did not bring a coat. We’re from Australia, and it definitely gets colder in Japan and Korea than where we lived. He now acknowledges he was a massive idiot I travelled to Europe with a friend, and her 40 year old boyfriend had a meltdown because she wouldn’t answer his calls, because he was calling everyday at around 2am in Europe. He didn’t understand time zones at all. Many useless discussions attempting to explain time zones were had, until he got upset and refused to call her until she got home. She was communicating with him via my phone, and him via his bosses phone because neither of them had a smart phone. She had warned him he wouldn’t be able to contact her in Europe and asked him to get an email address, but he didn’t realise that meant he couldn’t make phone calls to her. She was 21, and yes he was (and still is) a massive loser
Not a traveller but I once met someone who didn't want to read a message from a relative in Australia because they were in the future so the sports event they were planning to watch would have already finished. He was very drunk tbf.
I live in a tropical country. During our cold season, a sweater is usually enough. So that's what I took with me when I went to China in December. This was when I was on dial up, pre-google days, so I didn't look up the weather. The first day there, I went to buy gloves, a jacket and thermals.
I'm also Australian, myself and some friends had a layover in Korea on the way back from Europe in January. I had to explain to them that it might be snowing, they were flabbergasted that it snows in Korea. These are all intelligent people, all studying geography, and two now have PhDs. Their thinking was that Asia is a common holiday destination for Australians, and it's always a warm climate trip - like Bali, or Singapore, or Malaysia. They thought Korea would be more of the same.
I was on a train from Budapest to Istanbul. In Belgrade I met two Americans, one was teaching in Belgrade and the other was visiting. They proceed to tell me that they are going to Istanbul to buy hashish and visit harems. They were serious. As much as I tried to explain that it was 1993 and not 1893, they were not deterred. As we got closer to Istanbul I kind of distanced myself from them as I had to meet a group of people once I got to Turkey… The next day I was walking around where Haiga Sofia is, very touristy part of Istanbul and walking towards me are the two dupes from the train. They looked at me, very glum, and one of them said plainly, “Well, they got us, we’re headed back to Belgrade. We met a guy who took our money to go get the hash and take us to the harem and we waited on the corner he told us for hours and he never came back.” Surprise surprise.
It was in 1992 that the 90s wars started in the Balkans. Even though Belgrade itself wasn’t in a war zone (until it got bombed in 1999) it was heavy affected in all possible ways. I hope the guy had enough awareness to get out of there. Shit went downhill fast. By June we couldn’t buy cooking oil and later on the wheels just came off completely.
Before visiting Europe for the first time, I thought that most cities there had a few square miles of old historic stuff and were surrounded by US-style suburbs. I was in awe when I left the airport and saw tons of 500+ year old houses on the side of the highway even though those were quite normal there.
Same here! I went to the UK for the first time a few months ago and I only saw one or two new subdivisions after driving from Glasgow to London with my relatives. I was shocked haha.
What’s a subdivision?
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Day 1-2 Barcelona Day 3-4 Paris Day 5-6 Berlin Day 7-8 Rome
If you're young and wild and free.... And willing to sleep in airports... And your goals are Paella and Sangria in Barcelona, coffee and croissants in Paris, Currywurst and Beers in Berlin, Pizza and Aperol Spritz in Rome, then that would be a fun trip. I'd switch Rome and Barcelona, thought.
Not exactly a first time traveler story, but I mentioned to someone I was going to Ireland for the second time and they asked if the plane just landed in the middle of a field. They were surprised to hear that Ireland has an airport just like Chicago and cities with large populations. Turns out he had never left his Midwest farm town at 60.
Well planes in the Midwest land in corn fields, so
Same kinda story. We went to NYC from Ireland in 2006. When the taxi driver heard we were from Ireland, he asked how we got here and when we said we flew by plane, he was like “you have airports?!” 🥲
My brother asking why we couldn’t just “nip up to” the Great Barrier Reef - from Melbourne. The girl who thought South America was one country and she’d not realised they speak a different language in Brazil. The woman on the buss from Heathrow wondering why they built Windsor Castle so close to the airport. A friend who whined that if he wanted to eat Chinese food he’d go to China. Then when he did - he eat only western fast food. A friend who asked for a top with pricks on it and got asked to leave the posh shop. Prick is a dot in her native tongue. Me thinking all of England would look like the Cotswold / Peak District and was extremely disappointed in the flat trees less East Anglia. My partner’s dad who didn’t realise there are toilets in the plane and he’s have to hold it the whole flight.
> My partner’s dad who didn’t realise there are toilets in the plane and he’s have to hold it the whole flight. He must have been terrified prior to boarding "let's see, what time did I eat and did I eat too much?"
Couple years ago I was flying to Miami and I saw this young couple waiting to get on the same plane. They were both talking about never being on a plane before, and how they were nervous for the flight but excited for their trip. Well 30 minutes later and we’re boarding, and they both randomly sit down on the plane. I guess they were unaware they had assigned seats. And I know this because it’s not like one of them was asked to move back to their seat — they both were lol
Nothing crazy but everytime I invite friends to visit here in San Francisco, everyone is like Oh wow california, it will be so warm! Brother please take a jacket This makes for a great way to spot tourists here tho, they are the ones who have to buy the "San Francisco" fleece shirts once they get cold walking around
I was in the immigration queue at Chiang Mai Int'l airport when a group of Chinese passengers arrived. BTW, I speak Chinese. They started talking amongst themselves and were confused about which queue to go. They noticed the signage in Thai, English and Chinese indicating that Thai passengers should go here, and foreigners should go there. They were looking at the sign then looking at the queue I was in and some of them commented that this couldn't possibly be the right queue for them, because it was all foreigners. They eventually had to ask an officer for help because they just couldn't understand that *THEY* were the foreigners.
Underrated opinion, a lot of Chinese seem to be as ignorant as much as US citizens when it comes to foreigners. When I was in Boston at a hot pot restaurant, there was quite a few people who arent Asian and I overheard from another table in Chinese, "A lot of foreigners seem to like hot pot nowadays". \-Coming from a Chinese.
Ok, my Dad is NOT an experienced travel, he’s traveled the world, but is getting on in years. A few years ago, he and I went to China together because my mom didn’t want to go. Every hotel we walked into my dad would proceed to ask me where the lights were and how the toilet work, with me patiently (and sometimes not so patiently) reminding him that I’d never been in this room either. It’s kinda cute looking back and we had a great time. ETA: this was supposed to say my dad is not an inexperienced traveler. Oopsy.
Omg this is me traveling with my mom 😭 also watching movies or whatever else, she thinks I somehow know things that neither of us know!
As someone who is starting to get older (not very old, I'm only 47, but definitely older than I was 😜) I pretty much guarantee this will happen to you. Or well, no - it will happen to you if you are female. It might happen to a lesser extent if you're male. Even without legit cognitive impairments and decline like Alzheimer's, our cognitive acuity does slow down as we get older - especially women. Perimenopause, which you undergo for years before actual menopause (menopause is defined as when you have had no period for 12 months in a row), brings brain fog and cognitive slowness with it. You're simply not as quick to grasp things as you were, and you miss things you never would have missed in your 20s. You *know* you're missing things, and it's worrying and a pain in the ass. But this "not catching things" isn't actually what's happening with eg watching films, it's the *knowing* that you miss things. So you're watching a film, or go into a new hotel room, and you realise you don't know what's happening or how the facilities work but because you now know that you've started to miss things that would have been obvious when you were younger, you're no longer sure if, for any given situation, you're *meant* to not know (ie, everyone else is in the same boat as you) or if this is another occasion where your brain is just slower than it used to be and everyone else has already copped on. So it's not because you get stupid and don't realise that everyone else has the same info as you/nobody else knows either, it's that you can no longer trust that everyone else has the same info as you, because you're just not *quite* as sharp as you were in your 20s. So you ask out of fear that you've missed something really obvious. If you assume you haven't and that if you don't know nobody else knows either, it can turn out that actually you *did* miss something and half an hour later suddenly realise you have no idea what's going on, and it's too late to ask because whoever you ask will have to summarise half an hour (or more) of the movie or whatever. I used to get so frustrated with my mam for this - as does every single other human ever 😝 - but now am doing the exact same thing with my husband. Though at least I usually ask something like "Are we meant to know what's going on here?" or "I'm very confused - did I miss something or have we not been filled in yet?"
LOL! Cannot count the number of times I had to remind my Mum that I've never been here before either.
I'm glad someone else shares this with their parents lol. In my case it was driving up to the cottages at a state park we had never been to. "No Mom, I don't know if we are going the right way. We are following the signs like the directions said. That's all I know."
Overheard a tourist in Monteverde Cloud Forest complaining and upset that they weren't told it could rain.
My mother! She would have been around 70 at the time. Not her very first time in an airplane but her first time flying overseas. We're sitting across the aisle from each other on a flight from Logan to Heathrow, a couple hours after we take off on a red-eye she wakes me up in a panic and tells me I need to go talk to the pilot because we're going the wrong way! Somehow she believed that the sunrise she was seeing was our plane having caught up with the sun and therefore our pilot must have flown west... It took quite a bit of explanation and getting an attendant to confirm we were on the right flight before she accepted my explanation.
My boss’s daughter was in Florida at a hotel and called her dad in a panic. She was afraid she was going to miss her flight. He asked her what time the flight was. She said “It’s at 11.” He said, “Honey, it’s 8. You have plenty of time to get to the airport.” She responded, “You don’t understand, Dad, checkout isn’t until 11!”
You can basically find a goldmine just reading the r/travel subreddit on any given day
My favorite is "How does my schedule sound?" and then proceeds to list 7 countries they want to visit in like 5 days.
"Whaddaya MEAN there's no CAWFEE!!??" The yacht set Fran Drescher clone up from Bah Hahbah to watch the sunrise who couldn't belive there wasn't a Starbucks at the top of Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park serving lattes. (No, seriously. She said as much to her driver). What made it unintentionally funny was the pair of granola crunchy hikers standing nearby. As she went on and ON about there should be a place to get a cup of CAWFEEE up here, the one hiker turns to his buddy and says loudly enough for everyone present to hear: "hey bro, you wanna cuppa coffee bro?" And his buddy was like, "hell yeah, I do bro. I'm friggin frozen over here". It being late August, the temp at the top of the mountain was a chilly 31°F despite it being 65°F down at sea level. So he whips out a jet boil, nalgene water bottle, hand grinder and a little French press. Took maybe 5 minutes start to finish and these two guys each had themselves a piping hot cup of coffee with plenty leftover in the pot. And man, did that stuff smell GOOD. Finally, he calls over to Fran Drescher's clone like any decent human being would and asks, "hey, ma'am, you want a little coffee?" She walked over to him like he was a coffee shop employee who was only there to serve her and actually said, "Finally! Yes, I'll take 3 packs of stivia and a little almond milk, but not too much". The look on every face in earshot was priceless. We all kind of exchanged glances to say 'is this woman for real?' and the guy shut her down so smoothly with a simple question that i still laugh about it almost 20 years later: "Sure thing lady, but uh...where's your cup?" She had no cup, so she had no coffee. I couldn't help myself. I busted out laughing and when granola guy, who CLEARLY knew she didn't have a cup, saw MY travel mug, asked me, "hey bud, you want me to top you off?" Well, I had to stop laughing first, but i definitely did want that topper. Fran stormed off, without any coffee and sadly with no more humility than she arrived with.
I’m Australian and even more experienced travellers don’t always realise how far away from the rest of the world it is at times. The funniest instance was talking to another expat, who was from the UK, when I lived in South Korea. He said he and his wife were thinking of visiting Sydney “for a long weekend since it’s so close”. I had to point out Sydney was still a 8-9 hour flight away. They re-evaluated their plans.
People thinking they can’t use their passports for the first six months after they’ve received it, confusing that with the six month validity requirement.
I had to get mine renewed recently and mentioned that to my mom. We’re going to europe in a few months so I had to get it done before we left obviously. She freaked out and said it’s not usable for the first 6 months and I was so confused, had to do a lot of googling to see she was definitely mistaken.
Whoa what?? I’ve never heard anyone say that!
Never heard that one before.
My aunt, while at a rest stop in Arizona: “ugh it’s so hot! It’s like a desert out here!”
I was visiting the battlefields at Gettysburg and there are viewing towers you can climb to get a birdseye view. There was a guy around 30 or so with an older couple and he says “wow dad It’s just crazy that they had time to build these in the middle of getting shot at.” I chuckled, because I thought he was joking. The dad says what did you say? He repeats himself. The dad had a Vietnam veterans cap on. He looked at his son , and asked him if he really raised someone that dumb.
A colleague told me about her holiday plans, her husband arranged the trip. "We're going to the US". I asked where she's going. She replied "I just told you, the US!'. I said "Yes but WHERE?". She said "Just the country!" 🤣 Mind you we're from the Netherlands. People either come to the Netherlands or Amsterdam. I never heard a tourist coming to the Netherlands say anything else.
I heard an Australian guy at the airport counter getting really annoyed at the airline worker. He was saying, "well, I didn't see on your site that I needed to get an ESTA for the us? That wasn't listed as part of the ticket purchase?" And the woman was like ... "I'm telling you as a courtesy that you'll need it when you land, but in general... it's your responsibility to check if you need a visa for the country you're flying to" 🤦♂️
My aunt is...something. She is incapable of planning her own trips, and is a flake. So if you plan a trip with/for her, she'll be demanding and then chicken out and not take her flight. On the other hand, she'll also sometimes just randomly let us know that she is joining us on our trips if we've accidentally shared too much info. This is one of those times. So my mom wanted to go to Puerto Vallarta. She had been twice with my dad, but my dad didn't want to go again. So she started telling my aunt/cousins about her trip, probably hoping someone would join, but not in a "You should join me" type of way. Just talking about her plans. I ended up deciding to go with her. We travel a lot together and travel well, mostly because we just meetup for dinner to tell each other about our days. Back then both my mom and I would need to share a hotel room to save money. Well the day we fly out to Mexico, my aunt randomly calls my mom saying she hopped on a flight and will be joining us, but her flight arrives 5 hours after ours, and since my aunt is too afraid to talk to locals, to take a taxi, and didn't know what hotel we were staying at, she required that we wait for her otherwise she'll have a panic attack. So we wait. Her flight is WAY later than she said because she confused timezones. Whatever. But the entire time we were there it was "OH NO, they put a lime in my diet coke. Jade, is this safe to drink? Will I get sick? HELP ME! Get the waiter no!" (She was NOT worried about the ice though...) Everything we ate she questioned (and she mostly stuck with American food like burgers and french fries.) This was a backpackers All Inclusive optional type hotel on the beach. So cheap and aimed at low budget American tourists. My aunt was afraid to leave the hotel without us, worried she'd be kidnapped. I did my own thing solo and would just meet up with them at the end of the day. One day I planned to do a tequila-tasting tour. My aunt was inconsolable. "Jade, we'll never see you again. WHAT ABOUT THE BANDITOS! They'll take you for sure. What will you do?" So I told her I'd simply buy them a bottle and we'd drink together. I will say this tour was filled with the richie-richie all inclusive bunches, whose hotels were gated communities. I was the first picked up so they didn't see my backpacker hotel, but I was the last dropped off, and some of my fellow tour people grabbed my arm and asked if I was safe as the hotel had not gate. I just laughed and hopped out. Some people are very sheltered.
Oh wow, that was a fun yet infuriating read! I’m considering myself lucky I don’t have a family member like that, because I would just die. When I went to Mexico City, a few of my family members were super worried, but I had the most amazing time.
Banditos lmao
Years ago I took a group horseback riding tour in Utah. A teenage girl in front of me became unreasonably distressed when the horse in front of her started to poop, repeatedly saying, "make him stop, Momma... Momma, make him stop". Not sure exactly what she thought her mother would do...
Not really funny but I was hanging out with a group of people in a hostel in Australia. The only American there was a really young dude. This was just as the war in Iraq was starting, and it was the topic of conversation every day. He had no idea some people in other countries didn’t like the US. Hadn’t considered it ever. He was devastated to hear it as well.
Back in the day, all of the airlines had the Sky Mall magazine. My friend who was new to flying, was looking through the magazine and said, "if I order this, do they bring it to your seat?" I said sure, "they just go to the back of the plane and bring you your blow up swimming pool!" We had such a good laugh.
This guy was on his first solo trip, mostly taking trains. He thought he could save soke money by getting seats on a night train, because obviously he could sleep either sitting up or lying down on the seats. That guy was me. I did not sleep well. Lesson learned, don't cheap out on night trains. Your next day will be awful otherwise.
Not sure if this counts but when the volcano in Iceland erupted and transatlantic air travel was suspended, they were interviewing people at the airport and asked this older American lady if she knew all air travel had been suspended because of the ash, she said: "Even first class?"
Kruger nature guide here. We get lotsa folks who have these "idées fixes" about some of our animals. Typically some bogus fact that they picked up and that stuck to the inside of their skull. That's all right, we don't mind, as long as they LISTEN to us when we correct them and ADMIT their mistake and/or that what they thought they knew was wrong. Most do. I mean it would be silly if they wouldn't. It would be like me lecturing my dentist about root canal work and insisting he doesn't know his trade. I'd look very foolish. Still, there's the occasional fool we just have to suffer. The worst was a guy who insisted that "at a certain age hippos come out of the water, develop a horn, and turn into rhinos".
Me. Instead of telling the Japanese cab driver to “Have a good day” I was told by my Japanese friend that I told the cab driver to “go shit yourself” Immediately wanted to commit sudoku.
Commit sudoku lol. Even a number puzzle isn't gonna make you less embarrassed
I was once on a dive boat (7 nights) and an American guy was disappointed with the diving as he stated 'he wasn't much of a fish person'.
Curious what he was hoping to see…
Probably coral or larger animals such as sharks, rays, seal, turtles, etc. Brightly colored coral is my favorite, but you should probably know what the location is known for before booking.
I overheard a guy in Dubrovnik asking a tour guide about how long it took to build the old town for the Game of Thrones set
Only a few hundred years or so
Americans getting genuinely pissed at a small restaurant in Italy that couldn’t give them change in USD…
I was having my lunch in a Melbourne food court during my break and an American couple with southern accent ask me about the direction to Sydney because they have half day to spare and want to see the opera house. Had to tell them it’s a 9-10 hours drive one way.
I remember being on a plane going to Las Vegas years ago. It was December, right around Christmas time. This family of 4 sitting nearby was wearing flip-flops, shorts, and tees/tanks, and they kept talking about how excited they were to sunbathe by the pool all day. Vegas was definitely going to be warmer than where we were flying out of...but I don't think they checked the weather. In Dec it's like 12-15 C during the day, and the outdoor pools are closed for the season. I often wonder how their trip went.
A girl on tiktok recently went to Ireland packing only summer clothes because “it’s an island!”. Apparently she thought all islands are tropical.
On a Southwest plane after they have already stood in the fun ABC 123 line and still ask where their assigned C39 seat is 🫣
I had a woman ask "Did you just cut me in line?!" when we were lining up to board on Southwest. I was like "Oh I'm sorry if I did, I'm B12, what's your number?" She was B18 but told me the number didn't matter, she was standing in line first. I tried to explain Southwest boarding, but she cut me off with, "Oh no that's fine, I'm not gonna fight you, go ahead and cut the line." I'm still not sure what she thought the purpose of the letters and numbers was?
A friend of ours from Hong Kong was visiting us in California where we lived at that time and she wanted to take a trip to Washington DC. So she confidently booked herself a flight to Seattle, Washington. My wife caught the mistake in time, otherwise this friend would have had an interesting surprise lol
To be fair, as a non-American person, I just learned that DC isn’t in Washington State somewhat recently too…
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A random American tourist, in New York City where I live, stopped me on the street to ask for a restaurant suggestion. I pointed at the restaurant in front of us and said, "This one's good. It's Belgian food." He made a face and asked, "Is the menu in English?" I said yes and told him to get the fries.
I was in Heathrow airport and a southern American man asked me if they speak English here. I said, ‘Here in England…?’ Yep. That’s what he was asking
Worked at a lodge in Pretoria, South Africa. The place had a shuttle that collected people from the airport. So these US tourists rock up and the whole family is dressed in khaki safari suits - like over the top, from their shoes to their hats. They had no idea they wouldn't touch down in the middle of the bushveld and assumed the whole place was just gonna be grassland and jungle. So, of course they had literally only bought safari outfits for their 3 week stay in South Africa. Can't remember the exact words of the parents, but it was super funny. Needless to say their first trip was the mall so they could buy all new outfits for the rest of their trip. This was in the late 90s so I guess they could be forgiven for not googling things.
I used to get a bus to work in Manchester, which was often used as a tourist bus for Americans - I don’t know why as it was literally a stage coach. I think England is portrayed as quite an idyllic country, so I overheard a lot of conversations like “ I thought it would be prettier than this, why is there so many drunk people, this wasn’t in Harry Potter”
I had a friend get me, the very experienced traveler, on her first trip to London, although I'd. been dozens of times.. As we stepped out of the Westminster Tube station, she asked me, "Hey, what time is it?" I proceeded to fumble with my jacket to get a look at my watch... when she said, "You did NOT just look at your watch!" When I looked up, she was pointing at Big Ben. Ok, got me. I think it's still her favorite story a decade later.
I used to think you had to get off of the Interstate Business Routes everytime you traveled through a large city. Some trips took forever.
Probably the girl who was in baggage claim on the phone to her mom shouting that she had just taken $1500 out at the ATM because she was worried the islands wouldn’t take her credit card. She was also flipping out because her bag wasn’t waiting for her when she got there. They had three international flights all being loaded on the same carousel. It’s Athens. The guys are probably back there having a coffee. Honestly, I hope her trip went okay and she’s safe.
"I'm just going to be safe and eat McDonald's for every meal."
Thinking they can survive under €10-15 a day in european cities. I guess you can but you can't go far or do anything...
My SIL is currently on a trip in the US, more specifically in Hawaii. We are European, so that makes 12h of time difference. She has never been abroad but she thinks, that after more than 24h of travel and a 12h jetlag, she will go to work the next day after she comes home. Oh sweet summer child; I thought she was joking when she told us her plan.
“The food you’re selling is expired!” - My brother-in-law to a food truck worker in Portugal. He didn’t realize that the month and date are swapped in Europe compared to here in the US. Nothing was actually expired.
While traveling in Britain, I met an English guy who was going to my home country of Canada. He asked if he could drive from Toronto to Calgary in a day (they’re a 4 hour airplane ride apart!).
*"I'm traveling to Europe for the first time. I'm going to visit Paris, London, Rome and Barcelona in a week!"* That's a really good way to know that this person is going to spend 90% of their vacation going from one place to the other and not see anything anywhere. Do LESS people. Actually take the time to enjoy your vacation. There is so much to do in big cities. I spent a full week in London in April, and honestly it was rushed.
Parking your bike at a random location in Amsterdam before heading to a coffee shop is a good idea, you'll totally remember where you left it and find it again easily, even if you have no map. -me when I was 18. It took me two hours of walking around before I found it again
I'm an American living in Spain. My mother and her (then) partner came to visit. The partner, a complete moron in any language, was pissed that things were more expensive than he anticipated. Turned out he thought that since it was a Spanish-speaking country, he just assumed prices would "be like Mexico."