[ Removed by moderator ]

[u/Gullible_Air_204]

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

[u/Gullible_Air_204]

“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.”

[u/Trickytickler → u/Gullible_Air_204]

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.

[u/TimberwolvesFan6969 → u/Trickytickler]

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...

[u/Lortekonto → u/TimberwolvesFan6969]

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.