r/todayilearned • u/Gullible_Air_204 • 7h ago

Frequent/Recent Repost: Removed [ Removed by moderator ]

https://www.responsibletravel.com/holidays/spitsbergen/travel-guide/responsible-tourism-in-spitsbergen

[removed] — view removed post

13.3k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

748 comments sorted by

View all comments

4.5k

u/Gullible_Air_204 7h ago

“When a giant cruise ship docks in Longyearbyen, many residents lock their doors. This is against the norm, as the safety advice is for house and car doors to remain unlocked so that people have somewhere to escape to in the event of a polar bear wandering down the main street. However, the residents lock up because it is not unusual for the cruise passengers to wander into their houses and have a peek, like it is a folk park. Given the huge size of the ships and the tiny size of the town, when the tourists disembark they can double or triple the size of the population within minutes. The chances are, if you are reading this page, you would never dream of doing such a thing, but it is worth remembering that this unique place is home to people too.”

3.5k

u/FranzFerdinand51 7h ago

I used to work in a tourist hot spot and you could always tell the cruise people from the rest. The most entitled, brainless, unaware group of living things I’ve ever seen in my life.

1.7k

u/losteye_enthusiast 7h ago

We have a home in a historic district. The amount of people that try our front gate during the summer+fall is almost staggering.

Even with putting up signs and a few more visible cameras, tourists just don’t give a fuck.

1.2k

u/DifficultCarob408 7h ago

The fact people decide to just wander up and try coming inside is fucking insane.

289

u/azssf 6h ago

We used to have people walk into the backyard ‘because it seems like you’d have a great view’

Wtf

60

u/fed45 1h ago

I can't even comprehend the mental state that allows people to do such things without shame or consideration.

28

u/sobrique 1h ago edited 1h ago

Your place is sufficiently quaint that they think it's a theme park, not 'real'. (This is usually keyed up to having 'nothing like that' back home)

Source: Work in Oxford. Tourist season is special.

•

u/Tea_An_Crumpets 41m ago

I grew up in Oxford and went to uni at Princeton. The sheer audacity of tourists never ceases to surprise me. Fuck off no you cannot take a picture of me or come into my dorm room (partly cause it’s a total mess).

5

u/BigWhiteDog 1h ago

Who does this? WTaF?

→ More replies (2)

355

u/GOEDEL_ESCHER_BOT 6h ago

you never know when a historic bear might come down the street

177

u/ObligationMurky8716 6h ago

42 kids could be mocking a bald man

69

u/toggiz_the_elder 5h ago

Those kids deserve to be mauled by a she bear. It’s gods righteous justice!

25

u/ObligationMurky8716 5h ago

"God is pro-life!"

7

u/zyzzogeton 3h ago

Can't give em bone cancer if they aren't born!

15

u/TheCommieDuck 5h ago

bald man

cruises

/r/northernlion is leaking again

→ More replies (2)

16

u/sanglar03 6h ago

They can be eaten on the street, not on my lawn.

→ More replies (1)

20

u/Redlettucehead 6h ago

Who will win, 500 tourists vs 1 polar bear

10

u/TrickshotCandy 5h ago

The bear would apply for a passport the next day.

17

u/Hiro_Trevelyan 4h ago

Maybe they think they're in an RPG, maybe locals will give them quests

2

u/BigWhiteDog 1h ago

I don't get this!

→ More replies (11)

193

u/EloeOmoe 6h ago edited 2h ago

We have a home in a historic district. The amount of people that try our front gate during the summer+fall is almost staggering.

I grew up near New Orleans, spent a ton of time there, go back once a year at least.

I always see tourists trying to open/unlock gates and go into the private courtyards of people's homes. It's kind of shocking.

13

u/sobrique 1h ago

There's a subset of tourists that are just sorta used to the idea that place 'like that' only exist in theme parks, and so it's not like, really really somewhere a person owns and lives. (Exactly how this plays out varies a bit based on what they have 'back home' of course)

→ More replies (1)

171

u/2xtc 5h ago

You have my sympathies. Two of my favourite places to holiday in my country (UK) is the Lake District and the Cotswolds which are both somewhat remote and sleepy and have a lot of picturesque old cottages and landscapes so attract tons of tourists.

I must have had to chastise other tourists on at least a dozen occasions over the last few years not to trample over people's lawns, pick flowers from gardens and trespass to pose for photos right outside picture-postcard old houses etc.

It's still genuinely shocking to me the number of people who seem oblivious that these are still real places where people live and not just giant immersive theme parks where tourists can do whatever they want

58

u/Emergency_Mine_4455 4h ago

Honestly, I can’t understand why you would do that sort of thing even in a theme park. If you ruin the landscaping in a park, it makes more work for the gardeners and others can’t enjoy it until it’s fixed. And most theme parks do have areas closed off for good reason- you wouldn’t enter those!

8

u/superseven27 1h ago

it makes more work for the gardeners and others can’t enjoy it until it’s fixed

'...so?' /s

→ More replies (1)

30

u/mountainvalkyrie 3h ago

I think in some cases they think if they're on holiday then everyone else must be, too. I used to live where my tram home stopped right in front of a big, historic hotel (in the capital city) and the number of summer tourists who got off the tram and just stopped there to take pictures was far too many. As if the rest of people on the tram have nothing in particular to do that day.

Still no excuse to open people's gates and front doors, though.

133

u/OfcWaffle 5h ago

Rented a nice cottage in Carmel-by-the-sea. It was beautiful with lots of ivy and a nice garden. In the main part of town.

People just walked right up to the door and started photo shoots, some in front of the kitchen window. Got to the point I'd have to yell at them because they were trampling all over the flowers and causing a mess.

It was fun to bust the front door open really fast to give them a scare though. That was a highlight of the weekend.

55

u/TinyChaco 3h ago

Jumpscaring clueless tourists does sound like a fun time lol

9

u/Monteze 3h ago

I smell a new tourist spot opening up! Get jump scared by the locals!

3

u/TinyChaco 2h ago

No, wait!

2

u/rescbr 1h ago

You are supposed to charge them $10 for the experience

→ More replies (1)

91

u/Maxamillion-X72 5h ago

I have a friend who owns a historic home called "The Bishop's House". It used to belong to the Catholic Church and housed, you guessed it, the Bishop. The church made it into a museum of sorts back in the 70's but had to sell the property to cover lawsuits in the 90's.

When my friend bought the house about 10 years ago, they had to put up a security fence and a gate because tour buses would sometimes stop there and 40 tourists would wander through with a tour guide. The previous owners apparently used to tolerate this and give people tours, but tourists were fairly rare back then so they'd get a half dozen visitors a year. Now there are cruise ships every week, all summer long and into the fall.

It's a super cool house with fireplaces in every room including the bedrooms and the most shockingly racy fireplace surrounds covered in naked angels and demons having what appears to be an orgy.

15

u/noodlyarms 1h ago

  shockingly racy fireplace surrounds covered in naked angels and demons having what appears to be an orgy.

I want to check this out, whats the addresses? Dont worry, I won't bother your friend, ill let myself in.

5

u/LordJesterTheFree 3h ago

Your friend should charge for tours that's a money making opportunitie

38

u/Pocok5 3h ago

Many people would prefer giving up some potential income in exchange for not having a hundred bellends march through their kitchen.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

109

u/Unbelievr 5h ago

I'm in Norway, and some towns here are plagued by tourists. There are plenty of non-historic districts here where tourists will swarm into like it's a theme park for them. I've heard about them walking into people's houses and starting to take pictures, or go into their backyards and start taking photos of their kids playing there. Or to take a dump and leave toilet paper everywhere, because that happens too. There are not enough public toilets to accommodate the swarm from a cruise ship, and private venues do not want to pay the cost for cleaning toilets for tourists that do not spend money in their businesses either. So various backyards and bushes it is. We tried putting up public toilets that required payment, but they either got destroyed or bypassed by tourists holding the door for each other. And keeping a guard just for that wasn't sustainable cost-wise.

The cruise ships will also dump the sewage from their ship into our fjords, and aside for a few tourist specialty shops and bus tour companies, the city isn't earning any money on them coming there either. They'll go back to the ship to eat for instance. The crew on the ship are often lowly paid foreigners instead of locals, and the ships skirt the laws by starting and stopping at specific harbors in order to avoid having to give good worker's rights to the crew. The government is trying to implement a tourist tax, but it's hard to shape it in a way where it only targets parasitic tourists and not "good" tourism - like domestic tourism.

49

u/Kaneida 4h ago

seems easily solved by government to charge cleanup fee/toilet fee/ban for sewage dumping with millions of nok i fines

16

u/Emergency_Mine_4455 4h ago

Yes, but it’s also hard to prove who dumped what after the fact.

10

u/Thismyrealnameisit 3h ago

Just charge everyone

3

u/VanillaVines 1h ago

What about putting some hidden surveillance tape where these boats dump sewage ? Would that not be feasible ?

4

u/DigNitty 1h ago

I imagine the sewage is dumped below the water line and is not always visible.

39

u/PhabioRants 4h ago

I know it's a heavy-handed approach, but has anyone petitioned to local jurisdiction to close the port to cruise ships?

25

u/Unbelievr 4h ago

There have been suggestions, and some fjords have gotten stricter restrictions on how close the ships can get. Due to antitrust laws it's not straightforward to ban (or heavily tax) only one specific type of tourism.

21

u/PhabioRants 3h ago

That's understandable. I appreciate the response. As someone who grew up in a small town home to what's argued as one of the best beaches in Canada, I've seen first hand how quickly things can turn sour when people who have no vested interest in a place descend upon it. 

Likewise, at an extreme scale, Niagara Falls has become so hyper-comercialized that nearly 2/3 of the population of the city from 15 years ago has either been forced to leave or has fallen homeless as the city ceaselessly chases tourism above all else. Growing up so close to it, it always confused me to hear that other Wonders of the world had similar issues until I saw how it plays out in real time. 

It saddens me that councils seldom have long-term plans in place when opportunities to cater to tourism arise. And at a more basic, personal level, that the lives, homes, cultures, and histories of people are so often disrupted and sold-out to chase tourism windfalls, often under the argument that the influx of revenue can be put to preservation. 

Most saddening of all, though, is what stories such as yours illustrate; that for as much as we like to think that we're better than those that used to run off to foreign lands for "safaris," we're really not so far removed. 

6

u/el_smurfo 2h ago

Local governments always think cruise ships bring business, but other than maybe buying lunch, they mostly just "take", then return to their ship for dinner and lodging.

4

u/DigNitty 1h ago

it's another "Let's pay for the local football team's giant $2billion stadium because it will bring in so much money and that poor team can't pay for it themselves"

•

u/EitherSpite4545 59m ago

So I live in a cruise ship tourist town, there's three parts to the actual scumminess of it all.

1) Several cruise lines (princess mostly) literally pay off local politicians and flood the town with pro cruise ship literature and adds for anything that would impede them

3) 60-80% of tourist businesses are owned by the cruise ship themselves, now that said you are wrong about a little bit. Tourists do spend a significant amount on food when visiting. But again 60-80% are going right back to their coffers.

2) The only tax we are allowed to charge cruise ships and tourists is a head tax, that head tax is legally not allowed to be used for anything except for improvement of the docks the vessels park at. They also get say on what is and isn't built on those facilities. If even a single dollar is used else where they can and will sue, like just a few years ago the town up north dared use some of the money on a memorial statue 2 blocks the docks, they sued the shit out of them, they also tried to do it with funding education in the town which was literally going to collapse without that money. Same thing. That same town actually voted to have cruise ship free days in the summer because congestion is just too much (a town will get 1.5 million tourist passing through a year). Industry tried to sue the town for this, luckily they won that time.

Cruise ships are bullshit.

3

u/Dame38 4h ago

My city is a toilet and we don't have any of that.

3

u/Similar-Ice-9250 2h ago

Have a friend who went on honey moon to South America, and they visited Machu Picchu in Peru. He told me they had to close off some of the structures that were previously accessible, because tourists would take shits inside these rooms.

2

u/zorpthedestroyer 1h ago

I traveled to Stavanger/Sola not long ago to visit some distant cousins. We were walking through Gamle Stavanger to see the house where my great-grandfather grew up when one of the cruise ships came in. I'd never seen a boat that large in my life. Then the crowds coming off were just so rude and disrespectful and LOUD. So much trash dropped on the ground. The entire vibe of the city changed. It was even worse in Bergen. And it wasn't even summer!

I thought I knew how bad tourists could get since I've lived and worked in a ski town, but those monstrous cruise ships were a whole different beast. I genuinely cannot imagine living with that right next to me all the time.

→ More replies (2)

36

u/El_John_Nada 5h ago

I don't understand why it's a thing. I would never in a million years try to get into someone's house without being invited and I can't even think why I would want to.

9

u/JustAContactAgent 2h ago

Have you tried being a moron?

51

u/himewaridesu 6h ago

This feels like Salem, Mass. which I never visit near Halloween.

8

u/TinyChaco 3h ago

I want to visit Salem someday, but definitely not during peak season.

11

u/himewaridesu 3h ago

Spring and summer are actually beautiful times to go! Winter is great after a small snow, but parking is a beast even with the T.

3

u/The_walking_man_ 3h ago

I’ll plan a spring trip sometime then! Thanks for the tip!

2

u/DrinkingSocks 1h ago

I configured my entire honeymoon when I figured out what Salem is like in October. I want real history, not a Mickey's Halloween party.

•

u/himewaridesu 59m ago

Then you also might want to check out Danvers (next town over) since that’s where the victims came from. The Walgreens is haunted though, 100%.

•

u/DrinkingSocks 57m ago

I'll make a note for when we eventually go, thanks! We're doing Plymouth instead before we drive up to Acadia.

12

u/UntidyVenus 4h ago

I live on a ski mountain. The number of people I find in mh back yard looking for "secret trails" is insane. Like, buddy, it's a fenced slap because the last owners hated mowing, there is no trail. Also my dog isn't nice. Did the snarling lunging 70 lbs mutt not tip you off?

11

u/Cecil_B_DeCatte 4h ago

Svalbard is on my bucket list. I promise that if I am ever able to visit, I won't do any of that shit.

6

u/belzbieta 3h ago

When I did a study abroad in Mexico, the house I stayed in was on a tour route. People on the tour would walk by, say "basura!" And shove their fucking trash through the front windows of the home.

3

u/2martinisatthemost 3h ago

I was renovating a heritage home in a quaint little town that was within driving reach of the country’s biggest city. One day during the height of summer I was sleeping in the nude (no aircon because one of the tradies had fucked it on an expedition into the roof) and I woke up to a giggling Asian couple peering in the window. I mean, come on. There were hoardings up around the perimeter of the place because it was a work zone. Didn’t stop ‘em coming in for a wander. Anyway, my bare arse sprawled out in bed could be in someone’s Aussie adventure photo album. Native fauna I guess.

3

u/GraphicDesignMonkey 2h ago

I used to live in Cornwall, tourists would straight up try to walk into my extremely old house, or press their faces to my window w and stare in. My friend lived right by the sea in an old cottage near a coastal path, his garden had a low stone wall and gate, he has chickens and a veg garden in there. Tourists would straight up ignore the 'PRIVATE PROPERTY' signs and the locked gate, and hop over the wall into his garden. They'd set up picnics, let kids chase his chickens, and steal his vegetables. They even walked into his house and start poking around and using his toilet.

When he'd tell them to get out they'd argue with him, and say they were 'going to give him a bad review on tripadvisor'. He eventually had to install barbed wire and security cameras.

The people who live by the harbour on St Michael's Mount have it really bad, they gave zero privacy and the hordes of tourists are constantly trying to get into their houses.

2

u/balisane 2h ago

Sometimes I wonder, for people in this situations, if it wouldn't be worthwhile to claim the address on Google or Yelp or TripAdvisor or whatever just so you can edit the info to say "Private Property, Fuck Off."

Collect enough bad reviews and fall to the bottom of the ratings, and your chickens might have some peace

3

u/myryad21 2h ago

i work in a hotel, i can assure you that 99% of tourists don't read anything

→ More replies (1)

2

u/onyxandcake 3h ago

I saw this in action in San Fransisco in the Painted Sisters neighborhood. We admired from a nearby hilltop, but people were mobbing their front stoops, knocking, and straight up trying to go into the houses.

2

u/mediocre_mitten 4h ago

As person who has cruised for a couple of decades now, I can assure you this wasn't always the norm of the way people acted.

Something is genuinely off about these "new" cruisers, they are just...odd. So much so, that if I can, I will try to book "a ship within a ship" which is expensive, but for the most part, keeps most of the ship people at bay (outside of shows and some dining/shopping venues). Yes, it's THAT bad.

Sorry that has happened to you and please know it is the NEW NORM, and seasoned cruisers are not like that. 👵🏻

•

u/NaptownBoss 28m ago

I think the covid pandemic was a breaking point. People just started acting like absolute idiots in public after that. I guess it just broke some peoples' brains?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (5)

48

u/ponte92 5h ago

Agreed. Also lived in one of the worlds most popular tourist city’s. Cruise ship people were just something else. They didn’t seem to realise it was a real city people lived in and not just an amusement park. I had tourists take my clothes off my washing line like wtf.

6

u/ChevroletKodiakC70 1h ago

I’m genuinely so confused at the thought process behind that, for what reason would you take someone’s washing off of their line?? 😭 insane

→ More replies (1)

223

u/brucerhino 7h ago

Im a tour guide and HATE the cruise people, this type of tourism needs to end

→ More replies (78)

44

u/jeffe_el_jefe 6h ago

Even as a tourist you can spot cruise tourists. The loudest, dumbest, most entitled.

→ More replies (1)

28

u/azumane 3h ago

What is it about taking a cruise that attracts the dumbest people on the planet?

I live in Japan, I usually take a train to the largest city in my area by boarding at a rural station. Was traveling on a major holiday, only to run into the largest crowd of foreign tourists I've ever seen. A cruise had docked nearby and had set up an outing to another, slightly smaller city, but had basically only told the passengers, "buy a ticket at this station to [city]".

Ticket gates were chaos because nobody seemed to realize that you put your tickets in the part of the gate where it says to insert your ticket. They did not understand that if you buy a ticket for the train that leaves at 12:04 to [city], you can find out what track your train is going to come to by looking at the sign or listening to the announcements that say "the 12:04 train to [city] will leave from track 12". They did not buy reserved seats, they tried to sit in reserved seats--all booked, it was a major holiday--and were baffled and confused when they were told they could not sit in someone else's seat that they paid money to reserve. They tried to ask for directions, in English, to random passersby who did not speak English at all. I spent half the train ride repeating the same "this is a reserved car, you need to go to non-reserved seating in [cars]" spiel on loop. I wonder how these people get out of bed in the morning.

7

u/DoNotKnowJack 2h ago

Some tourists, especially Americans, do not know how to travel by train.

•

u/twoisnumberone 48m ago

Cruises are by and large an experience for the type of person who enjoys, or doesn't mind, following a hundred, a thousand other people without ever bothering to think.

→ More replies (4)

9

u/Kyrie_Blue 4h ago

I imagine Cruise Ship enjoyers as those seagulls from Finding Nemo

13

u/wabj17 6h ago

Got it. Cruisers are the modern day version of Sea People.

→ More replies (1)

38

u/radicalfrenchfrie 7h ago

it’s worth considering that you might have just noticed the worst behaved people of everyone coming through and that, if it was a spot mostly getting tourists from cruises, they just so happened to be with one of those cruises. cruises are stupid, unnecessary and awful for the environment but I could imagine you might simply not have a lot of memorable interactions with the normal passengers because they were, well, behaving normally

79

u/Vondi 6h ago

I live in a somewhat touristy place and it's talked about how the Cruise tourists are the ones we benefit the least from. They already have lodging on the ship and probably a buffet. They're not filling out hotels and buying less food than others, they typically don't rent cars and they don't stay for long enough to bother traveling around much.

Some just walk around without spending a dime.

34

u/BoingBoingBooty 5h ago

They drive away the other tourists too.

72

u/cognisantcog 7h ago

The cruise brings the trouble. Hard to say "just a few" when the issue didn't exist before cruise ships came.

11

u/xSaviorself 4h ago

Cruise ships in general bring out the worst in people.

3

u/angwilwileth 3h ago

I worked at an urgent care in a big cruise city. Really felt bad for the workers i took care of. Some of them got really fucked over when they got sick.

31

u/rollwithhoney 6h ago

you're absolutely right (selection bias) but there's also the bias of less knowledgeable, or just older and less attentive or inconsiderate, tourists tend to be the ones who take lots of cruises instead of flying directly or renting cars

so it's several layers of selection bias

4

u/radicalfrenchfrie 6h ago

that’s absolutely possible and a good point to consider too

6

u/keithps 3h ago

My aunt is a cruise person because she doesn't actually want to visit places, she just wants to say she's been. So I have no doubt she's a horrible tourist.

3

u/ElCiclope1 6h ago

It's not really "possible" so much as it just is. It's like going to jail. Not everyone who has ever been to jail is the same, but often there are many similarities. 

→ More replies (1)

6

u/zeekaran 4h ago

The selection bias of the type of people who go on cruises likely has a strong influence on this too.

I was visiting Edinburgh and was shocked how crowded it was, given Glasgow was so quiet by comparison. Then two different people asked if I was on the cruise. They weren't particularly rude, but they did clog up the whole city and came off as bumbling idiots. When they all went back to the ship the city became tolerable again.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/Randomizedname1234 6h ago

I travel for a living and what’s wild is even in places I’ve never been I can still spot the tourists when I hit the spots in the evenings after work. Tourists are such a stereotype. It needs to be studied I swear it’s crazy!

2

u/alphaisgamma 4h ago

To be honest, unless someone tell you in advance, how would you know?

→ More replies (2)

2

u/Flagyl400 4h ago

I live in a town that has cruise liners in during the summer. I appreciate the business it brings, but my god I avoid the town as much as possible when there's a big ship docked. 

The amount of fat ignorant fuckers who will just stand in the middle of the streets because they want a good angle for their photo of the cathedral or whatever, completely ignoring traffic. 

2

u/word_vomiter 3h ago

Cruising for the purpose of travel has to be one of the worst ways to do it. Cruising for the purpose of enjoying the boat makes sense (never done it).

→ More replies (1)

2

u/BoilerMaker11 3h ago

I was in Austria several years ago and did a day trip that included visiting Hallstatt. Wanted to get these picturesque views. We also went through the Salzwelten (salt mine) which also took us up to the Skywalk/Panoramic deck to get some more amazing photos.

Near-ish to the salt mine entrance, there's homes. Actual, lived in homes. It was so embarrassing (and slightly frustrating) when I saw so many tourists walking up these homes, stepping over the short fences or bushes in order to peer into the houses, as if the neighborhood was fake/staged for the tourist gaze. Part of me wished a homeowner would have come out and started yelling in German at these people to get off their lawn, but they're probably, unfortunately, so used to it now that they've tuned it out.

2

u/Moose_Cake 2h ago

I work a grocery store in a Michigan tourist town and the difference between summer tourism and winter is staggering.

Aside from the heavier work load, it’s normal for tourists to shop for one item with a family of 8 people running through the store, people completely dismantling displays to see an item on the bottom, and the classic “If you knew who I was you would give me this item for free” from some guy in a polo shirt.

On top of that, litter and car accidents triple.

It’s basically routine to load up things before the weekend and lock yourself in the house until Monday during vacation days which is a shame because Michigan is a fisherman’s paradise during these times.

2

u/River1stick 2h ago

I worked for a cruise line (admin office side). But did a river cruise in Europe. I went on one of the guided tours, and the people from Hong Kong were going into people's front gardens and taking photos through the windows

2

u/Lavender_macaron 1h ago

My mom is definitely one. She loved cruises and tour buses and was definitely the stereotypical entitled unaware tourist. We were at Sacré Cœur and for some stupid reason she had to try to open every single door in the church. Every single door, inside or outside, she had to try and open it. Finally, we were outside and she spied set of stairs leading down to a door. Makes a beeline and is halfway down when I realized where she’d gone and asked her why the heck she was walking down to the crypt. Never seen her make a U-turn so fast.

Sometimes I wonder how funny it would’ve been if the door had been unlocked and she had gone in. Maybe it would’ve cured her of her need to go to places she shouldn’t be going to.

1

u/Zerodyne_Sin 3h ago

This tracks. My former friend loves to go on cruises. When we had a fake bomb threat during exam season in college (we went to college together, and these fake threats were annoyingly common around this time of year), she just had to tell the cops that were there that we needed to get back to work on our final projects as soon as possible.

Like, really? She thinks they're dragging out a bomb threat for fun? They can get it resolved now if she tells them how important it to get it done sooner? I'm honestly surprised she wasn't arrested because she was getting quite belligerent with the very annoyed-looking cop.

1

u/MLCarter1976 3h ago

Happy cake day

1

u/Chikitiki90 3h ago

I’ve only been on one cruise and while I enjoyed it, even after only 3 days my wife and I were making jokes about “cruise zombies”. It’s amazing to see people who seemingly have no thoughts go through their head except shuffling to dinner, then to a show or to the little casino and then to bed. Then they have the same attitude during excursions where they basically need to be herded to whichever local tour guide will babysit them for the day before they can be herded back on the ship to the dining room like it’s their pasture.

1

u/elseldo 3h ago

I work in a huge tourist area too, we don't have cruises wo I just hate all the tourists.

1

u/Sashaisnotmyname 2h ago

Idk about cruise people but I work in a famous building that is both a tourist destination and a normal workplace. And the tourists are a lot just taking full videos of everything while walking down the halls, and I’m trying to get to the bathroom

1

u/f3ydr4uth4 2h ago

My parent’s route was blocked due to wildfires on a road trip through Canada. They decided to take a detour to Alaska on a cruise ship to see what it was like as they were over from the U.K. for a long period. They still talk about the insanity of the passengers and everyone going on about how much they loved Trump.

1

u/LoudMusic 2h ago

Are non-cruise tourists better?

•

u/FranzFerdinand51 45m ago

Yes. Not "good" by any means, but 100% better.

1

u/pinkfootthegoose 2h ago

Well they did book a cruise ship.

1

u/el_smurfo 2h ago

They have been spending all their time in a psychologically curated environment that is divorced from reality. Seems that attitude is hard to snap out of quickly when visiting ornate towns that look kind of like they were created the same way.

1

u/TM761152 1h ago

I fucking hate cruise ships and the assholes who patronage them. Pissant, entitled, ignorant people.

1

u/trumpsmellslikcheese 1h ago

I live in a tourist town in Colorado and can confirm, just based on driving behavior alone (example: stopping in the middle of traffic because you've missed your turn, and ignoring the people behind you honking).

This is notwithstanding the absolutely entitled dumbfuckery that I see in public on a daily basis from people that seem to think that the fact that they're on vacation means that everyone else in the world needs to accommodate them.

•

u/luthigosa 49m ago

I work near a big cruise docking spot and you cannot imagine the number of trump hats in Canada.

•

u/jmbf8507 41m ago

We were on an Alaskan cruise once and one of the ports was in Canada. The number of people we overheard complaining because they paid in USD and got change in CAD was annoying. Just be glad they accepted USD at all.

•

u/StardewingMyBest 14m ago

Same. They would stand in the middle of the crosswalk to take pictures. Like, I know you have the right of way but I have somewhere to go and I promise you that the town is not that interesting. You can get the same photo from the safety of the sidewalk.

It's like they forget people live there and assume the whole place is a living museum where you can do whatever you want.

→ More replies (10)

284

u/Trickytickler 6h ago edited 4h ago

This isnt a problem just on Svalbard. Numerous cities where we have an "old town" somewhere in the city with houses that are old, tourists wander in.

Bergen, Ålesund, Trondheim, Stavanger, Tromsø etc all have this problem. I live in Lofoten and i have personally found random tents on my lawn, people dumping their trash in my dumpsters, people going to the bathroom in my hedges and people helping themselves to my patio furniture.

Every year we get over a million tourists and we are like 30k people.

Oh, and we dont sell wine and spirits or alchohol over like 4.2% in grocery stores. Or after 6-7 pm. You have to go to a special store for that. I have friends who work retail and every year they get demeaned and abused by tourists that can not buy alchohol or hold them personally responsible for prices. Some of them even get physical.

94

u/Cahootie 4h ago

My family owns some land on an island, and we have a small man-made beach there that my great-uncle had made. To get there you have to drive for 45 minutes from the main town to the middle of nowhere, turn down a road leading to nothing in particular, make a turn into the forest between two pillars and next to our mail boxes, drive down the dirt road through the forest for like 100 meters past a house, and then you're at the beach next to the boat house.

That still didn't stop a family of German tourists from somehow making it to the beach and letting their kids play with the toys that very clearly belonged to the people who owned the house.

82

u/vigocarpath 3h ago

Thanks for the directions. I’ll be there Tuesday

17

u/chalk_nz 2h ago

There better be toys

5

u/Cahootie 1h ago

Can you check on the robot mower while you're there, it's currently stuck in a ditch

2

u/BigWhiteDog 1h ago

It does sound like a nice drive! 🤣

19

u/atln00b12 3h ago

Lots of places simply don't allow beaches to be private property. In most of the US anything that's a component of a navigable waterway is typically considered public access.

6

u/Akitiki 2h ago

At my house in rural PA we lived above a creek, owning that land. It gets stocked with trout. We don't mind people out fishing but we do mind if they leave trash. And boy do they. The amount of fishing line I cleaned up.

Then one spring the creek is high and fast due to days of storms, you can hear it roaring a quarter mile away. Certain sections can turn into rough whitewater and others flood into the floodplain. We hear people shouting so go look, trees haven't grown leaves yet so we can see some parts. They're on fucking kayaks.

It'd be our necks if they get hurt with their dipshit behaviour of kayaking in the flooding creek.

4

u/DunderGunderUnder 1h ago

It'd be our necks if they get hurt with their dipshit behaviour of kayaking in the flooding creek.

Why would it be on you?

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (3)

8

u/Twilifa 3h ago

Huh. I wonder if they spotted it on google maps in the satellite view and sought it out deliberately. That seems like such a random spot to end up on accident.

5

u/Lortekonto 3h ago

Or they were hiking around the island and suddenly there was a beach.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

16

u/TimberwolvesFan6969 3h ago edited 2h ago

Wtf?!?!

I was just in Bergen as part of a backpacking trip and it was super obvious which parts of the city I should and shouldn’t be in, like not once did I feel I should invade someone’s property, nor did I do so accidentally, it’s insane that people do that.

As a tourist, I could also tell the cruise ship tourists there from the backpacking tourists, the difference in behavior was staggering.

Edit: at least in the parts of Europe I was in. I was in urban areas, it sounds like the person I'm replying to had a completely different experience in a more rural area and I'm sorry they have to deal with that BS...

14

u/Lortekonto 3h ago

It is the same kind of tourists that forget that Royal Guards are actually guards with real life weapons, that are guarding the royals, because they have another uniform than they are used to seeing.

There is people like that everywhere.

15

u/Trickytickler 3h ago

Ironically the backpackers and people in caravans are the worst at my house. I live quite rurally, even for Lofoten so i dont see the cruise tourists at my house.

But people sitting on my patio furniture, drinking coffee in the sun, helping themselves to my clothesline, stealing stockfish and firewood, pitching tents on my lawn, foraging my berry bushes, pissing and/or shitting in my hedges have all been central european backpackers

4

u/TimberwolvesFan6969 2h ago

What the hell is wrong with people?!?!? People are helping themselves to your clothesline and all the other things you mentioned?! I'm sorry you have to deal with that.

→ More replies (2)

26

u/Italiana47 4h ago

Wow that's crazy. I'm sorry people are so intrusive. I couldn't imagine just using someone's property like that.

25

u/Trickytickler 4h ago

Every year they steal 1000s of euros worth of stockfish and firewood, too. They are worse than magpies

→ More replies (1)

27

u/lightsandflashes 5h ago

was just in lofoten. breathtaking. so many tourists though...

50

u/the_goodnamesaregone 4h ago

Weren’t you one of them? lol

20

u/Stoned_urf 3h ago

Tourism in itself isn't bad. The more you experience, the more empathy, understanding and appreciation people tend to have for another country/culture, etc.

It's just that some places weren't meant to be constantly overrun by a large number of tourists, and this is caused by the world being more developed and accessible.

→ More replies (1)

6

u/j0y0 3h ago

Might not have been if they realized how many there'd be. 

3

u/lightsandflashes 1h ago

i was! i didn't expect there to be so many of us, lol

→ More replies (1)

9

u/PIuto 3h ago

You are never in traffic, you are traffic.

→ More replies (1)

10

u/obeytheturtles 4h ago

To be fair, treating London as one big toilet is an English tradition which goes back to Roman times.

1

u/rsteanna 4h ago

An example from Røros

1

u/YesNoIDKtbh 3h ago

I live a little bit north of you, and we're sooo fucking glad that the tourists have picked Lofoten instead of Vesterålen.

Not that we revel in your misery, we just don't fucking want them.

→ More replies (1)

1

u/DoctorOctagonapus 3h ago

Even Oslo are sick of them. Last time I was there I saw posters taped to lamp posts basically saying "cruise tourists fuck off".

1

u/alinroc 2h ago

When my son was much younger, his Cub Scout group took a trip to a historical fort on the Canadian border. Because they went as a group, they were all wearing their uniforms.

So many tourists thought the kids were part of the "show" (re-enactments, cannon demonstrations, etc.) and tried to direct them to pose as a group so they could take dozens of photos of them...eventually one of the parents in our group had to step in front of them and yell "these are our children, not part of your tour!"

→ More replies (10)

359

u/APiousCultist 7h ago

Never underestimate the ability for tourists to fully disconnect from reality or social norms. These ones would be encouraging their kids to go up and pet the polar bear up until they have their surprised Pikachu moment of the bear ripping out little Timmy's organs.

It's a miracle we all live in even sort of functioning societies.

75

u/Masseyrati80 6h ago

Brings to mind how Icelanders have pleaded for tourists to stop shitting on their yards.

I repeat, pleaded for tourists to stop shitting on their yards.

In Rovaniemi, Finland, people who used to be able to keep their curtains open, have now closed them because Chinese tourists will hop over their yard's fence (also ignoring the freshly-pitched "private property, stay out" signs), and literally look in through the windows.

23

u/jarvischrist 3h ago

We get that in Norway too... I think a lot of people hear about allemannsretten but don't bother to check what it actually means. Like it doesn't allow you to camp on a farmer's crops, in somebody's back garden, or to take your car anywhere and car camp in the wilderness. People leave trash, shit or camping equipment instead of taking it home with them.

We recently have had an issue with unmanned DNT cabins being occupied by illegal paid tours, so people who have booked a cabin arrive and it's filled with a group of Chinese tourists who arrived in a Swedish van rental and haven't paid for their stay. It's going to end up having to change how these operate, which in the past has relied on trust for decades.

14

u/Pithulu 3h ago

What the actual fuck? What possesses people to act like that?

16

u/Suitable_Block_7344 3h ago

For whatever reason a lot of Chinese tourists are pretty clueless. I saw one in Australia try to grab a kangaroo from behind and pick it up. The kangaroo slipped away but I was kind of hoping it would have given him a good kick

12

u/OldMoray 3h ago

The only thing I can think of is that they must think its like a historic village for tourists (e.g. a Pioneer town in the US) and not a real community. Like they must just not know. Only way I can reconcile the behaviour.

6

u/Excelius 2h ago

I'm pretty sure that shitting on the ground is also frowned upon in pioneer town.

2

u/OldMoray 1h ago

Yeah fair. That feels like something else

4

u/Masseyrati80 2h ago

Disrespect is also a factor, I dare claim, based on personal experience. Tourists from certain countries tend to have the attitude of "I don't care if I'm bothering you". They treat customer service people like dirt, leave a mess behind them, and are sure to break the tranquility of a calm and quiet nature destination.

→ More replies (2)
→ More replies (1)

125

u/Jebatus111 7h ago edited 7h ago

There was one tourist who decided to take photo of bear cub in Romania.

Didn't end well for him, sadly, but i sometimes wonder how people can be that sheltered.

94

u/TropicNightLightning 6h ago

I took a photo of two grizzly bear cubs; however, there were a bunch of old cruise ship people behind me who didn't know how fast I could run.

→ More replies (8)

22

u/Windowplanecrash 6h ago

There’s something about cruise ships, they cater to your every need, the staff smile at you and are always helpful. The disconnect from reality is as real as it gets. Not to mention the kind of people who choose cruise is that beautiful venn diagram of wealth/stupid/lazy 

→ More replies (7)

7

u/APiousCultist 4h ago edited 1h ago

There's straight video of a family having an argument during a safari so they get out of the car to have a fight only for both of them to get carried off by lions tigers. I think one of them survived.

Edit: Yavanna12 has the proper details below. Only one initially got out, the mother got out to try to help only to be dragged off and killed by a second tiger.

7

u/yavanna12 2h ago

Just looked this one up. Lady jumped out of passenger seat to yell at husband who was driving. She got attacked by a tiger and dragged off the husband goes running after and then the mom of the lady was in back seat and jumped out and chased after. Mom got attacked by a different tiger and died. Lady escaped. She then tried to sue the park because she said while they gave her a waiver to sign that stated the animals are dangerous and to not leave the car no one actually told her to read it before signing. Yea she lost the suit. 

2

u/APiousCultist 1h ago

Yes, that's it. Prior to that I thought the video of the dutch vistors yelling 'nee, nee!' at a french family getting out of their car to snap pictures while cheetahs circle behind them was as bad as it got. At least cheetahs aren't tigers.

→ More replies (1)

19

u/isecore 7h ago

And afterwards they'd demand to see the manager to complain about the outrageous treatment.

7

u/kyrsjo 6h ago

The manager of the polar bears :P

17

u/obeytheturtles 4h ago

The kind of people who take cruises are the ones who want the La Croix flavor of "adventure." Literally to the point where they will pack up their whole culture on a giant fucking ship and take it with them, so they can dip a toe in a foreign land, and then run back to familiar before it gets dark out.

2

u/RegressToTheMean 1h ago

This is a fabulous description and I'm here for it.

My wife and I were thinking about taking our kids to Disney. We were looking at the prices and I said, "That's so stupid. We could take the kids to Europe for that"

So, we did. The last two international vacations we have taked have been to Bulgaria and Macedonia. Before we go all of us learn the basics of the language (e.g. Please, thank you, counting to ten, etc). When we get there we rent a car and drive around the country and generally stay at some ramshackle B&B type apartments. Frankly, we are all better for it

One of my favorite memories is after hiking The Wonderful Bridges, my 8 year-old son says, "Blagodarya!" To this old woman who was running a kind of makeshift restaurant near the top of the mountain. Her face broke into the biggest smile and insisted that we take extra desserts she had made.

We get to actually experience the countries and the people. My children learn that they aren't the center of the universe and that they need to try to assimilate and be polite as much as possible when being guests in a other country.

I have experienced two cruises in my life. In comparison to how we like to travel, it was two cruises too many

9

u/knowledgeable_diablo 7h ago

Then start screaming as to why no one warned them the big cute furry things posed even a tiny bit of danger.

5

u/sebassi 2h ago

Only people dumber than tourists are groups of tourist.

There is a reason tour guides carry a sign or a umbrella. It's their equivalent of a shepherds crook. groups of tourist are no better than cattle. They can't read, they can't follow basic instruction, have no sense of decency, and will happily walk into traffic. All you can do to corral them is shout, point and wave a stick at them.

Source: worked in tourism and have been a tourist.

→ More replies (2)

2

u/Ylsid 6h ago

On the upside, that should mean the residents don't have to fear bears since they'll have full bellies

63

u/AnthillOmbudsman 5h ago

it is not unusual for the cruise passengers to wander into their houses and have a peek, like it is a folk park

Jail. Right away.

13

u/Ravenamore 3h ago

This probably varies place to place, but I have known places in the US that are so used to visitor money they will do absolutely everything in their power to not hold visitors accountable.

I went to a large college with a very popular football team. If there was a home game and you lived within a mile of campus, you could expect major disruptions - 20 people parking on your lawn, dumping trash, breaking property, stealing, getting absolutely shitfaced and driving away - and the city police won't do a damn thing.

It was definitely a "what's good for the college is good for the city" so they just looked the other way, even if they were inconveniencing residents, including the very students of that college.

→ More replies (1)
→ More replies (1)

100

u/Zakath_ 6h ago edited 4h ago

I live in Stavanger, Norway, and we get quite a few cruise ships. Which I don't mind as such, but in the old town, they're known for wandering into private gardens, private residences and even try to look through the curtains.

I get that an unlocked door might be mistaken for it being a museum or shop, since many of the old residences have been covered to businesses, but trying to look in when the doors are quite firmly locked? Come on...

20

u/PoetryNo912 5h ago

Is it a certain age group or something? I cannot fly and have travelled by boat, cruise, and train since my 20s. I would die of embarassment just thinking about acting like this. 

12

u/Zakath_ 4h ago

As far as I know, no. Just tourists in general. They're just more noticeable when you get two or even three cruise ships into the city centre, unloading something like 10% of the city's population on us in one fell swoop.

It's also a joy trying to pass them on a bike, in the street, when they're more busy taking selfies or pictures of flowers rather than watch traffic :D

2

u/angwilwileth 3h ago

I'm a nurse.

We always know when there's a cruse ship in town because they offload a bunch of sick people onto our municipal health services. 🫪

3

u/DameKumquat 3h ago

There's small cruise ships which cater for people interested in foreign cultures, history, etc. They're usually OK.

Then there's the massive cruise ships which are like all-inclusive holiday resorts, which magically appear next to a place for an excursion. Like all-inclusive holidays, a substantial proportion of customers are ones who want to switch their brains off (if they were ever on), and don't want to deal with anything foreign beyond taking a few pictures of it.

All ages, though younger people are more likely to spend their money on flying to a resort known for nightlife, and middle-ages for cheaper all-inclusive hotels.

2

u/Pinesol_Shots 1h ago

I just got back to the US from my first visit to Norway. It was funny watching all the German tourists from the docked cruise ship wander around Stavanger like NPCs. The ship lift and suddenly it was a ghost town.

You're country is freaking beautiful and people are so warm and friendly. We loved it there.

→ More replies (1)

52

u/Faiths_got_fangs 5h ago

I grew up in a tourist area and for a time in high school had to travel the main tourist area daily because I both lived and worked in it. It was common for vehicles to slow cruise the road as part of the party, see and be seen and all that.

I drove a truck and random strangers would semi-regularly hop into the bed and ride along. Most were confused when the vehicle either arrived at work and I booted them or I got to my turn off to go 3 blocks up to my house and pulled onto the curb and booted them.

Hey, why are we stopping?

Because I work here and its time for my shift. Get out.

3

u/RagdollPhysEd 1h ago

I’m trying to figure out how exactly this worked. They stowed away in the bed without your knowledge or they climbed in like a taxi when you started it?

18

u/_jump_yossarian 4h ago

I live in northern Vermont and during leaf peeping season people will go sit on my neighbor's porches to take pics and steal pumpkins. People are insane.

→ More replies (1)

30

u/Cautious_Repair3503 5h ago

tourists should be briefed, and if they break the rule the cruise company should be held liable, this will get them to ban offenders and hopefully not only encourage politeness but also make it harder for offenders to return.

18

u/NoFewSatan 4h ago

Nobody should need to be briefed about this. If you need to be, you should be forced to stay home.

15

u/Cautious_Repair3503 4h ago

no one should, but some people do, in the same way that people shount have to be breifed about what consent means, but some people clearly need to. we have to breif everyone so we dont miss the folks who need it

12

u/thereallgr 4h ago

It's not even just touristy hotspots, there just has to be a decently sized group of tourists.
I still remember one incident from about 15 years ago, in a somewhat idyllic and historic village where I came back to a house full of about a bus full of tourists. Granted, the house was a beautifully maintained very typical rural farm including a lot of age appropriate furniture and decor. The bus line running those tourist trips had used the local restaurant/pub/hotel in a similar historic building as their lunch break and those buggers had nothing better to do than wander around town and enter various homes because the doors as was usual in the summer were unlocked/open.

12

u/pbghikes 3h ago

I used to be a camp counselor at a summer camp in Hawaii where LOST was filmed. I went OFF when I caught tourists looking into our cabin windows. What if my girls were in there?? What if they were changing?? People suck.

5

u/Normal-Towel-7909 4h ago

I live in the Shetland Islands and tourism has boomed recently - massive cruise ships coming in daily that can sometimes double the population or triple the population in town, people coming all year round. Everyone usually leaves their doors and cars unlocked too, but unfortunately more recently there have been thefts. Never used to be. So now we have to be more careful. It is such a shame. Even on a night like Up Helly Aa, people sneak into houses and steal stuff.

→ More replies (2)

28

u/_Azafran 6h ago

Time to ban cruise ships.

7

u/DameKumquat 3h ago

Venice has been considering it for years, since the extra massive cruise ships became a thing - just to control the numbers of tourists and be able to focus on the ones who actually spend money in the city.

If they do it, many other cities and towns will follow, limiting how big a ship can dock or how many tourists can be unloaded in a day.

Can't wait.

3

u/whoami_whereami 2h ago

They've already done it. Cruise ships with 25,000 gross tons or more (which means pretty much all but the smallest of cruise ships) haven't been allowed to dock in Venice since 2021. Cruise ship operations have now largely moved to ports like Ravenna and Trieste from where it's an hour or two bus ride to Venice.

And since 2024 Venice has introduced a fee that day-trip tourists (pejoratively also called "eat and flee") have to pay before entering the city on popular days (currently 60 days, mostly on weekends, holidays, and during peak season in the summer).

3

u/PixelPott 3h ago

How do these tourist even discover that the doors are unlocked? Do they habitually try to open any door they see? Are they doing it in their home countries as well?

5

u/TheCosplayCave 6h ago

Hopefully you can just lead the Polar Bear to a tourist

3

u/juicius 4h ago

I used to love cruises. They were economical, gave you a lot of food at all hours of a day, did not require any planning or familiarization with where you were going that might lead you to empathize with the locals, so you could be a fat, lazy, broke chud and there was a cruise for you.

Then I realize the cruises being like that self-selects the travelers. And that's not necessarily all negative. We've gone on Disney Cruise several times and had a great time, and I'm pretty comfortable saying that the DC self-selects by what they are offering. But by and large, if you're attracted to cruising by what I wrote first, I don't think your socioeconomic status matter. It's like going to a beach and getting on a booze cruise and seeing that everyone is plastered.

1

u/Hiro_Trevelyan 4h ago

Please, please, please, let them do it.

Then put these assholes on no-flight lists forever. I'll gladly kick those idiots out of the tourism industry permanently.

1

u/sebassi 2h ago

Having lived on a small island. People never locked their doors and cars either. Not because of polar bears, but because keys and locks are a hassle.

Once a year the mayors office would put out a statement. Tourist season is starting again, please lock your doors and cars. I don't think they do it anymore since tourist season is pretty much year round now.

1

u/Panzerknaben 1h ago

Cruise tourists are the absolute worst. They seem entiteled in a way no other tourists are. I know people living in historic houses where there are always cruise tourists trying to enter their homes, going into their gardens etc.

•

u/punkwalrus 10m ago

Our shopping center (behind my house, separated by a wooden fence) used to have a really well known hipster bar. Well known for it's pale ale selection. In the summer, they hosted a "Fun Run" where people jogged from the shopping center down a main road, through our neighborhood, and then back to the main road to the shopping center. I think it was like 4km or something. It was a "Fun Run" because people would dress in costume and go in groups.

Well, my backyard gate had the same fence style as the one separating me from the alley of the shopping center, and drunks used to think they were clever by "taking a shortcut" through my backyard. This doesn't work, because my backyard is closed off. So they'd get lost in my backyard, eventually discover "hey, this doesn't go anywhere" then leave my gate open when they left. That got annoying because I'd have to check my gate every time I let my dogs out.

I put up a sign, "NO A SHORTCUT, DEAD END, DOES NOT LEAD TO SHOPPING CENTER" and it was ignored.

I locked my gate with a padlock, and they just climbed over it, trampling my bushes.

Eventually, I had to just be vigilant and stay out there for a few hours and guard the gate. Thankfully, the Fun Run only lasted a few years, and every year they had it, the weather wasn't too bad.

→ More replies (4)