Do people stare at you when you’re on holiday?

[Escallop]

I’ve got a mop of thick red hair. My DP has natural blond hair. We’re both very very pale and green/blue eyed.

When we’ve travelled to areas of the world where this colouring is not very prevalent, we’ve always noticed people staring at us. Now this could be because we are not locals, but I can’t help but think it’s because of how we look. So I was wondering, do people stare at you when you’re on holiday?

By the way, I’m talking about just going about daily life, like being in the supermarket or getting a bus. Even if there are other tourists, we seem to be watched by others more than others. Maybe I’m just making it all up in my head!

When in Spain about 2002 the youngster aged around 3 we had with us had gingery red hair, green eyes and very pale skin. We noticed lots of people staring at her.

In the early 60s our family lived in Singapore, dad was military, we used to get stared at if we were in an area that was predominantly Chinese and once when in the Botanical Gardens, mum and dad were asked by a Chinese family if they could taken a photo of my brother, aged about 6, with their son who was about the same age.

I'm a redhead, a real one too. Noone gives me a second look but then I tend to stay in Europe or the Med. countries.

Yes I’ve had this in Kuala Lumpur. I’m blond, and I don’t get how it’s that unusual in such a touristy city. They must have had millions of blonds visiting, I kept wondering if they had mistaken me for a celebrity, but realised it was just the blond hair.

We got stated at and asked questions a lot in Thailand. I don't think it's rude there. They were just genuinely interested. My family is slightly unusual in that our two kids are 10 years apart in age. They are both our joint children but our son has dark hair and eyes like me but quite dark olive skin (from my mums side - I'm actually quite pale) so when he tans he looks possibly mixed race. Husband and daughter are very pale with strawberry blonde hair and light blue eyes.

Often in restaurants the staff would come over and chat and ask how old the children were etc. Then point at son and say to husband "so he isn't yours". Luckily he found it hilarious. I guess they assumed we were a blended family rather than I was a cheat!

Just remembered a holiday in Bulgaria years ago. There was a family in our hotel with two teen sons and the older one kept really staring at me whenever he saw me. Quite obviously to the extent that my husband and son kept teasing me about my "admirer" and his own parents would nudge him when they noticed him doing it. I'm quite nice looking I suppose but no beauty and I was about 36 or 37 then so a really odd choice of crush.

Yes, when I was in my 20s I travelled round Asia and people would stop me to have photos taken with me. They would bring their kids over to stand with me and all point! I was blonde which seemed to generate a lot of interest

I went to China about 25 years ago with a boyfriend, both of us had light blond hair. We sat on a bench in a park. We had queues of Chinese people asking to touch our hair and taking photos of us with them. Apparently it is considered lucky.

I still think now about how our photos might be on a random mantelpiece somewhere.

I have the kind of colouring (dark brown hair and eyes and medium white skin that tans well) which means I am very unremarkable in a lot of the world so I have not experienced staring.

My Irish SiL is pale skinned, green eyed and very red haired, we once spent a long bus journey in Spain with two elderly women staring at her and stroking her hair and face exclaiming how beautiful she was.

Less fun was a time in deepest Southern France where we were at a music festival (me and Mr Monkey (both white) and two friends we met at the festival - middled aged Londoners of African Caribbean descent one of whom had waist length dreads) and it seemed wherever we went for drinks or dinner we were stared and stared at.

Yes same here - I was tall, pale, with red hair. It happened a lot.

This happened to my mum back when she was younger and first went abroad. She had beautiful fiery red hair and very very pale skin.

She went to Portugal in the 60s when she was a teenager and EVERYONE stared at her. She said it was v disconcerting! I think they'd just never seen someone that looked like my mum ever before in their lives. A wee old Portuguese lady on a bus sat beside my mum and stroked her hair!!! She was only about 18 at the time so was a bit freaked out.

I think in touristy areas now it wouldn't be much of an issue.

When we took DD to Austria aged 9 months some Japanese tourists asked for a photo with her. I sometimes wonder if they look back at the picture of her blonde and blue eyed giggling in the centre of a group of Japanese people and wonder who on earth she was.

The only time I can think of was when I went to Australia and had booked into a hostel for the first couple of nights and I shared a room with a couple of Japanese girls. They were probably in the same position as me, first time on a backpacking kind of trip, and they stared at me a lot. But maybe I stared at them a lot to know that they were staring!

In Thailand I had to have a sense of humour as all the locals whenever I made a move to go into any of the clothes shops would shout at the top of their voices at me "No fat sizes!!" "No fat sizes!" 😂. I'm just under 5ft9 and about a size 12/14. However Thai people are teeny tiny so I can see what they meant lol.

If you look typical celt/merida looking I wouldn't intentionally stare but I'd look because I find that look mesmerising!

My two blondies received a lot of attention on a family holiday to Malaysia. Everyone and his wife wanted their picture taken with the two of them - DH and I joked we should start charging. I left them for 5 minutes on a bench in a shopping centre whilst I nipped to the loo and came back to a full on photo session with two older ladies. The children looked mostly bemused.

We had it there and none of us are blond.
All three of us have brown hair.

So I don't think it's necessarily hair colour.
I think we just look very British and very clearly not Malaysian.

Sorry I should have clarified that I was with 3 others who were white and brown haired, and it was only me who they wanted photos of/with. So I assumed it was the blond hair.

Yes in several countries. We're all very pale. I have long curly reddish blonde hair which got a fair bit of attention, but most of the attention was on my husband and daughter who are both alarmingly blonde and very tall. Daughter's hair looks almost white in some lights and is very long and curly, she had little kids wanting to touch it and play with it. You just don't get many tall gangly platinum blondes in some countries so they get a lot of attention!

When ds was very small we went to a middle eastern country that doesn't have tourists to stay with expat relatives.
Ds was / is super cute but then had longish golden blonde hair. All the women were going mad over him, stroking his hair etc. They thought he was a girl and when i told them he was a boy...the excitement! Talk about golden penis!

In India, yes, as a blonde, I noticed some stares. But never rude - just interested in differences.

My DD was very blond and in certain countries she's had her hair stroked by smiling people. I think long blond hair looks so beautiful that it's tempting to touch. Once we were staying at a hotel that was being used by a local family for a wedding and she was a bit freaked out that she was turning heads. I told her she should enjoy being exotic! She was only 7 at the time.

I had two different female friends in two different countries of Europe. Both of them Black British. In one country my friend was idolised as a stunningly beautiful glamorous VIP😁 and little children would tell her she was beautiful. Men would fall in love..

In the other country? Outright rude glaring, suspicion and racist comments (behind her back)

It really put me off the second country.

I noticed also that very few ethnic tourists visit there.

Interesting, what was the name of the second country?

I'm a natural blonde. I got chatting to a girl (10-11 ish) in a country where curly black hair was the norm.
She asked me if all my hair (pointing at my pubes) was yellow.
She accepted my word for it, I didn't fancy proving it.