A Tourist! To be, or not to be???
 

I've read several times on this website &quot;I don't like to travel like a tourist&quot; and the opposite &quot;I want to hit all the top tourist attractions.&quot;<BR>This is interesting to me. <BR>Do you (or don't you) travel like a tourist? Why?<BR><BR>Personally, I fall on both sides here. I like being a tourist. I do not mind admitting or showing that I am so far from local. After all, there are many cultures in this world. Mind you, I am not the pushy, loud obnoxious type tourist either. I try to blend at least. It seems that proper (and respectful)tourist etiquette is sorely lacking in so many. Is this why a lot of you do not want to be touristy?<BR> <BR>For instance, I don't need &quot;charm&quot; in my hotels. I want plush bedding and a great marble bathroom. I normally find this in a large chain hotel. Many people seem to frown upon this. But I don't want any inconvenience in the basics of sleeping, etc. I can get charm when I leave the hotel.<BR>Once I get to know a place well however, that's when I depart from my touristy self and get familiar. But not usually any sooner. I guess it's kind of like getting to know someone. I just don't like to rush it. <BR><BR>I could go on, but am interested in hearing other points of view. There are always so many thoughts expressed that never occurred to me!

Hi Quinty!<BR> I also &quot;fall on both sides here&quot;, while I love being a tourist and seeing every sight and doing typical tourist things, I also love staying in small hotels or even renting flats where I can pretend for a few weeks that I actually live in London or Paris.<BR>Some of my best memories are shopping for flowers for our room in Paris, stopping for pastries for tea in our room, having the man at the corner shop say hello because he recognized me. <BR>Maybe it is that need to be someone else for a short while, I am Scarlett who lives in Paris, on rue Jacob! or Scarlett who lives in the flat in So Kensington and always has curry from the take away shop on Brompton Rd:)<BR>It enriches the trip for me to pretend that for that time, it is also my home. <BR>And I do agree about the bath and the bed. A good hot shower and comfy bed are neccesary, even while pretending to be someone else:)

The level of my tourist&quot;ness&quot; depends on my number of visits to a city or region. <BR>I think we all start out as tourists don't we? One has to crawl before walking.

Quinty: We are avowed tourists. We plan our trips carefully for months ahead of time. We go for 25 to 35 days on each trip (don't like to go for longer as we miss our family and home) and try to immerse ourselves in the country we are visiting. We selectively try to see everything there is to see. We take every opportunity to strike up conversations with locals, shop-keepers, trades-people, etc., not in a pushy, obnoxious way, but in a friendly way. It is amazing how many times making the effort has led us into an adventure we had not planned. We persue the local food, wine, beer, etc., aggressively and delight in finding the areas in which the locals live, shop, eat, etc. We are clearly tourists, by definition, in every positive sense of the word and make no apologies for it. We do look for comfortable lodgings. I agree that a good bed and a few amenities make for a better trip, but we have learned to stay in the smaller more &quot;charming&quot; Inns and hotels. Three star is the average with an occaisional four star or even special two star. We find this gets us closer to the people and makes for some delightful experiences. We firmly believe that the more you pay for your room (and we can afford to stay wherever we want), the further you place yourself from the people of the country you are visiting. If there is a special castle, Inn, resort, hotel to stay in we do, but quickly go back to our three stars for the bulk of the trip. <BR>Having said all that, we do not insist that our way is the only way. It works for us and we love it. Those that take a different approach are welcome to it and we sincerely hope they have a good time. But the &quot;super sophisticates&quot; that try to make a nasty word out of tourist are simply feeding their egos and, quite frankly, I have neither the time or the patience to indulge them. Travel on!

<BR>&gt;&gt; &quot;I could go on...&quot; &lt;&lt;<BR><BR>Thanks for not.<BR><BR>

If you are not a local then you are a tourist. Even if you spend 4 consecutive months a year in Paris then return to the USA - you are still a tourist. People here who think wearing black somehow makes non-touristy are fooling themselves. God forbid some of these delicate souls should ever consider themselves a tourist. Are there good tourists and bad tourists? Yes. But we are all tourists except when home (and no, a 2nd home/vacation home doesn't count)

Tourista above hit it. You don't live there - you are a tourist. I have been to lots of countries, and don't mind being a tourist. When the built Chartres, they anticipated people coming for hundreds of years. They were pilgrims then and tourists now. We go to all the tourist places because they are worth going to. <BR><BR>Proud to tour and proud to be a tourist.

Thank you Scarlett, Joe, Tourista, XXX and Dave - I appreciate the insights.<BR><BR>Della obviously missed that class on etiquette.<BR>

<BR>The American in the tourist bus sees an American riding a local bus. He wonders why the guy is riding in that bus instead of the nice cushy tourist bus with the English guide and fellow Americans.<BR><BR>The American in the local bus is wondering if the guy on the tourist bus understands how friendly and kind the locals are.<BR><BR>One tourist learns how to say &quot;how much&quot; and &quot;no&quot; in the local language. <BR><BR>Another tourist also learns how to say, in the local language: hello, good morning, where is the bathroom?, I like &lt;country&gt; very much, &lt;country&gt; is very beautiful, no thank you, thank you very much, excuse me, what a beautiful child! (and knows that patting the child on the head is the wrong thing to do).<BR><BR><BR>

Any others?

I always get a chuckle on this site when I read someone asking here where not to find tourists. <BR><BR>I guess I am a tourist, but I travel differently in different places. In Italy where I have been so often, I no longer do the museums, etc. because I have already seen them a number of times. Now days I blend in with the life and the feel of Italy when I am there and do more or less what the locals do on their days off. I rent a villa and try to fit right in.<BR><BR>In other places where I don't travel frequently, I am still the museum going tourist. <BR><BR>But I am always fighting the urge to see too much in one trip, I have to stop myself and say calm down you can only see and savor so much at one time. It works for me.

I don't understand this &quot;getting close to the people&quot; comment that people on this boad frequently say. Local people rarely stay in hotels (charming or not in their own country). You can meet the workers in any type of hotel, from 5 star to no star. IMHO, the type of hotel that you stay in has no relationship to whether you will meet the locals and be closer the people. It is possible to meet locals anywhere and everywhere.

I disagree with you, Tourist, I stay in hotels that the local population stay in when I travel. They are usually found on the country's own sites, not the general one's like this one. <BR><BR>Many times I am the only English speaking person in the place, it just takes a little more effort for outsiders to find these hotels.

There are hotels, inns, B&amp;Bs that the locals do frequent more often than foreign tourists do. We met more Germans than other foreigners at our accomodations in Hohenschwangau, Colmberg, and Beilstein. Less so in Bamberg where it was about 50/50. The place we stated in Munich was mostly non-Germans. We met a very nice German couple in our Hohenschwangau pension and ended up hanging around a lot together--going to dinner etc. Same in Beilstein where we joined two German couples and an Australian couple for a Mosel River cruise. That wouldn't have been possible in our Munich pension.

Agreeing that any visitor to a new place not your home is by definition a &quot;tourist&quot;. No problem there.<BR><BR>But it also implies a certain style of travel. I have *never* and will never go on an organized group tour, I by inclination avoid arts museums... my favorite foreign activity is drinking wine &amp; smoking cigaretts in a sidewalk cafe, watching the people go by. This brings me closer to local life than viewed from the window of a tour bus... of that I am positive!

This may spark some caustic commentary but I dont go to Europe to get close to the people. I go to get away from what's become too familiar at home and to enjoy there what I cant see here.<BR><BR>If, along the way, I inadvertantly get close to the people, so be it. I try to observe local custom, I dont complain about not being able to find a Taco Bell, and I try to learn a little of the language. But thats sheer pragmatism; it's hard to order dinner in a German restaurant unless you've spent a little time learning some of the language.<BR><BR>There have been several posts on this subject that imply tourist means low-class. I think that Europe has snob-appeal and many people for whom this is the compelling reason to visit look down their noses at anything that smacks of &quot;touristy&quot;.

I know alot of people who dont want to mix or mingle or meet the locals in a country. And it is probably just as well that they don't, they probably aren't &quot;people people&quot;. <BR>

Actually, Nita, I am people people people people.<BR><BR>I simply meant that my main objective in going to Europe wasn't to meet people and learn about their culture. Somehow your comment seems to imply that there's something wrong with that. Am I too sensitive?

What's the difference between a &quot;traveller&quot; and a &quot;tourist&quot;?

Don't be sensitive dear Snoopy. <BR>I know people in my own family who could not care less about meeting anyone on their trips. Maybe if someone walks up and introduces themselves they would converse, but I know they would not go out of their way to encourage it.<BR>Nothing wrong with that, and they are not rude, just shy and well, whatever.