Not that crazy but I’d never seen anything like it before.
Over 15 years ago, I was standing in a very long line at St. Basil’s in Moscow. A small pack of tourists (half a dozen or so) started to “sneak” their way into cutting in line. About 30 French people in a tour group immediately started scolding them in loud unison. They shamed them into taking their place at the end of the line. It was such an automatic and united scolding. Highly entertaining.
A fellow traveler, far more experienced than I am, said that the French are known for doing that sort of thing.
France is south to the Germans, Swedes etc but north to Italians, Greeks etc. So there are both people trying to cut in line (it can be any one, an old lady or a young person), but then other people fight them back with loud “oh you are in a hurry?!!”, “Oh, we just stand here, not queueing at all!!”, or the “Heey! / Eeh!”
Sort of some urban training it feels like.
France is west of Germany, mein Freund.
Das is richtig mein freund!
Well, the northen france is on pair with southern germany, but the idea here is the north/south differences, where in the north people are on time and follow rules, in the south not so much.
You say germans are not on time?
Das ist nicht sehr höflich.Germans: arrive 20 minutes early because “you never know”
The thing I was trying to convey was, Germans and Swedes follow the rules religiously, south europe not so much.
Curiously one of the only times I’ve seen a tourist trying to cut in line they were french, and tried to pretend they didn’t spoke English (at the exit of the Harry Potter studio tour).
Usually French tourists are among the worst behaved, so that’s kinda weird
That’s odd I’ve almost exclusively heard this said about Americans, British, and Chinese tourists. Though I have heard that the French will take you to task if you treat their home like it’s some amusement park, which seems fair?
Hide an STI
Vandalize government property and smear human feces on walls, while legislators are having a meeting doing official government duties
wait a minute, those didn’t seem like tourists…
Not tourists, terrorists.
They at least acknowledge it
Kyoto, I’ve seen an older tourist literally stop 2 young ladies in kimonos by holding their hand out in front of them in a stop signal then pull out his camera and take a picture. Not once did he ask them. Treated them like they were characters at Disneyland.
And that’s why foreign tourists are no longer allowed on certain streets there. They ruin it for everyone.
Funnily enough, the two ladies in kimonos were probably tourists too, although maybe domestic ones. It’s a common thing in Kyoto to pay to get dressed up in traditional garb and tour the sights.
Even the characters at Disneyland have specific meet and greet areas where you’re supposed to take photos.
Tried to pet a blue ring octopus.
But they look so friendly.
Grew up in a tourist town in Aus, the amount of stupid shit I have seen is wild.
Saw a tourist once bite into a meatpie still in its aluminium tray, and the pie was still hotter then the sun, so yeah, aluminium on the teeth and hectic burnt mouth, hahhahahah gave me a good giggle.
They’re so cute though!
Spend money (waste fuel, and worse: waste precious time) to go to touristic places so they can take the exact same picture/video everyone else has taken, and share it on the exact same social networks everyone else has done. Why not just buy a postcard or repost a photo already shared. Why not, you know, look around and suddenly realize there are many other things worth looking at… things that may not even be that remote from where they live.
For me, that’s one of the most extreme demonstration of generalized craziness, if not worse. Or maybe it’s just me who’s crazy (or worse)?
Edit: added a missing word.
The point of a photo is to remember something you did. Not generally the photo itself.
Resharing someone else’s photo is not even similar to going somewhere and capturing the moment.
When you’re old those photos might be all you have left.
The point of a photo is to remember something you did. Not generally the photo itself.
Why then share it? I don’t share the (very few) photos I take.
Resharing someone else’s photo is not even similar to going somewhere and capturing the moment.
I should have added a ‘\s’ to my sentence ;)
When you’re old those photos might be all you have left.
Sure, memories are priceless and they may differ for everyone. I mean, I’m old(er) and I much prefer words to images myself (I’ve been journaling for almost 50 years). Also, I don’t care to remember seing the Eiffel Tower (even less so since I live in Paris, which is a privileged place to observe tourists), or NY, or Bangkok, or any other place in particular. I wish to remember people.
Note that I simply answered the OP question (what is the craziest thing you have seen a tourist do). I may be wrong, like I hinted to in my previous comment, but to this still is the most mind boggling stupid thing I can see people do over and over again every singled day… the moment I pass in one of those few Parisian streets full of tourists ;)
People share photos to seek validation that they are interesting and are doing interesting things. Is this very classy? Not really, but it’s true. It’ll always be true. I don’t really think there’s much point in judging people too heavily for it. We’re all just apes enslaved to whatever acts cause our body to release good chemicals.
I think there is a point at which it may be unhealthy if someone is only doing things for validation without taking any personal satisfaction at all, and tourism especially should be done respectfully and after a certain amount of tourists are in an area I do think it defeats the beauty, but I think deep down we all know why tourists are a thing, and why sharing pictures online is a thing.
Thx. Agreed. And yes, we all know why it is a thing.
When I answered to Chico Suave’s slightly less amiable comment I wanted to share a few links to what I consider interesting reads. Then I read your comment and thought maybe they would be read with a lot less hostility if I shared them here.
They’re in no order of importance and they’re a bit redundant too (there were many more, hopefully anyone will find one more exciting to read) and they may help better understand my opinion on tourism in general (and their photographic laziness in particular). It may also be worth saying that we do our best to put our money where our mouth is as, both my spouse and I, we decided some 25 years ago to quit traveling by plane to fancy places (at the time we realized the ecological crisis that was to come and because it suddenly seemed to us an inexcusable waste of energy just to satisfy our mere ‘leisure’ needs), and soon after that we also quit flying for work. No revolution mind you, and no ‘no fun allowed’ either, we made all our ‘touristic’ activities local and all our work travels/meetings virtual.
So if anyone is interested, about tourism (there are others, I simply grabbed the first few not obviously AI-written results I could find):
- https://fstoppers.com/landscapes/are-tourism-and-photographers-ruining-photography-195445
- https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2023/aug/17/wish-you-werent-here-how-tourists-are-ruining-the-worlds-greatest-destinations
- https://www.treehugger.com/travel-destinations-being-ruined-by-tourism-4868960
- https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/is-tourism-destroying-the-world
And if anyone is interested in trying to make…less touristic images (not that I’m a pro myself, far from it but isn’t it exciting to try to do better?) a few quick/easy suggestions:
- https://www.digitalphotomentor.com/tips-travel-photos-crowded-locations/
- https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/tips-quickly-improve-photos/
- https://blog.depositphotos.com/back-to-basics-10-composition-rules-in-photography.html
- https://www.photographymad.com/pages/view/10-top-photography-composition-rules
- https://www.capturelandscapes.com/7-things-you-can-do-to-make-your-images-look-better-today/ (#7 may be interesting, in the context of our discussion)
The craziest thing you’ve seen is people behaving the same as a photographer who came before then? You sound mad about other people being excited that they finally saved enough and took an opportunity to enjoy themselves. People go to places to see things because that’s what tourism is. Do you not try to do things yourself because others have done it before you? Did you know that tour groups are a business formed to do exactly what you think is crazy?
There is a remarkable detachment between you and the people who are trying to have fun.
The craziest thing you’ve seen is people behaving the same as a photographer who came before then? You sound mad about other people being excited that they finally saved enough and took an opportunity to enjoy themselves. People go to places to see things because that’s what tourism is. Do you not try to do things yourself because others have done it before you? Did you know that tour groups are a business formed to do exactly what you think is crazy?
There is a remarkable detachment between you and the people who are trying to have fun.
Let me recap your reply:
Do you not try
Did you know
There is a remarkable detachment between you and the people who are trying to have fun
and
You sound mad about other people
Pardon me, but who exactly sounds mad, here?
It’s possible I’m over-interpreting the way you answered and maybe, like me, English is not you native language and you may not master it enough to express all the nuances of your deep and rich opinions and thoughts. It is such a pain, it happens to me all the time too.
So, to make it clear, I answered a question without worrying much about pleasing anyone, yourself included hope you won’t mind me saying so. And I answered what I thought was the craziest thing I see tourists do.
What I never tried to answer is this question you pulled out of the fleshy sitting part of your anatomy:
The craziest thing you’ve seen is people behaving the same as a photographer who came before then?
To put it politely, it’s quite unfair to change the question and then criticize my supposed answer to it. What was it you were saying? Oh, yeah: there is a remarkable detachment between you and the actual facts.
So, once again, I was only talking about tourists doing tourtisty things, and nothing else. I was not talking about people in general or crazy things in general. But since you asked, let me tell you you probably don’t want to know the craziest shit I’ve seen people do. And, no, they were not mere tourists behaving like mere tourists. Unless the tourist you know have a tendency to end up in jail, too?
That said, I’m grateful for the time you spend trying to help me realize the absolute dick I was by daring sharing my unflattering opinions on tourists behaving like tourists. Allow me to oblige in return. I insist.
- To recap, all I did is express my personal unflattering opinion on a question about tourists, right?
- To which you answered by expressing your own and rather unflattering opinion on the kind of person I must be, right?
But then, if 1. makes a dick out of me, what does 2. make out of you? Right.
So, to summarize, it seems we both have diverging personal and unflattering opinions. That’s great! I am always so happy to meet people willing to discuss without anger or being dismissive to one another, even more so when those two persons have slightly diverging opinions on very delicate topics.
Once again, from one dick to another, thank you very much for what I consider a very enriching discussion.
Used to work for a few ski resorts and still live in town so I’ve got plenty:
*Skiing into the pit of a ski lift (the area right after the chairs leave the loading station that’s roped off for a reason) face first into a thankfully empty chair and asking me “why didn’t it stop?”. Well chief, it did stop, about 20 feet after I pressed the button, you were within 20 feet.
*Grown man cradling his skis sideways in his arms like a child attempting to board a gondola cabin and clotheslining himself.
*Grown men pushing children out of the way to cut in line.
*Jumping off chairs just before the unload station.
*Father attempting to hit his own children in a tube well after I told him they go like 30mph and can fuck people up.
*Walking along the pavement still wearing skis.
*Dropping the comfort bar on a passing chair, resulting in the people who were about to sit in said chair to get bowled over into the pit. I just about lost any semblance of professionalism on that one…
*Underaged girl riding the bungee trampoline asked me if putting the harnesses on guests turned me on. Resulting in me dropping the harness and telling one of the female coworkers that had just been playing with their phones and talking amongst themselves that the harnesses were their fucking job now.
*Lift I was on stopped for awhile because a guy carrying his skis over his shoulder was absentmindedly decking people in the face which resulted in a fistfight the bottom operator had to break up.
I can keep going for a while.
*Dropping the comfort bar on a passing chair, resulting in the people who were about to sit in said chair to get bowled over into the pit.
I’m guessing this was a grown adult? I volunteer at my kids’ school and I’ve seen some extremely impulsive behavior from eight year olds where they clearly didn’t think about what would happen if they pulled some stunt that popped into their heads. Dropping the comfort bar sounds like that kind of thing. No thought about who it might affect; just hey, that’s something to do. It’s not even something cool, it’s just something. Like WTF???
Yeah, kids are kids, you can’t entirely blame them for not understanding the consequences of their actions quite yet, somebody older than me though? That pisses me right the fuck off.
Is it a thing at ski places to just ride the ski lifts up and down? I have no desire to ski ever, but I’ve always wanted to try one of those things.
Many of them do this during the off-season to make some extra money.
Otherwise they do allow people to go back down every place that I’ve been for various reasons like sudden panic/fear or broken equipment
Depends on the lift and downloading a guest on most chairs is real annoying for everybody involved, including the people waiting in line at the bottom. On a gondola it’s of course trivial. If you do manage to get yourself stuck somewhere you can’t download from that’s more of a patrol problem than anything ops can help you with.
Oh and a bunch of resorts use a gondola to access parking lots or other areas of the base if you wanted a completely free option.
For the chairs that’s more of a summer thing, as the ramp isn’t something you should be walking on and it’s not great for the lift to have weight on the chair while it’s going around the wheel up top. The gondola style lifts (enclosed cabin) you can absolutely do that just to hit the bar at the top or whatever, hell, most resorts will give you a cheaper ticket price if that’s all you plan on doing.
You’re not really supposed to ride them around the wheel at the end
Depends on the lift, but yeah extra weight on the bullwheel causes excess wear and with the older ones it can really fling you off to the side during that turn. Saw a guy try to ride the bullwheel on a dinosaur of a fixie and it chucked him out of the chair before I could get it stopped.
I was in the Navy and one of my shipmates got so drunk he passed out on a bench in front of the fountain at the Kings Cross intersection in Sydney. So a prostitute told him he was going to get arrested and when he spoke she realized he was American and somehow one thing leading to the other…
She gave him a bj at 7am during the beginning of rush hour traffic. She later took us to a couple private bars that were creepy and she stole his Levi’s later after they had sex and she left
Yep lived there! This was pre-2010
This was probably 1994/95
I stayed there in 2011 and the hotel didn’t have wifi. Jet lag led me to sitting on the sidewalk outside McDonald’s at 5am to get some internet.
Safe consumption sites save lives and improve communities, blatantly so when compared to the status quo. Fuck outta here with that tired, bloodsoaked, right-wing, reactionary NIMBYism.
You dont care and that dehumanization is why you’ll catch an ez block; I’m not rehashing this debate for the nth time.
To those reading on or willing to learn more:
https://crackdownpod.com/ Actually hear the perspectives from survivors of the War on People [mostly of color] who use Drugs
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dg8DA1LuZFk 5 minutes on why Harm Reduction/Safe Consumption Centers are a better way
Mate… dunno where to begin with you. I work in these places and I’m 100% for. You sound like you need to address an anxiety or anger problem.
[off topic?]
I live in New York City. One of my friends used to teach an art history course at the4 College of Staten Island.
She once told me that she’d had students who’d never travelled the 12 miles to get to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. The Met is considered one of the top museums in the world, but going there was too much hassle
I mean, from SI to Manhattan, you either need to take a ferry or come into Bayonne, so that’s a whole thing. Then again, I’ll admit, I prefer the Cloisters to the main Met.
The Staten Island Ferry is such an awesome ride, though. It’s free and goes past beautiful views of the skylines and the Statue of Liberty.
I live in New York City, and when I’m hosting or hanging with visitors from out of town I always take them to ride the ferry to Staten Island and back if I can.
It’s fine as a tourist but doing it regularly must suck. I assume living on Staten Island sucks in general.
I always take them to ride the ferry to Staten Island and back if I can.
I know what you meant, but my brain read that and thought “what if he can’t, he just leaves them there?”
A big group of Chinese tourists wanted to be first on a boat for some reason so they all just started shoving everyone out of the way, including little old ladies and children. It was really shocking behavior, like suddenly everyone around them was no longer a person. The boat was huge and had plenty of room for everyone so it wasn’t really obvious why they decided to attack people, they didn’t really gain anything by being the first aboard.
I went snorkeling in a group alongside a Chinese tourist family. The dad literally swam over top of me. To be clear, I was floating on the surface. Instead of going around me, he just swam over me, legs kicking and all. Fucking weirdest experience ever.
For some reason I find that hilarious I would’ve been so shocked I wouldn’t have reacted.
I’ve heard this is common
Shoving is pretty normal in mainland China. It’s just how you get through crowds. I’ve heard it’s getting better.
Was it Niagara Falls? Seen Asians do this before for the maid of the myst but not sure what nationality they were. Always assumed it was some Asian version of a college or school frat.
Nope, happened in Paris getting on one of the big tour boats that cruise the Seine. I think it was a large extended family or possibly a tour group composed of multiple families, the youngest were preteens and the oldest were maybe 50s or early 60s. I couldn’t figure out if there was a tour guide or anyone in charge of the group. We stayed as far from them as we could, they seemed like a bunch of rich assholes and were mostly loud and obnoxious the entire cruise. And just to make it clear, I’ve seen a lot of shit behavior from tourists in my life and no ethnicity or nationality has a monopoly on shitty tourists. People are monsters, and rich assholes are gonna rich asshole. This one just stands out as the worst because it was such a large group and the violence was so sudden and pointless, and then we were trapped on a boat ride with them.
Seen Chinese do (try) the same thing in plitwice national parks. There are only these small wooden paths leading down to the boats. Let’s put it this way: it’s rather unamused when someone two heads smaller than you and half your weight tries to force you into a lake/marshland. What is however amusing is simply stopping to move and watch them loose balance.
Not the craziest thing in this thread but inside a train, arguing loudly on the phone.
It sounded like the tourist was scammed or something.
Shit on the sidewalk.
Switzerland. Taking the very busy cableway down the mountain. People waiting in line to get in. Next stop, I see some people exiting and immediately getting in line again there. Apparently they thought you need to get in line again at every stop. Crazy. Sweet maybe, but crazy.
Haggle and argue with a street vendor in a 3rd world country. He might’ve been mildly overcharged but the kind of amount that even I let go as a local.
Plus since there’s basically 0 tourism here many just like to give away stuff for free to em.
Many also treat the tourist as a tourist attraction lol. Staring and awkwardly asking for photos and what not.
A lot of articles aimed at tourists stress that you should never accept the initial price and always haggle, so I can see how that would happen.
In fact, many of them say that haggling is a sign of respect and an important social norm in some cultures.
Many also treat the tourist as a tourist attraction lol
Ha ha yes, a friend visiting China was handed a baby by its mother, who proceeded to take a photo. Then took the baby back and walked away, without a please or thank you.
Weeeell, tourists are often seen as easy money even in rich countries. There are tourist traps all over and when you don’t speak the language or don’t know the place, it’s very easy to get ripped off. Plus, if you grew up in a place with markets, it’s quite normal to haggle - some people go to the market just to haggle because it’s fun.
some people go to the market just to haggle because it’s fun
This sounds like an actual nightmare
this.
tl;dr: showed up to hotel a day before their room was ready, wanted to sleep in the lobby, got abusive and violent with the staff when they refused, then accused the police of assault when they were forcibly escorted out after refusing for hours to leave.
this got attention in swedish media first, and only got a response from the ccp after it had gone viral.
After reviewing the footage, the Chinese Embassy in Stockholm wrote in a statement that the incident “severely endangered the life and violated the basic human rights of the Chinese citizens.”
That’s rich, coming from officials of a country that runs concentration camps.
‘then accused the police of assault’ ah, so not an American story then. “Yeah we did it, and we’ll do it again!”
yeah watching the video the police are so uncomfortable with having to handle them. the guy basically goes limp in their arms and starts screaming, so another policeman has to grab his feet and they carry him out like ewoks while he screams “THIS IS KILLING”.
very strange.
