The joy of travel is in the discovery. However, in these days of Tripadvisor, Instagram and Google maps, the magic of the unexpected has been diminished somewhat; we seem to want to find exactly what we are looking for, rather than simply bask in the newness of it all.
There is a certain kind of traveler that takes this concept to the extreme, and would probably be happier just staying at home. You'll find them in English pubs up and down the Spanish Costas, red as lobsters, tucking into egg and chips and complaining about the lack of Marmite or baked beans, or some other obscure product from the U.K.
Then there are the Instagram hordes who saw a heavily filtered picture of an iconic attraction and join a huge crowd of people with selfie sticks, jostling to get that exact same shot. Hardly the breathtaking and romantic experience you had in mind, was it? When reality fails to match expectations, based on the promise of home comforts or unrealistic Instagram images, people get disappointed and make ridiculous complaints.
These vacation complaints, made to real travel agents and tour companies and based on a Thomas Cook/ABTA survey, are so absurd that it's hard to believe that they are real. Spanish people speaking Spanish in Spain? The brochure didn't tell us it would be like that! Why is the sand yellow? I expected white sand!
I guess the lesson to take from all the disappoint and ridiculousness is this: Travel without expectations, and accept that the world doesn't exist simply to cater to your comforts and photography needs. Go with an open mind to discover, experience and learn!
Scroll down below to see the list for yourself, and tell your travel stories in the comments!
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But are we getting more picky about our holidays? How are people's travel habits changing? Let's take a look at the ways that technology and modern life have affected the ways we choose to spend our time off.
We travel more frequently but for shorter durations: "The Office for National Statistics in the UK conducted a survey called the International Passenger Survey in 1996 and 2016 to uncover the biggest changes in the travel habits between the 1990s and now – that’s a 20-year study," Drifter Planet writes.
"The results show that Brits are now going on more holidays than before. In 2016 they went on more than 45 million holidays abroad, compared to only 27 million in 1996, an overall rise of 68%. But despite this, holidays are becoming shorter, proving to be one of the biggest changes we’ve seen over the years marking a huge decline of two week holidays. A week-long break is now much more popular than ever before and there’s been an increase in holidays lasting up to 10 nights."
With budget airlines making the citybreak a more affordable option, it's no surprise that people are exploring their own continent more, rather than save it all for one big summer trip. It keeps you fresh to get frequent little escapes from work and daily life, rather than waiting almost a whole year for the summer to come around again!
Active holidays are on the rise: As people are becoming more health conscious, so are wellness holidays becoming more popular. Instead of letting it all go with booze and food while away, people are seeking to recharge, repair, and have more of a fitness-oriented break. Things like Ayurveda, Yoga, reiki, body detox, spa and meditation holidays have all seen a huge spike in interest, while classics like hiking, camping and cycling are as popular as they ever were.
Conversely, the old 18-35, contiki tour classics are on the wane, which many people would see as a good thing. While there are still plenty of resort options if you want to get wasted, sunburned and laid, it doesn't quite seem to have the same appeal to the younger generation as it did for us oldies. Maybe kids these days are just more sensible, introverted, health and image conscious to get into wild drunken brawls on the streets of Benidorm or Ayia Napa.
Social media's effects: Back in the old days, you'd arrive at your destination with maybe a guide book, a map and some interesting new banknotes. These days, we've seen photos of everything, read all the restaurant reviews, know which attractions we want to photo ourselves, as well as the funky 'hidden' bars and hangouts. We all find these things in the same place: Google. 'Top 10 things you must see in Porto' leads tourists to the same few places in the city, all busy instagramming away and trying to keep the crowds out of their image.
If somewhere happens to be particularly popular on Instagram, it will be packed with people trying to get that 'money shot,' rather than simply enjoying the aura of the place. The tumbling, colorful buildings of Cinque Terre; the strikingly blue streets of Chefchaouen, the sun setting over the pyramids of Giza... we've all seen these iconic images in gorgeous photos, and we want to take those exact same photos. Perhaps it has always been that way, but Instagram has definitely 'influenced' the way we travel.
Ginger Nuts likely the nickname the shop keepers had for these tourists.
When I lived in Africa we had an American tourist that came to the front desk of the hotel and demanded that we "turn the tape off" because he couldn't sleep. After some questioning, we realized that he thought the sounds of nighttime Africa were a recording. He refused to believe us that this was just the sound of nature. We had to take him outside and let him listen. He still was not convinced. He lodged a complaint with management.
my friend who rents a cabin in the woods received a formal complaint saying that "the birds were chirping too loud and we could not sleep" and demanded a partial refund
I would have told him to find the offending birds and get them to cough up a partial refund...
We have that problem in London! My husband contents himself with muttering "shut up you feathery ****ers" and putting his pillow over his head.
Paula Dempsey good
When I was married our living room and bedroom windows looked out over a smallish pond in a park. Nothing like the lovely sounds of duck/goose sex and coyotes interrupting said coitus for a meal at 4am to encourage sleep.
@paula Tell your husband I feel his pain. We lived in central Washington State for several years..a place that runs rampant with quail 7 months out of the year. Nothing is more irritating than a quail perched on the rooftop of the neighboring building as he screams out his announcement that the sun is rising at 4am. Those little rats with wings are louder than roosters....
Yea had that problem...bird bombs !
It's actually pretty common. Recently in the french countryside, newcomers from Paris complained to the mayor of their village that nature was to loud and smelly. There is no cure for stupidity I'm afraid...
Well there is but sadly it's not legal ;)
Love the sound of the African Bushveld! You hear the twitters and tweets of frogs, crickets, night birds; the sound of the hyenas, wild dogs, and then of course the cats. Proudly South African
And yet I play nature sounds in order to help me sleep.
A motel manager in the mountains in Tasmania Australia told me that he had guests who told him to turn off the waterfall at night because they couldn’t sleep from the sound of it.
South African... Used to be a hotel receptionist too, in a coastal hotel. I had an American complain about a cock roach in his room - turns out it was a cricket. And then there was the lovely couple who wanted to know when the whales came in to be fed. They were under the impression that the giant wild blue whales were tame, trained creatures. As if the Atlantic was a bloody water park! XD
Well then, who feeds them? 🤣
That's fantastic!
I occasionally receive visitors to my house (unfortunately). I live way out of town, in the woods. My favorite complaint so far is: "What was that?!?!”... "Coyote. Don't worry they aren't close."... "Isn't that dangerous?"... "Is what dangerous?".... "Letting wild animals wander around like that?"... "🙄If that makes you nervous, I hesitate to tell you about the really big cats, the wolf and the bear. Oops, too late: now you know. Good night." Sweet dreams, idiot!
As a person who worked six years at the travel agent I hereby confirm that people can be not only this stupid, but much, much worse.. so unfortunately I know these statements are true.. We once had a guest that booked the accommodation for September and demanded that we send them in March (6 months before the trip) the weather report and the exact sea temperature for the dates they booked as they "didn't want to travel all those miles just to spend their holidays indoors or swim in a cold sea." And one asked if the beach were in proximity of the sea.. and so on and so on..
I once booked a beach vacation in the Sahara and had to walk 500 miles each day to get to the water.
But I would walk 500 miles And I would walk 500 more Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles To fall down at your door
Wow, you must be in excellent shape.
long time ago, the sahara was an ocean, so wrong timing or time fly. so next time ask your travel agency to update her information. LOL
You just got there late, 7 million years ago it was the Tethys Sea but just 10,000 ago it was full of rivers, lakes, and fertile plains. That's when all the cool kids were hanging out there.
Beach in the promity of the sea? Maybe, but was the snorkeling spot easily reachable from the water? And would the wood be accessible from that area with all the annoying trees?
How do you manage to keep a straight face or keep your sarcasm in check?. I think I would be sacked the first day doing your job.
When someone asks you such mind-boggling questions, it really does boggle your mind. You experience a second of brain numbness, while you try to decide if you really heard what you think you just heard. Before that second ends, your brain makes the incredible decision to handle the situation with courtesy and finesse - because, surely, there is no way that you actually heard what you think you just heard.
Thanks for giving me my daily dose of deep laughter.
When my family and I that are from the US had the fortunate experience to travel to beautiful Germany. We were repeatedly embarrassed by people from the states. On one of those occasions we were staying at the Café Post on the Rhine, when a party from the states where complaining that could not get a breakfast like in the US. Where are the omelets and pancakes? My thought was then that's where you should have stayed. Also one of the men in the party broke a dowel on the stairway with his suitcase. When the owner approached him with the dowel in hand and asked if he broke it, he laughed. The Café Post Guest House is family owned and they take such pride in its upkeep and cleanliness. My Mom who speaks German said to the owner that the guy was a real a**hole and apologized on behalf of the jerk. When traveling the world please show the best of ourselves not the worst.
I'm English, and other brits abroad are not something I'm particularly proud of either.
There are idiots everywhere and polite people everywhere. The same Spanish people who complain about the British being rude/drunk/racist/etc can behave as complete assholes when they travel abroad themselves. I worked as a group leader for several years and I felt like being abducted by an alien spacecraft many times. I learnt that you can be either polite or an arrogant idiot, but that depends on the kind of education you received at home, not your nationality. I've met very "basic" people in little villages, poor and sometimes barely literate, who where extremely polite and helpful; and well off people who could speak two or three languages and had travelled all over the world but behaved like uneducated, obnoxiously entitled red necks. Your passport doesn't define you. Your education does.
Maria Hermida, I don't think that your education makes any difference, it's your upbringing and how your parents, your village, taught you to behave.
I'm French. I can relate also. I'm pissed off so many times about frenchies abroad.
Thanks for saying that. I thought it was us Americans who were the awfulest.
There's assholes of any nationality abroad. There's (dumb and rude) Brazilians everywhere... we even joke that we're a plague. Most polite Brazilians don't want others to know where we're from so we don't get associated with the obnoxious crowd. Some aren't really rude per se, but they basically pack together, create a community and live in a bubbly, trying as hard they can to avoid any local culture - mainly the people who went to other countries to try to earn more money/get more benefits, not because they like the country and wanted to live there.
American tourists do have a rather bad reputation here in Germany, but it’s very nice to know that there are people like you :)
I'm American and loved Germany when I visited. Clean and friendly. I too am ashamed when I see fellow Americans being assholes.
Elizabeth: as long as you do not behave like those idiots everything should be fine. Lots of Europeans speak English, so you don't have to fear a language barrier.
To be honest I would love to travel the EU but I'm actually too scared to go as the only other language I speak (and very badly) is a little Spanish. I'm too embarrassed to go abroad because I know the reputation of American travels and I don't speak the languages of the countries I want to visit. I do not want to to be a bad guest 🥺☹️
don’t let other people ruin your fun. just go and have a blast 💥
Elizabeth - The reputation of Americans is to hide in their own bubble and think they are the center of the world. Don't hide in that bubble. Go to your library and rent a phrasebook to try and learn a few phrases/words, you will learn more when you visit. Trying is another skill Americans lack, so just attempting a few words will show how much you do care. I am also, unfortunately, an American and have travelled quite a bit. I've learned the above because people in other countries are surprised I am my nationality because I didn't do the negatives mentioned above. Don't be scared to experience and learn because the people around you are stupid.
I think there are stupid tourists from every country. Germans can be idiots too. I've heard the food and language complaint often enough.
Sad enough that a lot of hotels offer German food to the tourists because it's too hard to eat something else when you're on vacation. Not to mention trying new food... Too adventurous you know. So when I'm abroad I usually avoid speaking German and use English instead.
Thats a really good idea Janine.
And conversely, I once had a German couple turn up in the Swiss-owned Irish-style pub I worked in in Switzerland and order "German beer" (we all love precise orders), complain that we didn't have any, and leave because if we didn't have any German beer we weren't a proper Irish pub... I mean, it's an Irish pub in Switzerland, what do you expect?
Wait, no German beer meant you weren't a proper Irish pub? That sentence hurts my brain.
When I lived in Africa we had an American tourist that came to the front desk of the hotel and demanded that we "turn the tape off" because he couldn't sleep. After some questioning, we realized that he thought the sounds of nighttime Africa were a recording. He refused to believe us that this was just the sound of nature. We had to take him outside and let him listen. He still was not convinced. He lodged a complaint with management.
my friend who rents a cabin in the woods received a formal complaint saying that "the birds were chirping too loud and we could not sleep" and demanded a partial refund
I would have told him to find the offending birds and get them to cough up a partial refund...
We have that problem in London! My husband contents himself with muttering "shut up you feathery ****ers" and putting his pillow over his head.
Paula Dempsey good
When I was married our living room and bedroom windows looked out over a smallish pond in a park. Nothing like the lovely sounds of duck/goose sex and coyotes interrupting said coitus for a meal at 4am to encourage sleep.
@paula Tell your husband I feel his pain. We lived in central Washington State for several years..a place that runs rampant with quail 7 months out of the year. Nothing is more irritating than a quail perched on the rooftop of the neighboring building as he screams out his announcement that the sun is rising at 4am. Those little rats with wings are louder than roosters....
Yea had that problem...bird bombs !
It's actually pretty common. Recently in the french countryside, newcomers from Paris complained to the mayor of their village that nature was to loud and smelly. There is no cure for stupidity I'm afraid...
Well there is but sadly it's not legal ;)
Love the sound of the African Bushveld! You hear the twitters and tweets of frogs, crickets, night birds; the sound of the hyenas, wild dogs, and then of course the cats. Proudly South African
And yet I play nature sounds in order to help me sleep.
A motel manager in the mountains in Tasmania Australia told me that he had guests who told him to turn off the waterfall at night because they couldn’t sleep from the sound of it.
South African... Used to be a hotel receptionist too, in a coastal hotel. I had an American complain about a cock roach in his room - turns out it was a cricket. And then there was the lovely couple who wanted to know when the whales came in to be fed. They were under the impression that the giant wild blue whales were tame, trained creatures. As if the Atlantic was a bloody water park! XD
Well then, who feeds them? 🤣
That's fantastic!
I occasionally receive visitors to my house (unfortunately). I live way out of town, in the woods. My favorite complaint so far is: "What was that?!?!”... "Coyote. Don't worry they aren't close."... "Isn't that dangerous?"... "Is what dangerous?".... "Letting wild animals wander around like that?"... "🙄If that makes you nervous, I hesitate to tell you about the really big cats, the wolf and the bear. Oops, too late: now you know. Good night." Sweet dreams, idiot!
As a person who worked six years at the travel agent I hereby confirm that people can be not only this stupid, but much, much worse.. so unfortunately I know these statements are true.. We once had a guest that booked the accommodation for September and demanded that we send them in March (6 months before the trip) the weather report and the exact sea temperature for the dates they booked as they "didn't want to travel all those miles just to spend their holidays indoors or swim in a cold sea." And one asked if the beach were in proximity of the sea.. and so on and so on..
I once booked a beach vacation in the Sahara and had to walk 500 miles each day to get to the water.
But I would walk 500 miles And I would walk 500 more Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles To fall down at your door
Wow, you must be in excellent shape.
long time ago, the sahara was an ocean, so wrong timing or time fly. so next time ask your travel agency to update her information. LOL
You just got there late, 7 million years ago it was the Tethys Sea but just 10,000 ago it was full of rivers, lakes, and fertile plains. That's when all the cool kids were hanging out there.
Beach in the promity of the sea? Maybe, but was the snorkeling spot easily reachable from the water? And would the wood be accessible from that area with all the annoying trees?
How do you manage to keep a straight face or keep your sarcasm in check?. I think I would be sacked the first day doing your job.
When someone asks you such mind-boggling questions, it really does boggle your mind. You experience a second of brain numbness, while you try to decide if you really heard what you think you just heard. Before that second ends, your brain makes the incredible decision to handle the situation with courtesy and finesse - because, surely, there is no way that you actually heard what you think you just heard.
Thanks for giving me my daily dose of deep laughter.
When my family and I that are from the US had the fortunate experience to travel to beautiful Germany. We were repeatedly embarrassed by people from the states. On one of those occasions we were staying at the Café Post on the Rhine, when a party from the states where complaining that could not get a breakfast like in the US. Where are the omelets and pancakes? My thought was then that's where you should have stayed. Also one of the men in the party broke a dowel on the stairway with his suitcase. When the owner approached him with the dowel in hand and asked if he broke it, he laughed. The Café Post Guest House is family owned and they take such pride in its upkeep and cleanliness. My Mom who speaks German said to the owner that the guy was a real a**hole and apologized on behalf of the jerk. When traveling the world please show the best of ourselves not the worst.
I'm English, and other brits abroad are not something I'm particularly proud of either.
There are idiots everywhere and polite people everywhere. The same Spanish people who complain about the British being rude/drunk/racist/etc can behave as complete assholes when they travel abroad themselves. I worked as a group leader for several years and I felt like being abducted by an alien spacecraft many times. I learnt that you can be either polite or an arrogant idiot, but that depends on the kind of education you received at home, not your nationality. I've met very "basic" people in little villages, poor and sometimes barely literate, who where extremely polite and helpful; and well off people who could speak two or three languages and had travelled all over the world but behaved like uneducated, obnoxiously entitled red necks. Your passport doesn't define you. Your education does.
Maria Hermida, I don't think that your education makes any difference, it's your upbringing and how your parents, your village, taught you to behave.
I'm French. I can relate also. I'm pissed off so many times about frenchies abroad.
Thanks for saying that. I thought it was us Americans who were the awfulest.
There's assholes of any nationality abroad. There's (dumb and rude) Brazilians everywhere... we even joke that we're a plague. Most polite Brazilians don't want others to know where we're from so we don't get associated with the obnoxious crowd. Some aren't really rude per se, but they basically pack together, create a community and live in a bubbly, trying as hard they can to avoid any local culture - mainly the people who went to other countries to try to earn more money/get more benefits, not because they like the country and wanted to live there.
American tourists do have a rather bad reputation here in Germany, but it’s very nice to know that there are people like you :)
I'm American and loved Germany when I visited. Clean and friendly. I too am ashamed when I see fellow Americans being assholes.
Elizabeth: as long as you do not behave like those idiots everything should be fine. Lots of Europeans speak English, so you don't have to fear a language barrier.
To be honest I would love to travel the EU but I'm actually too scared to go as the only other language I speak (and very badly) is a little Spanish. I'm too embarrassed to go abroad because I know the reputation of American travels and I don't speak the languages of the countries I want to visit. I do not want to to be a bad guest 🥺☹️
don’t let other people ruin your fun. just go and have a blast 💥
Elizabeth - The reputation of Americans is to hide in their own bubble and think they are the center of the world. Don't hide in that bubble. Go to your library and rent a phrasebook to try and learn a few phrases/words, you will learn more when you visit. Trying is another skill Americans lack, so just attempting a few words will show how much you do care. I am also, unfortunately, an American and have travelled quite a bit. I've learned the above because people in other countries are surprised I am my nationality because I didn't do the negatives mentioned above. Don't be scared to experience and learn because the people around you are stupid.
I think there are stupid tourists from every country. Germans can be idiots too. I've heard the food and language complaint often enough.
Sad enough that a lot of hotels offer German food to the tourists because it's too hard to eat something else when you're on vacation. Not to mention trying new food... Too adventurous you know. So when I'm abroad I usually avoid speaking German and use English instead.
Thats a really good idea Janine.
And conversely, I once had a German couple turn up in the Swiss-owned Irish-style pub I worked in in Switzerland and order "German beer" (we all love precise orders), complain that we didn't have any, and leave because if we didn't have any German beer we weren't a proper Irish pub... I mean, it's an Irish pub in Switzerland, what do you expect?
Wait, no German beer meant you weren't a proper Irish pub? That sentence hurts my brain.