Miss Manners on sharing your travel experiences (8/1/04)
 

Thought I would share this in case your local paper doesn't carry her column:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer

What utter rubbish, how smalltime, not amusing in the slightest - how they can publish such tripe amazes me!

M.Kingdom - Ms. Manners is a beloved and much read columnist in the U.S. She would be too much a lady to call you to task for such a rude comment, but I am not. Also, I would suspect a lot of us have thought the same about our fellow tourists (but then we don't all travel in the rarified atmosphere you do).

My dear, I'm not selective in who I criticise, criticising a tourist for being a tourist is not much better than making unfair comment because of one's race and/or religion. If I see a spade I call it a spade, but then again I'm quite sure that I wouldn't know what a spade is...

Yes, to m kingdom2 re the newspaper's choices about how to fill their pages. But yes, also, to Manners' last comment about who is interested in your trip photographs and stories. I've found that of my colleagues, the only ones whose eyes don't glaze over are those who love to travel to Europe. J.

Oh, and one more thing: Just because someone/something is popular is no reflection of its quality. M&S floorsweeping-length skirts were popular, hardly a fashion statement.

This article explains exactly why we should treasure each other on this forum-- because we are the only ones interested in hearing about each other's trips!

I totally agree with Miss Manners. I especially loathe hearing about people's beach vacations in minute, crashingly boring detail.

So true, marcy. When I return to the office after a trip, people always ask about my trip, but I try to limit my narrative to 5 minutes. I have found that beyond 5 minutes, people start to squirm with boredom. The only people who are really interested are the ones who love travelling the way we Fodorites do. Unfortunately I have very few friends in the real world who share my passion for travel, so I discuss travel experiences here in the Fodor world. As far as pictures go, I now put them on CD's instead of getting prints, so I will choose about 10-15 of my best pics, then e-mail them to my friends. I think this is appreciated a lot more than handing someone a stack of 200 photos, with an endless narrative about each one.

But my dear, it is even worse manners to comment, suffer and whinge after the event please.

Marcy,
Exactly! That was, in fact, why I shared the column.

sera,
I agree w/ you also: I enjoy reading about others' European trips; I can't abide hearing about others' beach vacations (especilly Hawaii)

Miss Manners is, as usual, dead on. The only thing she omitted was that there ARE people who want to hear about your trip in mind-numbing detail, and see your photos, and they are all right here!