7 Reasons Why Tourists Are Annoying (and a reason to love them)

1. When they think everything should work like it does back home.

Sorry, we don’t know what the price is in your own currency, the menu is full of local cuisine because it’s local TO HERE, and we will automatically stop listening to ANY sentence that starts with “Well, this wouldn’t happen back in my country…”

2. Talking over the tour guide.

When you’ve paid a decent sum of money to be part of a tour group, you’d expect that the rest of the group would be as interested in what the guide has to say as you are, right? WRONG! These large groups belong in the same category of sub-human who talk loudly in the movie theater, obnoxiously discussing whatever they want, whenever they want, among themselves. They crank their volume up to the point where not only can you hear every private part of their discussion, but it’s ALL you can hear, as often the poor tour guide is too polite to tell them to quieten down.

3. Not respecting local culture and traditions.

Sorry ladies, it might be acceptable for you to walk around in skirts that are essentially belts where you come from, but if you’re stepping into a thousand-year-old Church or Mosque, cover that stuff up! And fellas, getting drunk and trying out your pick-up lines on the local women trying to go about their business is about the least attractive thing you can do.

4. Expecting English to be the default language of the world.

Yes, English can be a beautiful and eloquent language, but please remember that the world is bigger than one language and there are whole parts of the world that get by perfectly fine where the vast majority of those living there never use it. Also note that it sounds ever less eloquent when YOU… SPEAK… LOUDER… AND… SLOWER… AS… IF… THIS… WILL… MAKE… YOU… EASIER… TO… UNDERSTAND!

5. We’re not lining up here for fun.

You have to stop and wonder what goes through some tourist’s minds when they approach a big attraction, see the obvious line line of visitors waiting patiently for their turn to enter, look at the entrance to said attraction, and try to walk straight in. We don’t know what is worse: being too stupid to realize what the line is actually for, or being obnoxious enough to think that the line doesn’t apply to them.

6. When in a big city, stop hunting in packs!

We have nothing against traveling in groups or a big family; they can be a lot of fun. But when in a big city, with millions of locals trying to get from point A to B and as far from being on vacation-mode as it is possible to be, please stop blocking the whole side-walk, or stopping suddenly to take that amazing photo without realizing that someone is about to crash into you from behind. Please also research public transport, instead of holding up the whole bus arguing with the driver about why he’s not going exactly where you want him to go! (Side note to all visitors on the London Underground – when on the escalators, STAND on the right – if a person stand on the left and blocks traffic then it is perfectly okay for Londoners to kill those people.)

7. Fight the urge to be the first person off the plane.

We’ve all seen it. The plane has landed, it’s ferrying to the terminal, and the seat-belt light is still on. Every passenger is now in a silent, unspoken race to be the first person off the plane.The tension mounts, as the closer you get to the plane stopping, the more likely it will be that one daring soul decides that aviation regulations don’t apply to them. Almost automatically, you react to that familiar ‘click’ of a seat-belt unfastening, and the whole cabin scans the area for the one offending passenger. And before the cabin crew can reprimand the said idiot, everyone else feels this then gives them the right to break the rules too, and then it becomes a free-for-all attack on the overhead storage as everyone puts all the frustration of the twelve-hour flight into one single act of defiance. And then the successful delinquents stare smugly at everyone else, clutching their bag victoriously… as they stand in the aisle for ten minutes looking like a douchebag while the first-class passengers are let off first. Please don’t be that person…

But at the end of the day, have patience.

These are people who might be traveling for the first time, who might have saved for years and years to visit a landmark you might walk past every day without a second glance. They are going to be excited, they are going to be loud, and they will certainly be annoying, but remember, one day it will be you as the tourist annoying the locals. Remember some basic etiquette and they’ll love that you’re interested enough to visit their part of the world!