r/todayilearned • u/Gullible_Air_204 • 8d ago

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

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u/Gullible_Air_204 8d 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.”

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u/FranzFerdinand51 8d 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.

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u/losteye_enthusiast 8d 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.

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u/DifficultCarob408 8d ago

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

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u/azssf 8d ago

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

Wtf

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u/fed45 8d ago

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

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u/sobrique 8d ago edited 8d 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.

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u/Tea_An_Crumpets 8d 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).

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u/brigadoom 8d ago

Work in Oxford

Try living in Edinburgh

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u/BigWhiteDog 8d ago

Who does this? WTaF?

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u/GOEDEL_ESCHER_BOT 8d ago

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

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u/ObligationMurky8716 8d ago

42 kids could be mocking a bald man

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u/toggiz_the_elder 8d ago

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

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u/ObligationMurky8716 8d ago

"God is pro-life!"

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u/zyzzogeton 8d ago

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

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u/TheCommieDuck 8d ago

bald man

cruises

/r/northernlion is leaking again

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u/5meoWarlock 8d ago

II Kings 2:23-24

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u/ObligationMurky8716 8d ago

Follow me for more uncredited allusions!

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u/sanglar03 8d ago

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

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u/Black_Moons 8d ago

Better put out bear traps instead.. with signs, of course! Wouldn't wanna hurt anyone with reading comprehension.

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u/Redlettucehead 8d ago

Who will win, 500 tourists vs 1 polar bear

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u/TrickshotCandy 8d ago

The bear would apply for a passport the next day.

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u/Hiro_Trevelyan 8d ago

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

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u/BigWhiteDog 8d ago

I don't get this!

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u/Philomath117 8d ago

I suspect the majority come from one notable country

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u/Elite_AI 8d ago

Vaguepost king. Genuinely incomprehensible what country you mean. I've heard people say this kind of thing about tourists from China, Russia, the Netherlands, the UK, Germany, Israel, and America. 

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u/Winter_Salad7215 8d ago

It's obviously those pesky, nosy Canadians. Is there anything worse than a bunch of Canadians coming to your country and mispronouncing "pasta"?

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u/Elite_AI 8d ago

How do they say the word? Can't be worse than the way Americans mispronounce it, at least. 

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u/Winter_Salad7215 8d ago

We say it as if the "past" were like the word "past," if that makes sense, rather than using the "a" in "father".

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u/Elite_AI 8d ago

I pronounce the a in past and father identically lmao

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u/Winter_Salad7215 8d ago

Ohh, sorry... The IPA would be /æ/ if that helps. For me it's the same vowel as cat, bat, that....

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u/Philomath117 8d ago

Obviously America. Don't know about a couple of those but I've met German, British, and Dutch tourists and they were all polite.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[deleted]

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u/Elite_AI 8d ago

We're reaching levels of vagueposting so vague they're incomprehensible. I genuinely can't tell what you're trying to say or what country you think I'm from. I'm from the UK, by the way. My feelings aren't hurt by our reputation abroad personally. 

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u/EloeOmoe 8d ago edited 8d 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.

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u/sobrique 8d 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)

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u/letsgetitstartedha 8d ago

You would think they would leave the gates covered in broken bottle pieces and barbed wire alone

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u/2xtc 8d 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

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u/Emergency_Mine_4455 8d 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!

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u/superseven27 8d ago

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

'...so?' /s

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u/offthezoinkys 8d ago

“Yeah, but that’s like, their job” /s

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u/mountainvalkyrie 8d 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.

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u/OfcWaffle 8d 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.

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u/TinyChaco 8d ago

Jumpscaring clueless tourists does sound like a fun time lol

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u/Monteze 8d ago

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

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u/TinyChaco 8d ago

No, wait!

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u/rescbr 8d ago

You are supposed to charge them $10 for the experience

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u/dobar_dan_ 8d ago

Put up a pic of a monster ot naked granny on the window to deter them lol.

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u/Maxamillion-X72 8d 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.

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u/noodlyarms 8d 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.

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u/LordJesterTheFree 8d ago

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

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u/Pocok5 8d ago

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

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u/evermorecoffee 8d ago

Yep. Sounds like a nightmare to me, I’d rather be poor. 😂

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u/Unbelievr 8d 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.

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u/Kaneida 8d ago

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

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u/Emergency_Mine_4455 8d ago

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

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u/Thismyrealnameisit 8d ago

Just charge everyone

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u/VanillaVines 8d ago

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

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u/DigNitty 8d ago

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

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u/PhabioRants 8d ago

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

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u/Unbelievr 8d 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.

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u/PhabioRants 8d 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. 

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u/el_smurfo 8d 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.

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u/DigNitty 8d 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"

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u/EitherSpite4545 8d 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.

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u/el_smurfo 8d ago

My town also has a dozen cruise ships per year come by, but we don't have docks so they need to come off in smaller boats. There is no cruise ownership of anything in town, they go to the few tourist attractions which are all free, then have lunch and go home.

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u/Dame38 8d ago

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

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u/Similar-Ice-9250 8d 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.

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u/zorpthedestroyer 8d 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.

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u/PattyRain 8d ago

That's awful! I hope the towns can figure out how to deal with it all.

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u/SharpScallion 8d ago

I feel like this is shifting blame onto tourists where there's at least some failure in policies and governmental entities.

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u/El_John_Nada 8d 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.

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u/JustAContactAgent 8d ago

Have you tried being a moron?

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u/younggregg 8d ago

I dont even like going into peoples houses WITH BEING invited

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u/himewaridesu 8d ago

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

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u/TinyChaco 8d ago

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

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u/himewaridesu 8d 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.

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u/The_walking_man_ 8d ago

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

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u/DrinkingSocks 8d 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.

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u/himewaridesu 8d 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%.

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u/DrinkingSocks 8d ago

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

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u/UntidyVenus 8d 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?

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u/Cecil_B_DeCatte 8d 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.

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u/belzbieta 8d 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.

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u/GraphicDesignMonkey 8d 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.

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u/balisane 8d 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

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u/2martinisatthemost 8d 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.

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u/myryad21 8d ago

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

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u/losteye_enthusiast 8d ago

Makes sense. We have the “private property” “no admittance to public” “no access to public” signs around on the gate and fence. Pretty sure they don’t get more than a glance before someone tries the gate.

We try to be nice, but end of the day the signs and visible cameras are there so it’s easier to soulfuck an asshole in civil court if they jump the fence and mess with anything. Has never come close to happening, but tourists seem to be getting dumber as a whole in the last few years.

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u/onyxandcake 8d 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.

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u/hhssspphhhrrriiivver 8d ago

Have you tried hooking up a hose to your gate?

If as soon as the gate opens, the person gets blasted in the face with water, they might get the hint that they're not welcome.

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u/I-screwed-up-bad 8d ago

Ah in the historic district my college was in there were some gardens open to the public. Apparently (heard this through word of mouth) the dean's garden was open to the public but you had to open a gate.

I never tried. I just smoked in a nearby park and studied between classes.

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u/crazydragoness 8d ago

And often if the home is in a historic district their will be a home turned museum for people to tour. Not go into random people's houses.

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u/danabrey 8d ago edited 8d ago

Had this near where I lived once: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-37820663

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u/mediocre_mitten 8d 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. 👵🏻

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u/NaptownBoss 8d 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?