Worst Tourists

[OneOfTheMichael's]

Have you ever met someone on vacation who commented on your countries stereotypes or rudely mocked you because of where you live?
Even when they mention where they live yet you hold back your comments on their country because you don't want to be rude.
Well I would like to know who are generally the most rude tourists that you have met or heard about.
Share a story of yours if you've met one of these guys.
give your thoughts with some reason and don't try to offend anyone, because even if you've met a single person who acted rudely, doesn't mean that all of them are.


So heres a story my dad told me
A long time ago when he used to live in Paris, and his dad was in the military, they went to a restaurant. They were seated and were looking through the menus when he and his dad noticed a american family of tourists sitting at a table nearby. So the waiter came to them first and one guy started to talk all rude and say "Hey! Buddy you speak English!". The waiter said "Pardon?", and the guy said "Get. Some one. Who. Speak. English." and the waiter just walked away, and started to walk towards my dads table. So his dad flipped out a small pocket dictionary, and was looking through a it to try and tried learn some french to order "Um...Bonjour...est poulet et..." and then the waiter approached him and said in fluent english "you don't have to do that...I speak perfect English"
So you show courtesy and manners and you will get treated with respect. lesson learned.

 

[TheIronRuler]

-snip-

Last time I've been on a vacation was last century.
But I do see tourists from time to time near my home, since I live near the beach.
In the summer I sometimes see some European tourists coming over. I'm not aware of how people normally act there, but the way they acted (A family) was abysmal.
The man rubbed himself against passers by, the children harrased other people and the woman was just disgusting. I'm not sure if this qualifies, but here you go.

I do have something recent.
I came to a restaurant once with my girlfriend and we had a date. All is well, we saw a group of tourists sit next to us. That's fine, nothing special. Now, they were given a special menu in French with bloated pricing, maybe three times how much I payed for, and It just offended me to see the restaurant rip them off like that. My girlfriend whispered something in the ear of the wife, and a few moment later they left.

 

[The Wooster]

Have you ever met someone on vacation who commented on your countries stereotypes or rudely mocked you because of where you live?
Even when they mention where they live yet you hold back your comments on their country because you don't want to be rude.
Well I would like to know who are generally the most rude tourists that you have met or heard about.
Share a story of yours if you've met one of these guys.
give your thoughts with some reason and don't try to offend anyone, because even if you've met a single person who acted rudely, doesn't mean that all of them are.


So heres a story my dad told me
A long time ago when he used to live in Paris, and his dad was in the military, they went to a restaurant. They were seated and were looking through the menus when he and his dad noticed a american family of tourists sitting at a table nearby. So the waiter came to them first and one guy started to talk all rude and say "Hey! Buddy you speak English!". The waiter said "Pardon?", and the guy said "Get. Some one. Who. Speak. English." and the waiter just walked away, and started to walk towards my dads table. So his dad flipped out a small pocket dictionary, and was looking through a it to try and tried learn some french to order "Um...Bonjour...est poulet et..." and then the waiter approached him and said in fluent english "you don't have to do that...I speak perfect English"
So you show courtesy and manners and you will get treated with respect. lesson learned.

To counter that. Nearly every American tourist I've ever met abroad has been polite, honest and seemingly endlessly enthusiastic about learning about and experiencing the culture or as much as they can of it. The English (my own country) tend to do the exact opposite.

 

[Warrior Irme]

The last time I left the US I went to Germany for a good week and a horrible week. When I first arrived in Berlin people were very nice about helping me with my German speaking. I had enough to carry on a basic conversation, but specific words would escape me. Restaurants, Hotels, and people on the street were all very nice and helpful with my language usage. After the first week or so of hitting Berlin and moving around the south eastern portion of the country I was having a wonderful trip.

When I was in western Germany though everyone there treated me like crap for being American. Vendors, Hotel workers, waiters were all extremely rude. The only times I used English on my trip was when I was having a problem finding a word in my vocabulary. At one point I was told by one of the staff members at my hotel that, and I paraphrase, if I was going to butcher their language that the least I could do would be to do it in my own country of shitheads and leave their culture alone.

I have seen plenty of bad tourists, and yes they deserve the bad rap they get, but remember that people delivering on a service of tourism can be even worse.

 

[Laser Priest]

Families always make for terrible tourists, especially when they're the happy families with whining spoiled children and parents screaming at them.

 

[Baradiel]

The Isle of Man (where I live) hosts the annual Tourist Trophy races, and as the name suggests, we get people from all over the world. Mostly Germany and Britain, but further afield too, such as the Americas and Australia/New Zealand.

Now, the native population of the Island both adores and hates the people who come for the races. It stimulates our economy, makes us feel like an important place (Hey, we're a tiny island in the middle of the British Isles, we need something.) and its a fantastic atmosphere.

But we also have to deal with idiotic bikers who have no respect for the rules of the road, no access to the TT course (its a road race, which means alot of people die every year, and more importantly, the roads are closed for the majority of the day) and NO PARKING SPACES!

Anyway, the point I was trying to make before I went off about the TT (Look it up. Learn about my island, internet!) is that I meet alot of tourists from many countries, and while the cliche of irritating American tourists generally holds true, regardless of their nationality there are nice, good natured people, and there are cunts.

By and large, I'd say the British are the worst tourists, and I can say that because I am British, and I've seen what we do. If we aren't conquering the resort (and by extension, the country) then we're being dicks.

 

[Arsen]

I work at a "major retail outlet" in America. Coincidentally it's near a Veeeeery prestigious, high end university. The following countries (I personally find) to be the best human beings all around, and alternately the worst.

Best:

- Argentina, Brazil, Chile. I love you people. No seriously....I have NOTHING bad to say about any human being from South America who is studying in North America. They are polite, extremely warm hearted, intelligent, and beyond friendly. Once again, I have nothing bad to say about these people. I cannot state that enough.

- Germany. Highly intelligent, polite individuals. You guys always joke with me about the culture you come from. And you all always tell me about the historical wars that happenened in the few seconds I converse with you all. I love conversing with Europeans about such things.

- Spain. Similar mentality to the people from South America (coinciden...nah). Never met one person from Spain who was a bad person.

Worst:

-Israelis (I am in no way relating this to political ties, ancestral arguments, or otherwise....this is purely a tourist discussion). Pompous, arrogant, demanding, rude, and overall in crowds....they don't seem to understand the principle of being in "someone else's land"....actually...wait a min-...

- Haitians. I won't even go anywhere with this. I'll come off as an asshole. (Yeah, yeah I know. Slave ancestry, revolt, hurricanes, death, poverty...call me when something new happens or get a better excuse to behave the way you do.)

- Some Eastern European countries. Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary... you guys are awesome. The rest seem to carry this overly "indignant" attitude. Yeah yeah, I get it. War, poverty, famine. Change the snotty notions towards others.

 

[Baradiel]

-Israelis (I am in no way relating this to political ties, ancestral arguments, or otherwise....this is purely a tourist discussion). Pompous, arrogant, demanding, rude, and overall in crowds....they don't seem to understand the principle of being in "someone else's land"....actually...wait a min-...

[sub]Oh I see what you did there![/sub]

Yeh, lets not get into this ^^

 

[Scrubiii]

An American tourist to Buckingham Palace famously asked the tour guide "why did they build Buckingham Palace in the flight path of Heathrow Airport."

As for genuinely rude tourists, I have never really encountered any.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

The only thing that bothers me is when Americans put Canadian Flags on their backpacks to get better treatment abroad. Being a Canadian myself that thought pisses me off.

 

[Dags90]

The only thing that bothers me is when Americans put Canadian Flags on their backpacks to get better treatment abroad. Being a Canadian myself that thought pisses me off.

Why? Are you upset that Americans easily pass for Canadian to most Europeans?

I've never had much trouble. My area doesn't get many tourists and the worst I've gotten as a tourist is a dirty look. And the obligatory "You don't sound like you're from Jersey" when I'm visiting other places in the U.S.

 

[EeveeElectro]

I always thought Asians (from Japan, China) were polite, but more recently a fair few of them keep coming into my work with right faces on, don't say please or thank you and just grunt and point. Fair enough, if they don't speak English very well it's understandable, but you'd at least smile at someone who is serving you?
Mind, a lot of our own people areas rude as that ;_;

From who I've met, I love Canadians. So pleasant and polite, they always seem so happy to be in England. I try point them in the direction of nice places to visit and one of them was absolutely thrilled when I gave him a penny change. >_<

 

[Brutal Peanut]

Actually, a LOT of tourists come through here. Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Indian, German, English, etc. We are at least two hours from Las Vegas, NV. Language oriented tour buses, and overseas tourists who rent cars or campers, use a certain part of the town as a pit-stop. Usually the tourist will grab a bite to eat, wander through the outlet malls and do some shopping from expensive name brand stores, or at least just look at the merchandise before continuing their trip. I've never met any that were actually rude. I'm sure a few have been a bit brusque, but, not with me.

When traveling overseas I was treated nicely by some, badly by others (so really no different then being at home.lol). I just smiled, tried to be polite, only asked questions when I was genuinely stumped, and remembered my, 'please and thank yous'.As for traveling or vacationing inside the U.S. - I've spent more time overseas then traveling through my own country.lol I plan to change that next year.

 

[CaptainLoserPants]

Have you ever met someone on vacation who commented on your countries stereotypes or rudely mocked you because of where you live?
Even when they mention where they live yet you hold back your comments on their country because you don't want to be rude.
Well I would like to know who are generally the most rude tourists that you have met or heard about.
Share a story of yours if you've met one of these guys.
give your thoughts with some reason and don't try to offend anyone, because even if you've met a single person who acted rudely, doesn't mean that all of them are.


So heres a story my dad told me
A long time ago when he used to live in Paris, and his dad was in the military, they went to a restaurant. They were seated and were looking through the menus when he and his dad noticed a american family of tourists sitting at a table nearby. So the waiter came to them first and one guy started to talk all rude and say "Hey! Buddy you speak English!". The waiter said "Pardon?", and the guy said "Get. Some one. Who. Speak. English." and the waiter just walked away, and started to walk towards my dads table. So his dad flipped out a small pocket dictionary, and was looking through a it to try and tried learn some french to order "Um...Bonjour...est poulet et..." and then the waiter approached him and said in fluent english "you don't have to do that...I speak perfect English"
So you show courtesy and manners and you will get treated with respect. lesson learned.

Concerning the rude American family in Paris:

This is what my own family was afraid of.

I went to France a couple years ago with my family.
I am American, and my family and I had heard the horror stories...how fellow Americans have acted horribly, rudely in foreign countries. People often told us, "pretend you're Canadian. Everyone hates Americans." With this in mind, we were hellbent on being as polite and respectful as possible when we got to France, however we wouldn't hide the fact that we were American. At that time, my mom and I had a BASIC understanding of French. Thus we were given the job as "translators" for my brothers and Dad (they knew not a word, themselves). Pathetic translators, yes, but we could at least ask where the bathroom was.

My mom and I were so worried we'd offend someone that we almost ruined our trip in our fear and nervousness. My dad and two brothers waltzed around, smiling, enjoying Normandy while Mom and I were in panic mode. We'd break out into cold sweats before entering restaurants or stores. We spoke quietly, almost too quietly, afraid that they think we were too loud. Every night we'd pour over our french dictionaries, almost "planning" our sentences for the next day. Eventually we lightened up, and were able to smile and have a good time.

I don't have a tourist horror story...but I thought that I'd share that some tourists actually do care...maybe a little too much, in my family's case. So bad on the other end of the spectrum. xD

 

[Iwata]

Brazilian tourists do that all the time here, since they used to be one of our colonies. Just the other day I almost got into a fight on the train after some random Brazilian dude started LOUDLY raving on about how we stole his country's riches, and how we took them for slaves, and blah-blah-fucking-blah... three centuries ago.

Don't like it? Don't come here. And I told him as much, as loudly as he was spewing his hateful crap. I don't see the point in going somewhere on vacation only to aggravate the locals. I sure as shit didn't start badmouthing his country with xenophobic crap when I went to Brazil.

As for Americans, well... yesterday my girlfriend and I went to Cascais, a local tourist hot-spot, for a nice dinner. The place is literally row upon row of awesome restaurants. This group of Americans pass by each and every one of them, and I hear one of them stop and go "Ah, here we go"... right in front of the local McDonalds!

I just found it funny. In terms of personality, I find American tourists to be quite nice people. And I still remember an american friend of mine's first words out of the airport: "Holy shit, you guys use Mercedes as taxis?!"

Again:

 

[CaptainKoala]

Ugh... I live in Duluth, Minnesota. And during the summer you wouldn't believe how many tourists there are! Its insane.

 

[LarenzoAOG]

While I was in Pisa I overheard a woman ask a man "Why would they build the tower all lopsided like that?"

I laughed so fucking hard.

 

[Cakes]

Generalisations ahoy!

 

[Souplex]

People from outside New York are generally unpleasant, but we must treat them with patience and understanding, after all; they're in New York because they understand wherever they're from is inferior, just as all other places are.