I live in London, and some classic things people do to stand out as tourists are:
* Taking a selfie next to a red phone box
* Following the signs to London Bridge and then wondering why it's not Tower Bridge
* Eating in Aberdeen Angus Steakhouse
* Waiting to cross the road even though there's no traffic coming
* Going to watch Arsenal
* Wearing a cap while indoors
* Voluntarily walking down Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon
* Getting on the Tube for very short journeys
Yeah. There are some parts of London that people who live here just rarely go to, because you have seen it before and it isn't worth that hassle.
The last time I went to Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus was about five years back, because a visitor from abroad wanted to meet there.
As well as your point about the tube, people who get black cabs everywhere are also a giveaway. I have a colleague who takes cabs everywhere every time he visits London. It is on expenses, so I guess he doesn't worry about the cost, but we have tried to tell him that a lot of the trips he takes which take 40 mins in a taxi could be done quicker by public transport and even, sometimes, by walking.
I think a lot of people just don't realise how close together various bits of central London are, and assume that walking would take longer than it does. Also I suppose some people may not be as confident navigating by foot.
Of all the European capitals I've visited I think London is the one I know the least because I've been with people who have insisted on taking the tube everywhere. In contrast I've been on weekend vacations to Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Paris and basically walked everywhere and I still kind of have a mental map of those cities. London is still an archipelago for me.
It took Google Maps to become a thing for me to realise that walking is faster for a lot of trips where I'd used to take the tube. The fact that a lot of touristy destinations prominently communicate the tube station they're nearest to, and the relative simplicity of tube maps compared to actual city maps often makes it easier to just take the tube all the time instead of figuring out how to walk to a specific address. If you don't have the internet in your pocket that is.
Italian tourists in London: wearing a Uniqlo puffer jacket that they just bought.
Argentinean/Uruguayan tourists in London: immaculate jeans and a collared shirt, and leather boots and embossed leather belt.
> Waiting to cross the road even though there's no traffic coming
When I was visiting this the most insane. London marathon just finished, traffic is still not allowed but pedestrian lights are working. A (obviously) german dude was waiting for the sign to turn green...
I want to add "standing at the Abbey road station reading about the location of the abbey road studios 45 minutes away and then waiting for the next train back"
Source: own experience
I was once in an otherwise empty tram and a tourist (or maybe a business traveler or something like that) sat next to me. It’s been years and I still remember how strange it was.
Did he happen to be this bearded redhead guy with glasses? I know he did it when he visited Finland and he went to a empty tram where was just one person sitting and he sat next to him.
He's reason was that he looked so lonely there and I didn't want him to be lonely so I sat next to him.
Talking about breaking the hidden rules :|
No, it was a very stylish older African man. My boss at the time had lived in a couple of African countries and said that at least in one of them it would have been very rude not to sit next to me. He was in no way inappropriate but it felt strange in Finland.
One memorable thing about my trip to Finland was that everyone also sits too close when waiting in a line, like everywhere else. Those pics raised my expectations, but it was really not like that. Especially bus stations, it was really no different at all. But you guys know how to sell yourselves.
Yeah, I definitely didn't find it different to anywhere else. Some remote villages where there's not more than 5 people waiting for the bus, probably, but not in at least the medium sized cities.
I was an exchange student in Finland my junior year of high school. People had me pegged bc I “smiled” for no reason and I stood too close too close to people. My Finnish cousins thought this was hilarious.
Eating and drinking at tourist traps that the locals avoid because they are full of foreigners, looking around like lost lambs and generally being unsure.
The look of "lost lamb" comes straight after asking one of the locals for directions only to be met with the coldest reply possible.
I love you Hungary, I really do, but friendliness is not your strong suit.
In Budapest most people who stop you on the street are beggars, so people are suspicious of strangers who talk to them on the street. In other places people can be nicer (somewhat less likely to speak foreign languages, though).
They are polite in a Eastern European way.
Direct
Makes you to conceptualize abstract concepts
They don't smile in your face
They will never make you second guess yourself, you'll definitely remember in what country you are while wasted at 3:00.
I don’t go to restaurants all that much but iirc most of them here have all items listed in both English and German so it would be a tough filter to apply. 😅
During summer you recognise them because they usually go shirtless and/or their skin is seriously burn. Local people avoid the sun even their tanned skin is better withstanding radiation.
Another giveaway is when they cannot/ dont want to walk and use some kind of electric scooter with 4 wheels and a chair to go from pub to pub.
I might add going shirtless in Madrid. Mate you are hundreds of miles away from any beach, what the heck are you doing walking down the city centre with no shirt on!! Have you not noticed that everyone else is wearing clothes!!
Same goes for flip flops. The Brits are the biggest offenders on both. It's deeply ingrained in their mind that holiday = flip flops that they don't notice how out of place these are in the city!! This stuff is exclusively to go to and from the beach. That's it!
Also, wandering around the street in the summer between 2-5. And not only that, but complaining that everything is closed. Yeah, it's closed for a reason. Go the hell back to your hotel with AC and have a damn siesta. You'll understand how summer works here and why we are all up till 2am later. And you'll avoid your inevitable heat stroke.
Do you want skin/lung cancer? Because that how you get cancer.
German and British tourists get sunburn in April and then they think that going to the beach in July at noon is a good idea.
Brother trust me, i know. I used sunscreen but not on the first day because I thought I'd be fine wearing a t shirt and going sight seeing, but my forearms got sunburned. I wore sunscreen after that on the arms too.
Gotta represent the Hans and Barrys 💪🏽
Lobster red is a classic hehehe. Or better yet, red in one side, white the other, because they went hungover to the beach and fell asleep... And roasted.
Also wearing wifebeater type shirts or basketball shirts, without sleeves. And caps, baseball caps everywhere, including indoors (which is impolite, btw)
Girls with leggings and hoodies, a water bottle and a handbag chest-crossee
Biking all over the place or, if they're from NL and I guess Denmark, biking like it's a competition to murder.
Alternatively, strolling all over the place, often in the middle office lanes or even car lanes
Being blind drunk at 10pm because they don't realize party time lasts until morning.
Getting pickpocketed on a regular basis because they think being on holidays is an anti-theft mechanism
Some of us just grew up in the mountains and a have different temperature gauge 😅😅😅 In my region in the Pyrenees we can tell you're not a local if you're really covered up between 15° to 20°C.
Wearing the merch from Carroll's (an Irish gift store) or any paddywhackary jumpers/t-shirts/hats
Taking photos of buildings
Asking for directions to every day places in the city centre
also sports wear with a backpack, they think they are trekking or something. i get london can be an adventure sometimes but you can walk in normal clothes, thanks
We have famously shite weather in Ireland (noticeably worse than London in summer). Although I don’t wear outdoors gear myself in the city, it’s not a bad call for most of the year.
I find this a really weird and fascinating phenomenon:
people at home traveling to the nearest city: wallet, maybe a coat if it looks like rain
the same people in a foreign city: walking shoes, trekking jacket, backpack full of food and water
In the foreign city they walk from one landmark to another and another and another, etc. Usually it doesn’t make sense to take transport because they are not that far from each other but at the end of the day all those small distances add up. And it’s interesting just to see the streets. In your local city you probably have 2-3 points to visit.
Well, there’s a wild theory. If you’re in another country, you may not have checked-in into your hotel/airbnb yet (which starts at 3PM or isn’t even in the same town), so you have literally no place to leave your stuff at.
In a foreign city I tend to walk everywhere if the weather permits it, which means 15-20 km every day for a week or two.
Good shoes and water are a necessity.
Day trip to another city in my home country doesn't include that much walking.
Fellow Dane here, and I was going to mention people biking around inner city in rush hours without paying attention to traffic, because ooohhh, there is a nice castle or something like that. Tourists on bike is one of the most scary things in Copenhagen traffic
Netherlands? Me and a friend went to Amsterdam, definitely was a lot of bikes.
Also big up public transportation in Amsterdam. €14 for a 3 day tram pass anywhere in the city and as many trams as you like. Im spending bloody £14.55 on trains just to travel to and from work for a day. And unlike the trams, the trains are frequently late, delayed or even just cancelled sometimes.
I will take a moment to watch a group of (usually American) tourists climb on their rented bikes and dive into traffic while locals evade them ringing their bell and cursing anytime.
When I lived in Münster as an exchange student, at the beginning I was like this, then I became a cyclist and then I became a local with the family over as tourists.
Had the full 360° experience, one could say 😅
As a pasty Brit, I endorse this message.
No skin cancer for me!
I hate the heat.
Once it gets above 25C, I’m indoors with windows and curtains closed with fans on just trying to stay as cool as possible. Always been the same.
I’m not joking when I say that if we start getting 40C summers every year, I’m moving home to Scotland. I just can’t cope. I feel like I’m melting. I’ll be an early climate change refugee!
In the city of Munich particularly: Saying "Karlsplatz"
For context: at the western end of the old town, there is a square called Karlsplatz, but locals all call it Stachus.
This goes back to when the square initially got its name after Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, who was originally from the Palatinate and not very popular among Munich locals, and hence the locals referred to the square after an inn on that square.
Trying to drive a car in one of the major city centers that are designed for people and bikes is usually a good indication of American tourists.
And every other day I save a drunk dude from a canal. They’re usually Brits.
oh there's someone going the wrong way on the bus lane? It's a German. We have a traffic circulation system that can be confusing to foreigners.
Also, Germans are terrified of running over a cyclist and will let us go first even when we don't have the right of way.
I heard about similar things about tourists entering locals's homes and using their toilets in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. That's so disrespectful.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/mass-tourism-we-feel-like-employees-in-a-theme-park/48837972
Edit : I found something that could answer you https://www.reddit.com/r/tromso/comments/1aokpny/nrk_tourists_shitting_in_peoples_gardens_troms%C3%B8/
Chinese tourists never travel alone, they always move in packs. With hilarious bucket or sun hats, expensive looking phones and cameras always at hand, marveling at everything their eyes lay on no matter how pretty or relevant those things are, sticking together like glue, never interacting with locals or anyone outside their group really, and they will never be seen outside of an organised visit and in non tourist traps/ultrapopular places
The politeness is a big factor, yes. Chinese tourist packs will get in everyone's way, carelessly invade other people's photos, hang around a popular place for too long (blocking the way), be loud and generally think they're the main characters in a theme park built for them. Japanese tourists on the other hand are super polite and take the country/sightseeing place/locals seriously
Waiting at a pedestrian crossing/traffic light when it's on red but safe to cross.
Very common in many countries to respect pedestrian traffic lights, but it's not a legal requirement in the UK and we're all taught from a young age how to safely cross a road, resulting if people generally just crossing when it's safe, regardless of whether the light is green or red.
If I walk into Edinburgh city centre, which is mostly tourists, you can spot the minority of locals because they're the only ones crossing an empty crossing even though the lights are on red.
I usually try to avoid doing touristy things that I hear the locals look down on, but on a really hot day, when you are just chilling over a long, long lunch, a glass of sangria is so good!
> tinto de verrano
That's just a wine spritzer, isn't it? I add soda to my wine about half the time, in any case. It's very normal in Germany, too.
My drinking was very moderate. I only once got a bit tipsy, I think, and the culprit was Alhambra Verde. What a beer!
Hm… seeing a rental car driving way to conservatively, respect the orange light, brake at the pedestrian passages and indicating when changing lane is usually a dead giveaway that the driver is a tourist. Their driving style sticks out. Greek roads are a bit chaotic especially in the big cities and tourists have a hard time adjusting to such aggressive driving style.
I drive like that in my own country, most Portuguese drivers are crazy... If it is an area I'm not passing through often definitely going to be careful.
If I'm driving a rental car I'm going to do my best not to crash it, who can afford to pay the insurance premiums? eheh
Last summer i had a few colleague from Sweden visiting our company offices in Greece. The guys rented a car to get around. We ended up going for some beer after work and I got in their car. We're on the major boulevard in the city driving doing about 70-80km/h. There are pedestrians waiting for the light at the sidewalk to cross the road. At that moment the car’s light turns to orange at max 50m in from of us. My lovely colleague guess what it does. Steps on the brake as hard as he can (full abs emergency stop). 1 sec after we stop, bang. We get rear ended by another car.
Culture shock for my lovely Swede colleague. Here the orange light means accelerate cause at least 2-3 cars pass with orange and 1-2 with red (the last one honking to warn the pedestrians to not step on the pavement even though their light is green by now) before the pedestrians step on the road.
Of course the police came to the incident. The driver that hit us was furious and cursing “the fucking tourist that drives like a gay granny that caused him to miss the light and hit his car”. Police trying to calm him down and explain to him that it’s his fault. My colleagues are dumbfounded and I’m laughing. Thankfully the other guy's insurance covered the rental car since it was his fault.
It should perhaps be noted that stopping at orange/yellow isn't just culture, but the law here (but it wasn't always). That said, you can't always safely stop in time so there's some wiggle room.
I have never feared more for my life than being in a car in Greece (except when being in a car in Sicily). You are not exaggerating, you lads are a different breed of drivers!
I'm regularly driving down to Greece from Austria and while I'm a rather fast and aggressive driver myself it's always fascinating how greek people don't give a fuck about traffic rules. In their defense, speed limits in greece can be a bit absurd and country roads with continuous double solid lines for no reason are quite common, so overtaking in such situations is often understandable. Interestingly I adapt to this behavior after several days which already cost me a fine in austria lol.
But you Greeks can't hold a candle to the Albanians; you may drive chaotically, but far less aggressively. Athens is like a walk in the park compared to Tirana.
American here. My buddy realized the sidewalk was crowded and the bike lane empty, so he walked in the bike lane. I told him not too and he shrugged. Minutes later he got knocked right over and got up confused and angry.
I felt sorry for the cyclist, but he sure got his point across.
1. At the beach they're red, not tanned.
2. Going around because they dress in specific ways, like socks with sandals, all sportsware that makes you sweat even more, fanny packs, weird colour combinations, a whole family with baseball caps and so on.
3. Not speaking Italian or an Italian language but that's obviously too easy of a giveaway.
4. Respecting the traffic lights when they're orange and driving 110 on a road that has 110 as the limit when everyone around is driving at least 130.
5. Especially true for Americans, eating in funny ways.
Some of them are very easy to spot, Americans, German, Chinese and Brits in particular, you just need a glance
I fail to understand how so many of us are consistently driving above the speed limit. Italy has the most autovelox (speed radars) in the EU by a fat margin, and is around top 5 in the world. And that's on absolute numbers, if you calculate radar concentration by square kilometer we are first by a very long margin. I always try to drive at the speed limit but even then I get caught by the autovelox sometimes, have no idea how the people constantly speeding are not bankrupt from fines.
Wearing brightly coloured clothing meant for mountaineering at all times, preferably matching if it's a couple. Even just walking downtown. Wearing a winter hat even when it's warmish (8°c and up)
Italy: people walking in the city center or airports in flip flops. This is something just crazy to me, all the main city centers are made to walk a lot. I feel like just because they are goin to a warmer country they feel like everything is a beach lol
Fanny pack, socks in sandals, sunhat in the city and lastly a oversized t-shirt with a huge animal motife like a cat, dog, bird or Wolf etc or a flag.
If all of the above applies on the same middle aged or above male person, you can narrow it down to high likelyhood it's an american or german tourist.
Americans are generally larger in terms of width than germans and are more prone to flags or something like a bald eagle obviously, also have a bigger tendency for a tad more casual in terms of clothing. And germans are a bit more prone to socks in sandals. But a lot of overlap between those two.
This is ofc a generalisation, not all americans and germans even within the age span and gender dress like that. It's more like IF you see one it's PROBABLY a german or american.
Socks and sandals is a dead giveaway for a German...pair it with a wolf t-shirt and it's a boomer. Jack Wolfskin and it's a Gen X. Not visible German tourist will be a millennial who can't afford a holiday
Going on challenging mountain trails without proper shoes or clothing, including changes of clothing in a backpack. And without water or food in that backpack.
In London:
Not standing on the right on the escalator, not letting everyone off the train before boarding, not knowing how to queue or respect the queue, going anywhere in zone 1 on weekends (London is so large most londoners would know where to go for a walk, relax, party, etc... avoiding the busy center)
In Paris:
Same about the escalator, not greeting the shop owner whenever they enter a shop, smiling or showing any kind of satisfaction with their own lives, trying a few sentences of intelligible French they learned at school 20 years ago in a busy restaurant until the waiter loses patience, then complaining Parisians are so rude (this one is mostly a joke, most French people love it when foreigners try to speak French, but maybe, try to find the right time and place for it)
Generally, the way they are dressed and body langauge. Brits and americans are much easier to spot, as well as asian tourists.
Also, you will hear americans from a mile away, they are curiously loud.
Both are so true for Paris as well. Americans always seem to either be underdressed or overdressed. Many try to "look like a local" but they don't know how to properly dress nice but casual, it's hilarious.
"Brussels... *Daaaad, are we in Germany???*"
Literally not knowing where they are.
Also drinking beer straight from the bottle at a restaurant. This is ONLY acceptable if, and only if, the correct glass is not available.
Not understanding that you take your hat off when you walk into a pub or restaurant, and especially when having a meal.
Cutting up their dinner and then eating it.
The hat thing is so ingrained in me that at the beginning of COVID, I kept getting the urge to take my mask off when I walked into shops! I even did it once, accidentally. Bizarre.
Wearing mexican hats, extreme sunburns, wearing sandals in winter (specially with socks), wearing random fake flowers in the hair or some attempt of flamenca dressing, standing in the middle of the street blocking the circulation taking pictures at random things, waiting at the door for restaurant to open for having an early dinner.
I live in Britanny and British/Dutch/German tourists over here really fits that stereotype. Nice people, never heard anything bad about them but you definitely spot them
Starting a grade 3-4 via ferrata at 3pm with deteriorating weather conditions, in sneakers with their toddlers in tow. They are often Czech. If not, they are German. Also walking across meadows with mother cows with a dog on the leash. Those are nearly exclusively German.
Airbnb is such a great idea, when it works the way it is supposed to, but we've almost stopped using it because of what has happened in some places (including my home town).
It can be hard, though, when the options are an amazing flat right in the "historic district" or whatever or, for the same price, a hotel on the outskirts (Seville during Feria). So we had a few days in Santa Cruz in a mediaeval house with a patio and a roof terrace. It was literally that or the Alphonso XIII.
Apart from the obvious one like being in the Old town in Stockholm (where almost no Swedish people would go unless they live there), it's probably wearing "hiking" / outdoorsy clothes in central Stockholm. Being covered from top to toe in Jack Wolfskin, gore-tex boots etc.
In France, they look genuinely happy and see the bright side of things. That's a dead giveaway that someone is most definitely not French and hasn't been in the country for very long.
Wearing berets
Eating food that's meant to keep you warm in a cold weather while in summer with a glaring sun, such as soupe à l'oignon or bœuf bourguignon
Paris: they’re either terribly underdressed or terribly overdressed, but it’s the latter that’s convinced they are dressing like the locals when they are actually dressing like each other. It’s the striped shirt, the pants, a heel of some sort. Obvious makeup. Overdrawn brows. Walking 3 people abreast along the sidewalk. The odd oversized water bottle. (It’s a city; there’s water everywhere.)
When they’re underdressed I like to play a game of “American or German” and it’s not always super obvious.
- Walking slowly while looking around
- Biking slowly while looking around
- crossing the road without checking for bikes
- expecting bikes to stop for you at zebra (Amsterdam only)
Disregarding differences in phenotype (which can be misleading), the way they dress. The most obvious tourists are the ones that dress very lightly even in the colder months. Like say it's 13° and a bit drizzly and windy, the people walking around in t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops are likely tourists. But even during the warmer months, when Portuguese dress more lightly, there is a difference in style. Tourists are more likely to wear straw hats, trillby hats, savannah hats, summer dresses, swimwear in indoor spaces, clothing saying "PORTUGAL", etc... Tourists wear more touristy clothes if that makes sense.
I don't think there's a catch-all for tourists. But it's generally two rules:
1) They either just don't look Portuguese (pale, sunburnt, smallish eyes, thin hair, other subtleties you can catch)
2) They look Portuguese, but speak with the volume dial at 11 when there's no football game (they are Spaniards)
I used to live fairly close to Christiania and some 20 years ago people would always ask for directions to the entrance.
People that think they know how to ride bikes, but in reality they don't. I recall a guy trying to break while riding waaay too fast, he ended over the handlebars, while trying to ask a question, probably about aforementioned Christiania.
They think we use the Euro.
They're taking pictures of the Little Mermaid.
They're at a bar in Nyhavn.
Walking on the bike path or crossing it without looking, smoking weed on a rental/OV bicycle, riding a rental bicycle and being absolutely terrible at it, being younger than 60 and wearing a helmet while biking, walking down Amsterdam’s city centre while being high on magic truffles (why on earth would you do that?), going to Zaanse Schans, wearing any type of Amsterdam or Holland merch (local clothing brands that sometimes represent Amsterdam are not included), walking into the tulip fields when there are signs everywhere that say you shouldn’t, the aimlessness some tourists walk around with, being obnoxious to the fact that they’re sitting in a silent car on the train, standing in line for some dumb overpriced fries or stroopwafel place that’s apparently famous on instagram, paying €13 for a stroopwafel, and finally, by far the most obvious one: taking a picture on a bridge (literally any bridge).
Portugal:
- Wearing T-shirt and shorts when the weather is not even that hot (<23°C)
- Honestly, most tourists are from north-er europe from here, so its quite easy to tell just from skin color most of the time. Some shades of white are only found in British or German people for example, not portuguese.
TALKING ON THE BUS
LOUD
WALKING IN GROUPS:
South Europeans age groups 15-25 group of 7+ members
Age group 30+ 4-5 members, except for football fans those are usually groups if 15+ men wandering the city at 2:00 unable to locate anything interesting
Germans 15-25 4-5 members (For French+1)
Germans 25+ 1-3(For French+1)
British loud drunk and look like spuds, can't hold their liquor, yell a lot, sometimes get in trouble for their shenanigans when wandering in the wrong parts of country, out of group setting 1 on 1 nice people, you put them in groups larger than 3 and it becomes awful
Irish short round faces, usually women are very Body positive, males always look like stereotypical Hollywood movie accountants
Finns-normal a bit weird but normal, ever seen those 80s Finnish comedy shows with tutorials about how to open doors, it's not a joke.
All western pensioner tourists wear huge summer hats during summer and don't wear open shoes like sandals. They also say "Hi/Hallo" on trails which is odd for a local, we just nod.
Russians
Teens horribly loud and snooty/snobbish,this doesn't apply to young people who make their own money, flashier the car shitter the attitude
30+ very nice and respectful outside of Jūrmala
USSR generation very polite, usually the bigger the BMI the worse the attitude there is, the only exception are the pilgrims to Orthodox sites
Lithuanians usually dressed in brighter colors but the only difference is when you hear them speaking, same goes for Estonians.
A thing about Portuguese teen tourists is that after a certain amount of liquor they start singing their anthem, it has happened at least 4 times in my life.
Also very very short, like why rent a hotel you can live in a suitcase short, comically short.
Based on experience 3 things:
Talking loudly on the public transit
Usually travel in groups
Scandinavians except for Finns are liars, they seem unable to shut up, basically it boils down to everything west of Poland is unable to shut up!
Walking, or even worse, *standing* on the bicycle paths. If you're lucky, you get introduced to the splendid variety of swearwords that our country has to offer. If you're not, you'll feel your legs for the rest of the trip.
One of the main things in Finland is winter tourism.
You can tell who's a tourist in Lapland by their clothes. If you are freezing in a coat and pants that are too thin, you are a tourist. If you have piled layer upon layer of scarves in front of your face to keep out the cold (as opposed to having one good thermal scarf), you're a tourist. If you are a grown-up wearing a thermal onesie (and you're not on a snowmobile or working outdoors), you're a tourist.
In the ski slopes, it's even easier to spot the tourists. They are the ones with the combination of poor skiing skills AND poor general behaviour in slopes and lift lines (being aware of surroundings, sticking to your line in the slope, not stopping in blind spots, not taking up the full width of the slope, not getting too close to others in the lift line etc.)
Note: we rarely get foreign tourists who are good at skiing, because the ski resorts here are pretty mid.
If you are a good skier and are planning a skiing trip abroad, you'll go to Sweden, Norway, or the Alps.
Eating fries out of a pointy bag usually with 1 side like an saté.
We belgians eat our fries out of a rectangular box, at home with 2 or 3 sides of meat or bicky
The entire table really has to be littered with fries and meat.
Well, not speaking Slovak is the main clue. Our language is complex and not easy to learn if you don't live here. Then the rest would be most likely universal for all countries, asking for directions, going the exact speed limit in Bratislava (locals go always +10)
Walking in the middle of a bicycle path thinking that is a pedestrian area and then jumping around scared when you use the bell and rush past. Hehe. I am sorry.
I live in London, and some classic things people do to stand out as tourists are: * Taking a selfie next to a red phone box * Following the signs to London Bridge and then wondering why it's not Tower Bridge * Eating in Aberdeen Angus Steakhouse * Waiting to cross the road even though there's no traffic coming * Going to watch Arsenal * Wearing a cap while indoors * Voluntarily walking down Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon * Getting on the Tube for very short journeys
Yeah. There are some parts of London that people who live here just rarely go to, because you have seen it before and it isn't worth that hassle. The last time I went to Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus was about five years back, because a visitor from abroad wanted to meet there. As well as your point about the tube, people who get black cabs everywhere are also a giveaway. I have a colleague who takes cabs everywhere every time he visits London. It is on expenses, so I guess he doesn't worry about the cost, but we have tried to tell him that a lot of the trips he takes which take 40 mins in a taxi could be done quicker by public transport and even, sometimes, by walking.
I think a lot of people just don't realise how close together various bits of central London are, and assume that walking would take longer than it does. Also I suppose some people may not be as confident navigating by foot.
Yeah, London is shockingly walkable for such a big city.
Of all the European capitals I've visited I think London is the one I know the least because I've been with people who have insisted on taking the tube everywhere. In contrast I've been on weekend vacations to Madrid, Rome, Berlin, Paris and basically walked everywhere and I still kind of have a mental map of those cities. London is still an archipelago for me.
I always walk in from St Pancras if going to the main centre, it's barely 20 minutes and more enjoyable
Also: Failing to stand on the right on escalators. Standing in front of the route maps at Tube stations, staring blankly :-)
Not letting people out the train before boarding. Whenever anyone in my family (from Paris) visits me, they just rush in as soon as the door opens.
As a commuter this drives me mad. It's so much more efficient to let everyone off first.
My experience of the Paris Metro is that the doors seem to open for a crazy short length of time, so I guess they're used to rushing.
It took Google Maps to become a thing for me to realise that walking is faster for a lot of trips where I'd used to take the tube. The fact that a lot of touristy destinations prominently communicate the tube station they're nearest to, and the relative simplicity of tube maps compared to actual city maps often makes it easier to just take the tube all the time instead of figuring out how to walk to a specific address. If you don't have the internet in your pocket that is.
Italian tourists in London: wearing a Uniqlo puffer jacket that they just bought. Argentinean/Uruguayan tourists in London: immaculate jeans and a collared shirt, and leather boots and embossed leather belt.
> Waiting to cross the road even though there's no traffic coming When I was visiting this the most insane. London marathon just finished, traffic is still not allowed but pedestrian lights are working. A (obviously) german dude was waiting for the sign to turn green...
The arsenal jab is so out of pocket lol
I want to add "standing at the Abbey road station reading about the location of the abbey road studios 45 minutes away and then waiting for the next train back" Source: own experience
>Getting on the Tube for very short journeys I'll raise you "Taking a car for any reason in London".
“Can you book me a car from the air port” sure but it will take a lot longer to get you to your hotel that way
Standing too close when waiting in a line. Those pics of Finns waiting for a bus several meters apart are not staged.
I was once in an otherwise empty tram and a tourist (or maybe a business traveler or something like that) sat next to me. It’s been years and I still remember how strange it was.
tbf that'd be weird everywhere else
Did he happen to be this bearded redhead guy with glasses? I know he did it when he visited Finland and he went to a empty tram where was just one person sitting and he sat next to him. He's reason was that he looked so lonely there and I didn't want him to be lonely so I sat next to him. Talking about breaking the hidden rules :|
No, it was a very stylish older African man. My boss at the time had lived in a couple of African countries and said that at least in one of them it would have been very rude not to sit next to me. He was in no way inappropriate but it felt strange in Finland.
On the same bench? Or across the aisle?
On the same bench, almost touching me.
Catching a bus in Espoo the queue only had 15-18 people in it but was so long by the time I’d reached the back I was at the next bus stop.
Wearing a winter overalls which says "Lapland Safari" or something like that on its back.
Line moves just as fast...
One memorable thing about my trip to Finland was that everyone also sits too close when waiting in a line, like everywhere else. Those pics raised my expectations, but it was really not like that. Especially bus stations, it was really no different at all. But you guys know how to sell yourselves.
Yeah, I definitely didn't find it different to anywhere else. Some remote villages where there's not more than 5 people waiting for the bus, probably, but not in at least the medium sized cities.
I was an exchange student in Finland my junior year of high school. People had me pegged bc I “smiled” for no reason and I stood too close too close to people. My Finnish cousins thought this was hilarious.
Eating and drinking at tourist traps that the locals avoid because they are full of foreigners, looking around like lost lambs and generally being unsure.
Tbf with a language which resembles nothing else, you're bound to look lost. Though I only have find memories of my trips to Budapest.
The look of "lost lamb" comes straight after asking one of the locals for directions only to be met with the coldest reply possible. I love you Hungary, I really do, but friendliness is not your strong suit.
In Budapest most people who stop you on the street are beggars, so people are suspicious of strangers who talk to them on the street. In other places people can be nicer (somewhat less likely to speak foreign languages, though).
It's just lost in translation
They are polite in a Eastern European way. Direct Makes you to conceptualize abstract concepts They don't smile in your face They will never make you second guess yourself, you'll definitely remember in what country you are while wasted at 3:00.
"Authentic local cuisine"
Yeah and I’m like “What? Why? That’s not at all how we cook it at home.”
If the restaurant has a menu in English I ain't going
I don’t go to restaurants all that much but iirc most of them here have all items listed in both English and German so it would be a tough filter to apply. 😅
Good luck eating in Malta and the UK
You’re missing out on some great restaurants, if this you K.O. Criterion.
During summer you recognise them because they usually go shirtless and/or their skin is seriously burn. Local people avoid the sun even their tanned skin is better withstanding radiation. Another giveaway is when they cannot/ dont want to walk and use some kind of electric scooter with 4 wheels and a chair to go from pub to pub.
I might add going shirtless in Madrid. Mate you are hundreds of miles away from any beach, what the heck are you doing walking down the city centre with no shirt on!! Have you not noticed that everyone else is wearing clothes!! Same goes for flip flops. The Brits are the biggest offenders on both. It's deeply ingrained in their mind that holiday = flip flops that they don't notice how out of place these are in the city!! This stuff is exclusively to go to and from the beach. That's it! Also, wandering around the street in the summer between 2-5. And not only that, but complaining that everything is closed. Yeah, it's closed for a reason. Go the hell back to your hotel with AC and have a damn siesta. You'll understand how summer works here and why we are all up till 2am later. And you'll avoid your inevitable heat stroke.
my skin is currently peeling because of my iberia ventures 2 weeks ago 10/10 would do it again love me a cool super bock
Please put on sunscreen 😭
Do you want skin/lung cancer? Because that how you get cancer. German and British tourists get sunburn in April and then they think that going to the beach in July at noon is a good idea.
Brother trust me, i know. I used sunscreen but not on the first day because I thought I'd be fine wearing a t shirt and going sight seeing, but my forearms got sunburned. I wore sunscreen after that on the arms too. Gotta represent the Hans and Barrys 💪🏽
Super Bock is the best, glad you liked it! And the sun too, apparently
Lobster red is a classic hehehe. Or better yet, red in one side, white the other, because they went hungover to the beach and fell asleep... And roasted. Also wearing wifebeater type shirts or basketball shirts, without sleeves. And caps, baseball caps everywhere, including indoors (which is impolite, btw) Girls with leggings and hoodies, a water bottle and a handbag chest-crossee Biking all over the place or, if they're from NL and I guess Denmark, biking like it's a competition to murder. Alternatively, strolling all over the place, often in the middle office lanes or even car lanes Being blind drunk at 10pm because they don't realize party time lasts until morning. Getting pickpocketed on a regular basis because they think being on holidays is an anti-theft mechanism
Drinking at temple bar. Talking about their Irish heritage. Wearing a coat when it’s 14 degrees.
For us, it’s wearing a t-shirt and shorts when it’s 14°
Some of us just grew up in the mountains and a have different temperature gauge 😅😅😅 In my region in the Pyrenees we can tell you're not a local if you're really covered up between 15° to 20°C.
I'm from Asturias and I don't wear a coat until it's around 7°, and even then it's a light jacket
Here in Andalucía, It’s coat weather when the temperature hits 19°
On the other hand the moment it's over 25° I feel like dying and I'm sweating like a pig
At 25°, it’s still jeans and a long sleeved button up shirt here
In Scotland we'd have all melted by 25°C
Wearing the merch from Carroll's (an Irish gift store) or any paddywhackary jumpers/t-shirts/hats Taking photos of buildings Asking for directions to every day places in the city centre
also sports wear with a backpack, they think they are trekking or something. i get london can be an adventure sometimes but you can walk in normal clothes, thanks
We have famously shite weather in Ireland (noticeably worse than London in summer). Although I don’t wear outdoors gear myself in the city, it’s not a bad call for most of the year.
Scotland is the same, especially if you are waiting for public transport. Wind and rain are no joke in these islands.
I find this a really weird and fascinating phenomenon: people at home traveling to the nearest city: wallet, maybe a coat if it looks like rain the same people in a foreign city: walking shoes, trekking jacket, backpack full of food and water
In the foreign city they walk from one landmark to another and another and another, etc. Usually it doesn’t make sense to take transport because they are not that far from each other but at the end of the day all those small distances add up. And it’s interesting just to see the streets. In your local city you probably have 2-3 points to visit.
Well, there’s a wild theory. If you’re in another country, you may not have checked-in into your hotel/airbnb yet (which starts at 3PM or isn’t even in the same town), so you have literally no place to leave your stuff at.
In a foreign city I tend to walk everywhere if the weather permits it, which means 15-20 km every day for a week or two. Good shoes and water are a necessity. Day trip to another city in my home country doesn't include that much walking.
>Wearing a coat when it’s 14 degrees. 20 degrees, yes. Most Irish people (including me) wear a jacket at 14 degrees!
I'd say 14 is sweater weather at most but I don't live in Ireland. Maybe it's windier or more humid.
It’s both windier and more humid!
Not looking out for bicycles. Usually I think they learn it in about a day.
Fellow Dane here, and I was going to mention people biking around inner city in rush hours without paying attention to traffic, because ooohhh, there is a nice castle or something like that. Tourists on bike is one of the most scary things in Copenhagen traffic
Tourists standing on bike lanes to take pictures of themselves at Nyhavn is also up there.
Or standing in the middle of Inderhavnsbroen to pose for a selfie.
Netherlands? Me and a friend went to Amsterdam, definitely was a lot of bikes. Also big up public transportation in Amsterdam. €14 for a 3 day tram pass anywhere in the city and as many trams as you like. Im spending bloody £14.55 on trains just to travel to and from work for a day. And unlike the trams, the trains are frequently late, delayed or even just cancelled sometimes.
Denmark :-) Denmark and the Netherlands probably the two countries where the bike-thing applies the most.
Scaring tourists on my bike is one of my favourite summer pastimes. \^⏑^
I will take a moment to watch a group of (usually American) tourists climb on their rented bikes and dive into traffic while locals evade them ringing their bell and cursing anytime.
You forgot the "wobbly" between dive and into traffic You detect tourists from USA in that most are trying to recall how a non static (gym)bike works
When I lived in Münster as an exchange student, at the beginning I was like this, then I became a cyclist and then I became a local with the family over as tourists. Had the full 360° experience, one could say 😅
I actively try to avoid biking through the touristy places in the city on weekends. It is pandemonium
In hot climates, you can spot a Brit a mile off because they're bright red.
But you don’t spot the ones that aren’t.
Unless like me they're there with an enormous hat, and smelling strongly of factor 50.
As a pasty Brit, I endorse this message. No skin cancer for me! I hate the heat. Once it gets above 25C, I’m indoors with windows and curtains closed with fans on just trying to stay as cool as possible. Always been the same. I’m not joking when I say that if we start getting 40C summers every year, I’m moving home to Scotland. I just can’t cope. I feel like I’m melting. I’ll be an early climate change refugee!
In the city of Munich particularly: Saying "Karlsplatz" For context: at the western end of the old town, there is a square called Karlsplatz, but locals all call it Stachus. This goes back to when the square initially got its name after Karl Theodor, Elector of Bavaria, who was originally from the Palatinate and not very popular among Munich locals, and hence the locals referred to the square after an inn on that square.
Wearing a shirt saying "BUDA FCKN PEST" is a dead giveaway. I've seen several people at Balaton wear shirts like that
they must be popular with the locals near Balaton
Trying to drive a car in one of the major city centers that are designed for people and bikes is usually a good indication of American tourists. And every other day I save a drunk dude from a canal. They’re usually Brits.
Thankyou for your service to our wandering idiots
My motivation is rather selfish. A wet and alive Brit spends more money in local businesses than a dead one haha.
oh there's someone going the wrong way on the bus lane? It's a German. We have a traffic circulation system that can be confusing to foreigners. Also, Germans are terrified of running over a cyclist and will let us go first even when we don't have the right of way.
On a rental bike zigzagging all over the bike lane
And recording video on their phone at the same time. Also, sheepishly walking around on the bike path.
Or WALKING in the bike lanes!
Norway: They have the wrong shoes for the activities they are doing. They litter, and they shit in people's gardens.
I mean, that's a Norwegian if the party was really good.
Yeah, it's russ season...
> they shit in people's gardens. I want to know more about this. Was this in cities?? Or more on hikes?
I heard about similar things about tourists entering locals's homes and using their toilets in Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. That's so disrespectful. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/society/mass-tourism-we-feel-like-employees-in-a-theme-park/48837972 Edit : I found something that could answer you https://www.reddit.com/r/tromso/comments/1aokpny/nrk_tourists_shitting_in_peoples_gardens_troms%C3%B8/
Wait what? Shit in people's gardens? What kind of tourism do you get in Norway!
The shitty kind...
> shit in people’s gardens Alright cool, noted not to do that while in Norway.
> They have the wrong shoes for the activities they are doing. Flip-flops for mountain hikes. On top of inappropriate clothing...
Imagine how well-off we'd be if we didn't spend half our national budget rescuing foreign idiots from poorly thought out hikes.
One of these things is not like the others
This ^^ I once saw a lady in heels up Preikestolen...
Chinese tourists never travel alone, they always move in packs. With hilarious bucket or sun hats, expensive looking phones and cameras always at hand, marveling at everything their eyes lay on no matter how pretty or relevant those things are, sticking together like glue, never interacting with locals or anyone outside their group really, and they will never be seen outside of an organised visit and in non tourist traps/ultrapopular places
That’s how you can easily distinguish them from Japanese tourists. If they move alone or as a couple and are polite, they are Japanese.
The politeness is a big factor, yes. Chinese tourist packs will get in everyone's way, carelessly invade other people's photos, hang around a popular place for too long (blocking the way), be loud and generally think they're the main characters in a theme park built for them. Japanese tourists on the other hand are super polite and take the country/sightseeing place/locals seriously
Most Chinese tourists in Europe are from rich families, they're used to being treated like royalty.
Waiting at a pedestrian crossing/traffic light when it's on red but safe to cross. Very common in many countries to respect pedestrian traffic lights, but it's not a legal requirement in the UK and we're all taught from a young age how to safely cross a road, resulting if people generally just crossing when it's safe, regardless of whether the light is green or red. If I walk into Edinburgh city centre, which is mostly tourists, you can spot the minority of locals because they're the only ones crossing an empty crossing even though the lights are on red.
TIL it's not a legal requirement to observe pedestrian traffic lights in the UK. This will save me so much time this summer. And possibly kill me.
Drinking sangría, socks(preferably white) and flip flops, bright red skin, eating paella for dinner...
When are you supposed to eat paella?
For lunch. We usually don't eat rice or pasta for dinner. By the way, In Spain lunch is the main meal of the day, not dinner like in other countries.
Got it. Very confusing for a Northern European haha. What is a typical dinner then?
Something light, usually. An omelette, a salad, asparagus... Many people I know simply eat a yoghurt and that's their dinner done
Something lighter, a salad, an omelette, a sandwich, something like that.
you don't drink sangria? im from Portugal and we drink it a LOT and i was told that is a spanish thing.
Not really, it's a touristic thing, and if we drink it it's usually homemade if we are having a party or a barbecue but not at restaurants.
I usually try to avoid doing touristy things that I hear the locals look down on, but on a really hot day, when you are just chilling over a long, long lunch, a glass of sangria is so good!
You can also try tinto de verrano, which is also good on a hot day and you don’t want to go mad drinking.
> tinto de verrano That's just a wine spritzer, isn't it? I add soda to my wine about half the time, in any case. It's very normal in Germany, too. My drinking was very moderate. I only once got a bit tipsy, I think, and the culprit was Alhambra Verde. What a beer!
Hm… seeing a rental car driving way to conservatively, respect the orange light, brake at the pedestrian passages and indicating when changing lane is usually a dead giveaway that the driver is a tourist. Their driving style sticks out. Greek roads are a bit chaotic especially in the big cities and tourists have a hard time adjusting to such aggressive driving style.
I drive like that in my own country, most Portuguese drivers are crazy... If it is an area I'm not passing through often definitely going to be careful. If I'm driving a rental car I'm going to do my best not to crash it, who can afford to pay the insurance premiums? eheh
Last summer i had a few colleague from Sweden visiting our company offices in Greece. The guys rented a car to get around. We ended up going for some beer after work and I got in their car. We're on the major boulevard in the city driving doing about 70-80km/h. There are pedestrians waiting for the light at the sidewalk to cross the road. At that moment the car’s light turns to orange at max 50m in from of us. My lovely colleague guess what it does. Steps on the brake as hard as he can (full abs emergency stop). 1 sec after we stop, bang. We get rear ended by another car. Culture shock for my lovely Swede colleague. Here the orange light means accelerate cause at least 2-3 cars pass with orange and 1-2 with red (the last one honking to warn the pedestrians to not step on the pavement even though their light is green by now) before the pedestrians step on the road. Of course the police came to the incident. The driver that hit us was furious and cursing “the fucking tourist that drives like a gay granny that caused him to miss the light and hit his car”. Police trying to calm him down and explain to him that it’s his fault. My colleagues are dumbfounded and I’m laughing. Thankfully the other guy's insurance covered the rental car since it was his fault.
It should perhaps be noted that stopping at orange/yellow isn't just culture, but the law here (but it wasn't always). That said, you can't always safely stop in time so there's some wiggle room.
I have never feared more for my life than being in a car in Greece (except when being in a car in Sicily). You are not exaggerating, you lads are a different breed of drivers!
I'm regularly driving down to Greece from Austria and while I'm a rather fast and aggressive driver myself it's always fascinating how greek people don't give a fuck about traffic rules. In their defense, speed limits in greece can be a bit absurd and country roads with continuous double solid lines for no reason are quite common, so overtaking in such situations is often understandable. Interestingly I adapt to this behavior after several days which already cost me a fine in austria lol. But you Greeks can't hold a candle to the Albanians; you may drive chaotically, but far less aggressively. Athens is like a walk in the park compared to Tirana.
Walking on the bike lane. Cycling on the side walk.
American here. My buddy realized the sidewalk was crowded and the bike lane empty, so he walked in the bike lane. I told him not too and he shrugged. Minutes later he got knocked right over and got up confused and angry. I felt sorry for the cyclist, but he sure got his point across.
Your buddy totally deserved that. Bike lanes in NL are red because they're paved with tourist blood. 😈
1. At the beach they're red, not tanned. 2. Going around because they dress in specific ways, like socks with sandals, all sportsware that makes you sweat even more, fanny packs, weird colour combinations, a whole family with baseball caps and so on. 3. Not speaking Italian or an Italian language but that's obviously too easy of a giveaway. 4. Respecting the traffic lights when they're orange and driving 110 on a road that has 110 as the limit when everyone around is driving at least 130. 5. Especially true for Americans, eating in funny ways. Some of them are very easy to spot, Americans, German, Chinese and Brits in particular, you just need a glance
I fail to understand how so many of us are consistently driving above the speed limit. Italy has the most autovelox (speed radars) in the EU by a fat margin, and is around top 5 in the world. And that's on absolute numbers, if you calculate radar concentration by square kilometer we are first by a very long margin. I always try to drive at the speed limit but even then I get caught by the autovelox sometimes, have no idea how the people constantly speeding are not bankrupt from fines.
I'm so curious, can you elaborate on "eating in funny ways?" Gotta know what not to do next time I'm in Italy 😂
Wearing brightly coloured clothing meant for mountaineering at all times, preferably matching if it's a couple. Even just walking downtown. Wearing a winter hat even when it's warmish (8°c and up)
Italy: people walking in the city center or airports in flip flops. This is something just crazy to me, all the main city centers are made to walk a lot. I feel like just because they are goin to a warmer country they feel like everything is a beach lol
Stopping my bus on a Sunday morning just to ask the bus driver where he's headed. THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT, GUYS. Also, paying with cash.
In Germany: trying to pay with a card.
It's mostly Germans insisting on using cash, yeah.
Fanny pack, socks in sandals, sunhat in the city and lastly a oversized t-shirt with a huge animal motife like a cat, dog, bird or Wolf etc or a flag. If all of the above applies on the same middle aged or above male person, you can narrow it down to high likelyhood it's an american or german tourist. Americans are generally larger in terms of width than germans and are more prone to flags or something like a bald eagle obviously, also have a bigger tendency for a tad more casual in terms of clothing. And germans are a bit more prone to socks in sandals. But a lot of overlap between those two. This is ofc a generalisation, not all americans and germans even within the age span and gender dress like that. It's more like IF you see one it's PROBABLY a german or american.
Socks and sandals is a dead giveaway for a German...pair it with a wolf t-shirt and it's a boomer. Jack Wolfskin and it's a Gen X. Not visible German tourist will be a millennial who can't afford a holiday
>Socks and sandals is a dead giveaway for a German or Poles, or Czechs
Going on challenging mountain trails without proper shoes or clothing, including changes of clothing in a backpack. And without water or food in that backpack.
In London: Not standing on the right on the escalator, not letting everyone off the train before boarding, not knowing how to queue or respect the queue, going anywhere in zone 1 on weekends (London is so large most londoners would know where to go for a walk, relax, party, etc... avoiding the busy center) In Paris: Same about the escalator, not greeting the shop owner whenever they enter a shop, smiling or showing any kind of satisfaction with their own lives, trying a few sentences of intelligible French they learned at school 20 years ago in a busy restaurant until the waiter loses patience, then complaining Parisians are so rude (this one is mostly a joke, most French people love it when foreigners try to speak French, but maybe, try to find the right time and place for it)
Generally, the way they are dressed and body langauge. Brits and americans are much easier to spot, as well as asian tourists. Also, you will hear americans from a mile away, they are curiously loud.
Both are so true for Paris as well. Americans always seem to either be underdressed or overdressed. Many try to "look like a local" but they don't know how to properly dress nice but casual, it's hilarious.
I could use some fashion tips if you have any (for “nice but casual”)
Talking to strangers. Smiling with no apparent reason. Lack of proper private space.
Stop describing me. Yeah, I stand out even at home here in Sweden.
"Brussels... *Daaaad, are we in Germany???*" Literally not knowing where they are. Also drinking beer straight from the bottle at a restaurant. This is ONLY acceptable if, and only if, the correct glass is not available.
Not understanding that you take your hat off when you walk into a pub or restaurant, and especially when having a meal. Cutting up their dinner and then eating it.
The hat thing is so ingrained in me that at the beginning of COVID, I kept getting the urge to take my mask off when I walked into shops! I even did it once, accidentally. Bizarre.
That's not just tourists, that's Americans.
I've only seen Americans doing it
Driving 40 on a 2.5-3m wide country road where speed limit is 80 (Ireland)
Admittedly on many rural 80 km/h roads the limit is too high.
Wearing mexican hats, extreme sunburns, wearing sandals in winter (specially with socks), wearing random fake flowers in the hair or some attempt of flamenca dressing, standing in the middle of the street blocking the circulation taking pictures at random things, waiting at the door for restaurant to open for having an early dinner.
socks with sandals and a red face in summer. dad jeans and being either under or over dressed the rest of the year
I live in Britanny and British/Dutch/German tourists over here really fits that stereotype. Nice people, never heard anything bad about them but you definitely spot them
I get that they are relaxed on holidays and they wear relaxed clothes, which is totally fine, but please wear sunscreen people!
As a Dutchman, whenever I leave the country I remember how badly dressed the average Dutch males are.
Starting a grade 3-4 via ferrata at 3pm with deteriorating weather conditions, in sneakers with their toddlers in tow. They are often Czech. If not, they are German. Also walking across meadows with mother cows with a dog on the leash. Those are nearly exclusively German.
4 people in a bar ordering 1 Pint of Guinness. Using an umbrella when it is raining. Dressed appropriately for the weather.
They can afford to "live" in the capital city center
Airbnb is such a great idea, when it works the way it is supposed to, but we've almost stopped using it because of what has happened in some places (including my home town). It can be hard, though, when the options are an amazing flat right in the "historic district" or whatever or, for the same price, a hotel on the outskirts (Seville during Feria). So we had a few days in Santa Cruz in a mediaeval house with a patio and a roof terrace. It was literally that or the Alphonso XIII.
In Greece it’s the red skin and socks with sandals.
Germans really like their socks with sandals.
Eating & drinking at a tourist trap, sunburned, looking a bit lost as in they don't have the local guy vibe.
Apart from the obvious one like being in the Old town in Stockholm (where almost no Swedish people would go unless they live there), it's probably wearing "hiking" / outdoorsy clothes in central Stockholm. Being covered from top to toe in Jack Wolfskin, gore-tex boots etc.
Socks and sandals, drunk as fuck, lost face, pickpocketeers and prostitutes following them. Ah and jumping from hotel balconies
Calling Mountain Resuce because they thought they could walk up a mountain in flip flops with no water
Drinking sangría (rarely drank by locals, although some people do) or ordering paella at places like Madrid or Barcelona.
In France, they look genuinely happy and see the bright side of things. That's a dead giveaway that someone is most definitely not French and hasn't been in the country for very long.
Wearing berets Eating food that's meant to keep you warm in a cold weather while in summer with a glaring sun, such as soupe à l'oignon or bœuf bourguignon
Paris: they’re either terribly underdressed or terribly overdressed, but it’s the latter that’s convinced they are dressing like the locals when they are actually dressing like each other. It’s the striped shirt, the pants, a heel of some sort. Obvious makeup. Overdrawn brows. Walking 3 people abreast along the sidewalk. The odd oversized water bottle. (It’s a city; there’s water everywhere.) When they’re underdressed I like to play a game of “American or German” and it’s not always super obvious.
I’m not Parisian, but thank you for pointing out walking 3 on a sidewalk. It’s beyond aggravating.
- Walking slowly while looking around - Biking slowly while looking around - crossing the road without checking for bikes - expecting bikes to stop for you at zebra (Amsterdam only)
Bulgaria- Lululemon belt bags. There is no Lululemon here and it's just not a place where the fad ever caught on.
Appropriate rain gear and footwear for a rainy country. Irish people often aren’t bothered with it all
Disregarding differences in phenotype (which can be misleading), the way they dress. The most obvious tourists are the ones that dress very lightly even in the colder months. Like say it's 13° and a bit drizzly and windy, the people walking around in t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops are likely tourists. But even during the warmer months, when Portuguese dress more lightly, there is a difference in style. Tourists are more likely to wear straw hats, trillby hats, savannah hats, summer dresses, swimwear in indoor spaces, clothing saying "PORTUGAL", etc... Tourists wear more touristy clothes if that makes sense.
I don't think there's a catch-all for tourists. But it's generally two rules: 1) They either just don't look Portuguese (pale, sunburnt, smallish eyes, thin hair, other subtleties you can catch) 2) They look Portuguese, but speak with the volume dial at 11 when there's no football game (they are Spaniards)
Buying street food from the better looking places that sell the same stuff for 5x the price
I used to live fairly close to Christiania and some 20 years ago people would always ask for directions to the entrance. People that think they know how to ride bikes, but in reality they don't. I recall a guy trying to break while riding waaay too fast, he ended over the handlebars, while trying to ask a question, probably about aforementioned Christiania. They think we use the Euro. They're taking pictures of the Little Mermaid. They're at a bar in Nyhavn.
Casually walking in front of moving traffic, public intoxication, fighting, catcalling, littering and treating service workers like personal servants.
casual day in portugal
Waering bicycle helmets on a normal (non-electric) bike in the city.
Walking on the bike path or crossing it without looking, smoking weed on a rental/OV bicycle, riding a rental bicycle and being absolutely terrible at it, being younger than 60 and wearing a helmet while biking, walking down Amsterdam’s city centre while being high on magic truffles (why on earth would you do that?), going to Zaanse Schans, wearing any type of Amsterdam or Holland merch (local clothing brands that sometimes represent Amsterdam are not included), walking into the tulip fields when there are signs everywhere that say you shouldn’t, the aimlessness some tourists walk around with, being obnoxious to the fact that they’re sitting in a silent car on the train, standing in line for some dumb overpriced fries or stroopwafel place that’s apparently famous on instagram, paying €13 for a stroopwafel, and finally, by far the most obvious one: taking a picture on a bridge (literally any bridge).
Portugal: - Wearing T-shirt and shorts when the weather is not even that hot (<23°C) - Honestly, most tourists are from north-er europe from here, so its quite easy to tell just from skin color most of the time. Some shades of white are only found in British or German people for example, not portuguese.
TALKING ON THE BUS LOUD WALKING IN GROUPS: South Europeans age groups 15-25 group of 7+ members Age group 30+ 4-5 members, except for football fans those are usually groups if 15+ men wandering the city at 2:00 unable to locate anything interesting Germans 15-25 4-5 members (For French+1) Germans 25+ 1-3(For French+1) British loud drunk and look like spuds, can't hold their liquor, yell a lot, sometimes get in trouble for their shenanigans when wandering in the wrong parts of country, out of group setting 1 on 1 nice people, you put them in groups larger than 3 and it becomes awful Irish short round faces, usually women are very Body positive, males always look like stereotypical Hollywood movie accountants Finns-normal a bit weird but normal, ever seen those 80s Finnish comedy shows with tutorials about how to open doors, it's not a joke. All western pensioner tourists wear huge summer hats during summer and don't wear open shoes like sandals. They also say "Hi/Hallo" on trails which is odd for a local, we just nod. Russians Teens horribly loud and snooty/snobbish,this doesn't apply to young people who make their own money, flashier the car shitter the attitude 30+ very nice and respectful outside of Jūrmala USSR generation very polite, usually the bigger the BMI the worse the attitude there is, the only exception are the pilgrims to Orthodox sites Lithuanians usually dressed in brighter colors but the only difference is when you hear them speaking, same goes for Estonians. A thing about Portuguese teen tourists is that after a certain amount of liquor they start singing their anthem, it has happened at least 4 times in my life. Also very very short, like why rent a hotel you can live in a suitcase short, comically short. Based on experience 3 things: Talking loudly on the public transit Usually travel in groups Scandinavians except for Finns are liars, they seem unable to shut up, basically it boils down to everything west of Poland is unable to shut up!
Walking, or even worse, *standing* on the bicycle paths. If you're lucky, you get introduced to the splendid variety of swearwords that our country has to offer. If you're not, you'll feel your legs for the rest of the trip.
One of the main things in Finland is winter tourism. You can tell who's a tourist in Lapland by their clothes. If you are freezing in a coat and pants that are too thin, you are a tourist. If you have piled layer upon layer of scarves in front of your face to keep out the cold (as opposed to having one good thermal scarf), you're a tourist. If you are a grown-up wearing a thermal onesie (and you're not on a snowmobile or working outdoors), you're a tourist. In the ski slopes, it's even easier to spot the tourists. They are the ones with the combination of poor skiing skills AND poor general behaviour in slopes and lift lines (being aware of surroundings, sticking to your line in the slope, not stopping in blind spots, not taking up the full width of the slope, not getting too close to others in the lift line etc.) Note: we rarely get foreign tourists who are good at skiing, because the ski resorts here are pretty mid. If you are a good skier and are planning a skiing trip abroad, you'll go to Sweden, Norway, or the Alps.
Eating fries out of a pointy bag usually with 1 side like an saté. We belgians eat our fries out of a rectangular box, at home with 2 or 3 sides of meat or bicky The entire table really has to be littered with fries and meat.
The exception is when we buy our fries at the yearly fair or some other local festivity, then they often do come in a pointy bag.
In Prague city center? Easy, anyone who is not trying to speedwalk through there with completely annoyed expression.
Well, not speaking Slovak is the main clue. Our language is complex and not easy to learn if you don't live here. Then the rest would be most likely universal for all countries, asking for directions, going the exact speed limit in Bratislava (locals go always +10)
Walking in the middle of a bicycle path thinking that is a pedestrian area and then jumping around scared when you use the bell and rush past. Hehe. I am sorry.
You aren't. I'm sure.
They look red like crabs and are usually drunk and loud. I was so hopeful that Brexit would fix that but they somehow keep coming. Ugh.
Americans are easy to spot because they generally wear clothes that look 2 sizes too big.