To find tourists really annoying (even though I am one)

[Gone2far]

We're travelling round Romania at the moment, but have found the same in Georgia and Turkey.
When you visit orthodox churches, or mosques, there are often signs asking both men and women to not wear shorts, or sleeveless tops, or cover their heads. And there's always tourists who just don't care and wander around without taking any notice.
Shouldn't tourists, as visitors to a country, show respect?

Another majorly disrespectful thing is taking photos where it isn't permitted, this happens everywhere

I remember someone making a video about going to visit Auschwitz and despite the signs and pleads from the tour leaders about not taking photos of certain bits (their shoes, clothes, hair?? maybe), the amount of people ignoring it was absolutely disgusting

Maybe they don't understand the signs, or don't realise how disrespectful it is to wear whatever they choose, who knows

Shouldn't tourists, as visitors to a country, show respect?

Yes, of course

You don't have to agree with the way things are done in whatever place, and we all make mistakes sometimes, but on the whole if you've chosen to go somewhere, at least have the manners to avoid causing offence

And yes, I expect the same with visitors to the UK ...

Absolutely! On holiday to Rome/Malta I carried a sarong at all times so I could cover my head/shoulders when visiting churches. I’m not particularly religious I went more for the history and to admire the buildings themselves but I made certain to conform to the requests to cover up. I get very annoyed by people who can’t take direction. The amount of people talking in the Sistine chapel despite security guards demanding silence was so irritating!

I live in a place that's a 'holiday destination' for a lot of people, and one of my absolute pet hates is when tourists talk loudly and in public in snooty and denigrating ways about locals – as though most of the locals can't hear and understand them, or, regardless of language, as though they're somehow 'better' than them.

There's this attitude that if the tourists weren't here nobody here would be able to live – these gracious benefactors doing everyone a favour by sashaying in and complaining they can't get a full English breakfast....

Breaks my heart and makes me want to smash things in equal measure.

I agree completely. I always try and be respectful of the place I'm visiting. You hear so many negatives of "Brits abroad" and I would hate to be seen as the stereotype. That being said, I have seen people from other countries behave very badly too, when on holiday. Any place I visit, I see myself as a guest of that place and always try and at least know how to say please and thank you in the language and respect the local customs.

It's the same in the UK. I live in a very popular holiday destination in England and the amount of tourists who have absolutely NO consideration for locals trying to go about their day to day business is incredible. It seems the minute people go on "holiday" they completely forget their manners, lose ability to read signs and genuinely do everything to appear ignorant/show no respect for the area.... mostly Brits.

I grew up in Cornwall (but moved away at 16) and the Cornish hate tourists. They call them Emmets. So yes I do think its the same in the UK.

The amount of people talking in the Sistine chapel despite security guards demanding silence was so irritating!

Could be worse. Could be screaming.

*Puzzledandpissedoff

Shouldn't tourists, as visitors to a country, show respect?

Yes you should respect the laws and culture of the country you are in. This also applies to those coming to the UK.

ladybee28
I agree, i also live in a destination place and the way some tourists speak about the locals is unbelievable. I look like a local and I've heard a few things aimed at me.
A lot of them also have no respect for rules like the beaches and taking rubbish with them.
We've also had British holiday makers staying not far from the house and you can hear them pissed, walking through residential areas at 4am in the morning screaming and shouting and waking people up.

Absolutely, origamiunicorn - and that's how I came to be asked if I was muslim, when covering before entering a Kusadasi mosque. Apparently the lady was surprised to see it done as the majority don't bother

I have views about women being expected to cover, but that's not the point; it was someone else's country and not my place to criticise how they behave in it

Could be worse. Could be screaming.

Aww, come on- she was very moved by it :-)

I'm from New York and visited last year. We went to the World Trade Center and at the memorial fountains there were loads of tourists taking selfies and grinning and generally making a bit of a racket. It was really upsetting. YANBU.

Yes, other tourists can be very annoying. Especially the large tour groups, who just stop in the middle of the street to look at something or when their tour guide starts telling them about something and seem totally oblivious to the fact that they are blocking the entire street and people are trying to get past them. How can you be so unaware of your surroundings?

Also the zombie like way some tour groups approach a sight phones held in the air, clicking away like mad. Was trying to get past a tour group in Croatia last month and one guy kept waving his arms holding his phone either side of me trying to take a photo of the street, where if he he had just taken 2 seconds to let me pass I wouldn't have been in his way any more and he could have taken as many photos as he wanted instead of blocking my way.

Not to mention the loud tourists (often but not always Americans) who seem incapable of having a conversation with the person sat right fucking next to them at a volume lower than that which anyone within the same restaurant or street can hear every single word of.

Also cringe at the tourists who are greeted in the local language and don't respond at all because they haven't even bothered to learn the word for hello and so don't know what is being said to them. No wonder some people think tourists are rude. How hard is it to learn three or four words so you can at least say and recognise hello, goodbye and thank you in the local language?

I'm from New York and visited last year. We went to the World Trade Center and at the memorial fountains there were loads of tourists taking selfies and grinning and generally making a bit of a racket. It was really upsetting. YANBU.

I actually told 2 posing girls that's their selfies with pout and peace signs at the WTC were disrespectful but they looked at me like I had 3 heads. I find this generation of narcissists really worrying.

I love and work in London, and mostly love the tourists and visitors, they lift the mood and add to the bustling mix.

I think it is rude and parochial to give visitors to your area a derogatory name.

My only quibbles are:
Standing on the R and walking on the L on escalators is sacrosanct. Keep your case in front of you, not next to you.
The notices on those ancient sarcophaguses in the British Museum are really clear. So don’t stand your kids in them or sit in the edge.

I recently travelled to a country where any form of sightseeing was made impossible by Chinese tourists with selfie sticks and posing at length for huge great group pics at every opportunity. You couldn’t get anywhere. They weren’t looking at anything, just photographing themselves in front of it so no one else could look either. It was in s non European place close to and popular with people from HK and other Chinese cities.

I actually told 2 posing girls that's their selfies with pout and peace signs at the WTC were disrespectful but they looked at me like I had 3 heads. I find this generation of narcissists really worrying.

Not just this generation. I was there in 2003-ish when it was still a massive rubble-filled home in the ground, and people were taking group pictures in front of the fences all grinning at the camera with their arms round each others’ shoulders.

Well, I'm glad I'm not alone!
I remember going round the Prado, and it was difficult to get to see many of the pictures because of idiots who were taking selfies of themselves in front of them. Who never actually looked at the pictures. Generally Chinese. Why is this?

the Cornish hate the tourists but love money presumably

I just don't get the taking pictures of every single thing without actually looking at it . Do they look at this pictures when they get home and think why did l take all those useless pictures?
We were in Croatia recently and l couldn't get over the groups from the cruise ships just snapping, snapping without ever standing to look.
It's like those people who hold their phone up at a concert without actually listening. All they do is block my view.

I think it's the same for most nationalities though, not purely Brit tourists or US tourist problem.
Our local beach is a tourist hotspot, we try to go very early to miss the tourists, but more and more are going early to miss the crowds - for their obligatory selfie I suspect. So many spend around 30 minutes getting the right shot, most seem to think it's ok to use anything on the beach as a prop. We have a paddle board, I've lost count of the amount of girls who jump onto it for a shot or who try to take it into the sea to get the perfect pic, who, when told it's our property, simply say 'I don't mind, I'm only taking a photo'. They get quite upset - but continue snapping away - when we tell them WE mind. We call it the Instaface effect.

Vulpine - The vast majority of Cornish people (or anyone in any other UK tourist hotspots) see very little financial benefit from tourism.

The only people who make a decent living from tourists are the relatively small number of business owners and holiday let owners.

For most locals tourism just means a few crappy part time, minimum wage, seasonal jobs whilst having to suffer the many detrimental impacts of tourism... no.1 being hugely inflated local house prices.

We went to the 9/11 memorial and in the most part people were very respectful and talked in hushed voices. However there was one family who were making their kids stand in front of items on display (burn out fire engines) and asking them to smile for photos. My jaw dropped 😡

I live in a South Coast seaside town which is hugely popular in summer, mostly with other Brits. The lack of consideration for people trying to go about their daily lives is often astonishing. Some of the holidaying elderly on their rented mobility scooters ( that bloke makes a FORTUNE) are a public menace.

I actually experienced something akin to this yesterday. At a local historic castle and all the ducks/geese/swans had recently hatched so lots of cute ducklings around and so on. 2 older teenage girls and mum trying to pick up ducklings and position them for fucking selfies!!

They looked very surprised when I told them off for interfering with wildlife. But seriously how can people think it's ok??