Tourists have a bad reputation, and, often, with good reason. There are a lot of terrible, overentitled people out there who ruin traveling for everyone else. Here’s how you can avoid being one of them.
Lose the Aforementioned Entitlement
Travel is an incredible luxury and should be treated as such. Only a small portion of the world’s population gets the chance to experience different countries and cultures. It’s a privilege.
I get it, though! You’ve saved up and paid a lot of money to fly to Mexico/Paris/Vietnam/Wherever. But that’s all you’ve paid for. If there’s construction in progress, the weather doesn’t go your way, the monkeys don’t dance, or the whales don’t appear, that’s just bad luck. All you can do is relax, laugh it off, and enjoy the fact that you’re there.
If you’re in a country with different styles of dress or standards of behavior, respect them. For example, topless sunbathing is totally okay for everyone on the beaches of Barcelona, but not Morocco. If you visit a temple, wear the type of clothing the locals do. If that means keeping your shoes on and covering up, do it—no matter how hot it is.
Again, for most people, if you just keep in mind how super-lucky you are to travel and act like it, that’s enough to ward off almost all terrible tourist behavior.
Think About the Locals
Aside from a few tourist hot spots, most places you’ll visit are functional cities, where locals go about their day-to-day lives. New York, London, and Paris all make a lot of money from tourism, but they make even more from their regular economies.
When you visit a new place, think about the locals. You’re intruding on their town, and, in most cases, they’re going to see very little direct benefit from your presence. The extra pennies in the city’s coffers at the end of the year won’t offset the annoyance of dodging slow-moving tourists on the sidewalk every day or dealing with a litter problem.
You can show your consideration in your general attitude. Just keep in mind that the vast majority of people around you are going about their daily lives—rushing from work to home to school or dealing with family and commitments in their hometown.
Most New Yorkers don’t go to Broadway shows, the majority of Londoners haven’t been to the British Museum, and Parisians aren’t surprised by the beauty of their city’s architecture. Consider them whenever you stop in the street, ask passersby for help, think about leaving your coffee cup on a bench, or hold up the line at the subway station.
Learn the Basics of the Language
Read the remaining 18 paragraphs
from How-To Geek https://ift.tt/2PJZnw9
No comments:
Post a Comment