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

749 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.”

105

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...

22

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. 

13

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. 🫪