Travel Respectfully

Or the 2 tourists that climbed over the fence to stand & take pictures at the edge of the raging water near the waterfall in Yosemite. Only to be swept over the edge to their deaths. A third person went over that tried to save them. http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Hiker-Swept-Over-Vernal-Falls-Report-125848553.html

Part of my reading on the flight over to another country is learning the basic phrases of good morning/evening, please, thank you, how much and so on. Having it already listed on the Google Translate App w/the speaker option to use for correct or nearly correct pronunciation and or use is a bonus.

The first word to learn in any foreign language is "thank you." Respect begins with gratitude.

I also echo "respect". Please, Thank You, Excuse me, etc. are all common sense. Don't get me started on tourists with inappropriate selfies!!!!

Keep your feet off of the seats of trains and buses! I see Americans do this ALL the time.

And this from Stonehenge this week. Ugh...

http://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/14500786.VIDEO__Six_middle_aged__new_age_travellers__arrested_at_Stonehenge_over_flaming_torch_incident/?ref=fbshr

The Grand Prismatic incident made me so sick, then looking at all the other areas they have ripped thru leaving damage in their wake was appalling.

Stupidity knows no bounds. I was sick about the baby bison. If they are stupid enough to kill themselves, but causing the death of a bison, a swan, a dolphin is inexcusable. And all they get is a fine.

Ms Jo, so true.
I know someone who asks the American slouchers on the U-bahn, 'Do you mind if I wipe my shoes on your pants?' It's basically the same thing.

I think a better title for this might be, "Live Respectfully." It really doesn't matter where you are, you need to be respectful to those around you.

Here is the tough one for me: people on public transport that use their cellphones for long and loud conversations. In another circumstance, I could simply walk away or move away. Not on a bus. Moral of the story: If people can't move away from you, don't give them any reason to want to do so.

Years ago and I mean years ago, you could walk amongst the rocks at Stonehenge. Then some football fans defaced the stones with graffiti and the rest is history. Up went the ropes etc.

These men get my vote for stupidity especially given they were scout leaders:
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ex-scouts-leaders-who-knocked-over-ancient-rock-get-probation-n56596

I suspect inbreeding but I'll say no more.

That news about the bison in SF was just bad and sad...totally could have been avoided. There are more measures now to prevent its occurrence again.

I saw US backpackers put their feet with shoes on seats in German train compartments my first time over in 1971. It was a shock, and they were mostly the only ones; if there is one pet peeve I have in traveling it's that. If one is so exhausted, then take off the shoes first. To be fair, some did, most did not.

Here's one example I saw where good intentions mean nothing if you don't have a little situational awareness.

I was eating dinner at a restaurant in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. At the table next to me, a group of older gentlemen had gathered for what clearly looked like their regular social round of card games (I think it was Skat, but I'm not sure). A tourist from North American (not sure if he was American or Canadian) came up and started asking questions about their game. These men seemed too polite to tell this guy to get lost, but they clearly found his presence an unwanted intrusion. The tourist then proceded to grab a chair and sit down to watch them play. This guy probably thought he was being friendly, but I think this was taking the "connect with the locals" idea a little too far. Fortunately, the hostess saw what was going on and showed the man and his wife to a table in another room.

This whole situation was very awkward. The card players were clearly annoyed. Living in GaP, I'm sure they're accustomed to out-of-town visitors, but this really was an invasion of privacy. The lesson- just because Rick Steves (seemingly) walks up to random people and has great "local experiences" doesn't mean we always should as well.

Were there 3 players? If so, then it might well have been Skat. It's all a cultural interpretation. Had that happened in France with this guy's intrusion, les français would have seen this as rude, whereas the American would have seen his behaviour as trying to be friendly. Obviously, the German players didn't want to be bothered by this guy.

A woman friend of mine tried that in a hostel in London a few years back. She had a girls' dorm room, got there when the other roomies were there, tried to greeting and talking to all of them, all continental Europeans, a couple of Germans too, Their response to her was polite silence or just an ignoring rebuff. I told her that that reaction from them to a total stranger, esp one several years their senior, was normal and that from their perspective they were not being rude or aloof. My friend said surprisingly in her thick rural Alabama accent, "well I was just trying to be friendly."

I hope you're not saying it's only Americans who are disrespectful and the Europeans are all covered in class and manners?

On this current trip, I am amazed at just how rude, disrespectful and ill mannered many of the local are acting.

They'll bump into you rather than move an inch when walking and just keep going without saying anything. They will not even think of holding a door if you are behind them. They will not say excuse me but reach right over you in a market. They see an elderly person get on a bus or train and not offer that person a seat.

Granted, most of the time they are in their own world or wearing headphones so they are clueless to what it going on around them. As for talking on the phone, this happens all the time and not once was it an American.

Just yesterday, I was in a department store and there was someone coming from the opposite direction. I immediately moved to one side so we wouldn't hit each other. He moved to the same side, stopped, stared at me until I moved to the other side.

I guess I was so disrespectful for walking on the same ground as him. And yes, he was a local.

Just today a couple from Germany and a family from India were talking so loudly on a bus tour that others couldn't hear. And they were just a couple of rows from the guide.

Rudeness and disrespect crosses borders. Don't just blame Americans.

My friend was certainly surprised at the lack of response by these European girls to what she considered her Southern openness and charm. She thought Americans would have responded in kind, instead of their being aloof. I told her to tone it down.

On the card game if the players were annoyed by the presence of the North American intruder when he pulled up a chair and started watching presumably with out asking their permission. Of course, he may have asked in English, then was ignored. That is also an answer. Interesting is what the three said, if anything, underneath their breath about the intruder.

What bugs me are tourists of any nationality who treat the locals like tourist attractions. This is especially true for our indigenous people here in the U.S.: they do not like to have cameras shoved in their faces (who does?) and most of the tribes have rules about doing so without permission.

I am sure Rick Steves sets up those fi,Ed "moments with locals" in advance, and asks permission first.

I'm ashamed to say that both the morons that went out-of-bounds in Yellowstone recently and the well meaning idiot that put the Bison in his Van, are my fellow Canadians. Although the out-of-bounds guys have apologized profusely, arrest warrants have now been issued for them so their problems aren't over yet. I'm sure they won't be planning any more visits to the U.S. for awhile. The Bison guy (who is from Quebec) has a court appearance scheduled in Wyoming on June 2.

Unfortunately they aren't the only ones that are guilty of this sort of offence. The overseas tourists that visit Canada and insist on feeding the Bears in national parks are equally stupid. They don't seem to realize that this is not Yogi Bear they're dealing with, and the animal can turn on them in the blink of an eye.

It's a personality thing as much as a nationality thing. I've experienced fellow Americans infiltrate card games or word games here when they weren't encouraged to do so. There are Americans who find a well-meaning person from Alabama a delight; others who would be rolling their eyes along with the Germans. And not all of us are interested in mixing it up with the locals at a pub or on a street corner. And it bugs me when people put their feet on seats in a lot of U.S. venues. Although I admit I've probably done it a time or two at a ballpark when the 9 innings have lasted a looong time.

One of the worst ones was a few years back when a tourist was arrested for being photographed giving a Nazi salute in front of the Reichstag building in Berlin. Turns out the Germans are a little sensitive about that and it's a crime to do that in Germany. A little over week ago we were at Newgrange in Ireland and someone in the tour group was filming the tour guide with her camera. The tour guide seemed like she was an actor breaking character as she barked "are you filming this?" and said she'd rather they didn't. Then she was back to her pleasant tour guide tone. I thought she was well within her rights to bark at this person who was a jerk for not asking. It does go both ways—one thing Americans are pretty good about is waiting in line, waiting their turn. It seems to be fairly common for Europeans in some cultures to just jump to the front of the line or cut in line. In Ireland it also did not seem to be a breach of etiquette to loudly take a cell phone call at the bar in a pub. People will do that in the U.S. too but most people would agree it's kind of obnoxious. When we were in Venice in 2007 I have to admit I absentmindedly put my feet on the seat of a vaporetto. It was not done willfully, I just was not thinking. Some local old man made made it clear that this was not o.k., using sign language. His manners were not so good either as he was also blatantly was making eyes at my wife right in front of me. She got a kick out of it but I did not like it much.

sorry... when one mentions the "bison incident," I thought automatically of the one here in SF some years ago in Golden Park where a dog with this woman somehow got into the bison compound and even though the vets checked out that young bison with everything seemingly all right, a day or two later it died. Just bad news and needless.

Let's just face it, tourists can be really annoying to many locals just by their mere presence, especially if they come in large numbers. Even if they are not treating the locals themselves as a tourist attraction, they are treating their home city and evnironment as a tourist attraction, disrupting their daily lives and everyday bussiness and that can be equally annoying.
My favourite pet peevee here in Copenhagen is tourists on bicycles. Copenhagen is famous for it's bicycle culture and many tourists feel that they must try riding around on bikes here. The problem is that for many Copenhageners the bicycle is their daily commute and there are rules of the road that needs to be followed, but some tourists see the bike as a toy and bumble their way around in the middle of traffic, blocking the way and ringing their bells like it's a toy. Imagine someone renting a car, withoput a drivers license, just to experience the famous LA traffic, changing lanes without warning and blasting their horn all the time or riding a rush hour subway and treating it like a rollercoaster ride.

And the overly friendly Alabama lady or the guy interrupting the card game would get nothing but cold stares here in Denmark, unless it's after 5-6 beers, then you are my best new friend!

"...nothing but cold stares here in Denmark." Exactly why I told her to cool it and why the reaction of the European girls was the way it was.