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Fellow tourist pet peeve

This isn't really specifically about RS tours, but about tours in general.

I've discovered a pet peeve that was a real problem on a recent tour I took, and I'm wondering if you have experienced the same thing, and what, if anything, you've done about it.

Some of the people on the tour insisted on comparing everything we saw and did with how it is back home. In some cases, it was asking questions like, "In the US, we have {insert US thing}; do you have that here?" This is pretty innocuous if it's a quick one-liner, but sometimes it got into a detailed description of things like the US healthcare system or the US banking system or US traffic laws.

Worse, much worse, were people who insisted on describing, in excrutiating detail, how things are in the US, sometimes as if the tour guide has never heard of such things, and sometimes dominating the time we have to ask questions or hear and learn from the guide. For example, in Vietnam, one woman from upstate New York spent about ten minutes describing the Woodstock festival to our tourguide. Afterwards, I pulled her aside and said, as nicely as possible, "I didn't come all the way to Vietnam to learn about things in the US. I came to listen and learn about Vietnam from people here." But it didn't get any better. I talked to the guide about it, and he said he was aware (he'd already heard about it from a guide in a previous destination). But he didn't really know how to put a stop to it.

Have you encountered this kind of thing? Any suggestions on how to turn it off?

Posted by
4660 posts

I've only been on one tour- it was an RS tour in France and didn't experience that. However our guide was French and had also lived in the US as a teacher for a few years. She did an incredible job each day on the bus describing everyday French life and how it is different than the US.

Posted by
3593 posts

Lane, having taken 3 tours (2 RS tours, 1 Road Scholar), I’m afraid this is the biggest reason for NOT being in a tour. All 3 of our tours have had um, to put it nicely, negative personalities or talkers who need attention like you describe. I don’t think you can avoid it or mitigate it.

When we were with the mountain gorillas in Uganda, we had one hour with them. One person in our group of 8, talked and asked questions of the ranger the whole hour. I just wanted to watch them in silence, but it was not to be. She yakked the whole time peppering the ranger with questions and looking at him, not at the Gorillas!!! All her questions could have been answered by a little research before or after. IMHO she wasted her money and negatively impacted my experience.

Posted by
9055 posts

Yes, on an RS tour. It was a person who had to comment on everything and hung at the tour guides elbow the whole time. I think he fancied himself to be the guide's friend rather than one of the group. His roommate was embarrassed. I think the guide found a way to shut him down after several days of this, by pointedly asking if anyone else had a question, before responding to him. He was a doctor, BTW, and I think it's common among them to believe they are experts in everything.

I think this is one of the advantages of the RS "no tipping" policy. The guide is not afraid to correct someone's behavior for fear of losing a tip.

Posted by
9292 posts

I’d politely ask; does it hurt? The reply “does what hurt.” I’d say “having your head up your ( term for rear end)” but that’s just me.

You could also simply say aloud the persons name followed with “ nobody cares,” or my favorite “where did you get your degree in anthropology, geography, genealogy, history,” etc., etc., etc. I have no problem in publicly shaming the so called know it all.

Let them whine.

Posted by
2785 posts

I have also experienced this phenomenon on tours, but also in all sorts of real life situations including work. Some folks live their lives literally out loud - whether it's anxiety, ego/desire to be center of attention, or just simply lack of self awareness. There are oh-so-many types of people and while that's a good thing much of the time, it can be super aggravating especially when you're paying good money for an experience (and not having to tolerate someone because you're paid to get along).

In the tour situation, I've had guides who tamed the chatters by setting ground rules, like telling the group they'll be talking about xyz for a bit, and will take questions after. When interrupted by Chatty McChatterson they politely put them off until question time. Others have offered to chat offline with people so they could move on. Some guides have ended up being quite blunt to cut people off - they didn't start that way but that turned out to be more effective tool for the personality in question.

There's only so much a guide can do, however. I was on a RS Spain tour with a very challenging person that asked the tour guide at nearly every stop if "that is the ocean?" even when we were hundreds of miles from the ocean. It became a sort of party game for the rest of us to guess when and where the question might get asked - sometimes you just have to make the most of it!

Posted by
8284 posts

It became a sort of party game for the rest of us to guess when and where the question might get asked - sometimes you just have to make the most of it!

Ha ha, that really made me laugh! It reminded me of when I was in law school. There was one student in the class who was what we called a “gunner.” He would shoot up his hand and answer every single question he could. It got to be annoying until we turned it into a game and guessed how many times he would raise his hand during class. The person to come closest won that day. :-)

Posted by
1940 posts

Just to be clear, I don't expect to enjoy the company of everyone else on a tour. And I don't object to people who ask lots of questions. (I may or may not be such a person.). My problem is people who think they're stories from back home are interesting to everyone else.

There are rwo nearly as annoying corralaries:

  • the person who thinks they should rephrase my question to make it clearer
  • the person who thinks I'm more interested intheir answer to my question than the guide's answer.
Posted by
3552 posts

Claudia:
Love your response…I’d be saying the same…inside my head of course…. ;)

Not a full tour, but on a short walking tour in Venice, a man went on and on before the start of the tour about how he wanted a different guide, who knows why.
Another guide was found for him, he left our group and our guide (who was lovely and knowledgeable), bowed his head with eyes closed for a minute, shook his head, then carried on.
We all gave him a big tip.

Posted by
9292 posts

Ages ago my mama told me “ -__holes come in all sizes.” Never forgot that piece of advice regarding the human race.

I can tolerate a lot of things but arrogance, selfishness and stupidity I won’t. And I’ll speak up.

On my 2022 trip in England some drunk 20 year olds got on a tube train and were challenging riders…

I stood up and got in the leaders face. Basically said
“Sit down and shut the H up.” He leered at me, I leered back and one of his cohorts said “ not worth it man.” They got off at the next stop.”

Could I have gotten stabbed? Yes? Did I think about that when I told him to shut up? No I didn’t.

Would I do it again? Absolutely.

Posted by
10334 posts

Lane, I agree, that would be supremely annoying. The situations that some others have mentioned too.

As someone mentioned, that annoying person is negatively affecting your experience that you paid for ! Ugh

Posted by
2696 posts

I inadvertently became the tour guide's pet on a wonderful London Walks tour of Hampstead last year--he would tell us about someone who had lived at the houses we were passing and then ask a question of the group that pertained to what the person was famous for or their indiscretions or who they were connected to; I, ahem, seemed to be the only one who knew the answers...I'd wait to see if others did, and then he'd look at me as if to say, well, go on then. It got to be a bit embarrassing, and I kept any answer very brief. Of course my knowledge of and interest in these famous people and the beauty of Hampstead itself was the very reason I took the tour and it was incredibly enjoyable--during the final trek back to the starting place the guide and I ended up having a lovely chat about our mutual favorite film makers, Powell & Pressburger. Otherwise in a tour group I tend to be the quiet person who never participates at all.

Posted by
4660 posts

The question reminds me of a dinner during our tour. Some of the veterans of multiple RS tours were raving about what a good group it was. They said that you could usually count on one annoying person per tour. I started wondering who it might be. Looking around I figured it wasn't him, or him, or her, until I went around the table and got back to me and thought to myself, "uhoh."

Posted by
617 posts

Again I’m afraid to what or who will happen on the 3 tours I’ve got lined up this year. Just read the posts about illness during travel and now this post. Ive done 9 RS tours and only on one where there was an overly chatty guy who was no where near as annoying as has just been described. So I’m leading a charmed life/or I’m doomed for my upcoming London, Village Italy and Loire South of France tours! Time will tell….

Posted by
10684 posts

Allan, that made me laugh out loud.

I’m taking my first tour in April in Australia, a small group of a maximum of 16 people. After reading these responses I’m a bit nervous. In my head I’ll be thinking of the things Claudia would say, but I wouldn’t say them out loud because I don’t want to embarrass the friend I will be traveling with.

Posted by
501 posts

We've done several tours (RS and others) and there's always "that one person." We still talk about some of them - like the one who plunked themselves down at the breakfast table on an immediately-post-COVID tour and announced "We're sick!" Or the ones who stand in front of That Historic Thing everyone wants a photo of, and take forever, oblivious of the line of people waiting. And yes, the ones who feel the need to compare everything to how it would be done in the US. My response is generally something like "Are we in the US? No?" or "I don't know about you, but I'm on this tour to learn about THIS country...maybe you can save this conversation for dinner" (and then of course not sit with them at dinner lol). I have not found the effective solution. Some people are just oblivious.

Posted by
20678 posts

Gwad forbid we identify differences and develop better understandings of cultures and learn. Best to be quiet and try not to notice, and for heaven sake, don't ask why.

Posted by
41 posts

There’s usually always one on every tour, although the type of annoyance changes. My first tour had a couple who constantly commented how they’d been everywhere we were visiting before and then complained loudly about everything our tour was doing from departure times to accommodations. The rest of us started wondering why they were on the tour in the first place. And we tried to avoid sitting near them. My last tour had more folks asking the “compared to in the US”-type of questions. I’m curious what kind of travelers I will encounter on my next tour. It takes all kinds to make a world!

Posted by
14901 posts

I think part of the solution is the skill of the tour guide and yes, probably whether they are counting on tips or not. I love CL's example of the tour guide putting someone off. Perhaps it is easier for guides from certain cultures to be very direct with tour members and perhaps for other cultures to have more difficulties.

Lane, I know your trip was in SE Asia...was the guide in question Asian?

And laughing about the Bingo/lottery situation for when or how many times a question is asked. Hopefully the Spain guide started every talk with "This is not the sea" after a while!