This article is from
Yahoo! Travel and it's about a tour director who was a full time tour guide in
Washington D.C. Its pretty interesting to hear their side of things BUT since I
have taken 3 tours like this in Europe I also wanted to add some commentary.
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| {on the tour bus} |
We get some stupid
questions. These are the ones that
have been addressed to the group but there’s always at least that one person
who just can’t seem to listen. If your guide is good (read: nice) he or
she will repeat things over and over. It’s impossible to have the complete
attention of 50 people all at once, and we know that. Hence the repetition. We
say it on the microphone, we write it down in the motorcoach, we print you
little slips of paper with all the information we just said, and we leave a
backup at the front desk… and you’re still asking, “So, what time is dinner?”
We understand that
you’re on vacation, and your brain is in relaxation mode — but you’ve got to
pay attention!
Other stupid questions: “My
roommate snores, can you switch him into someone else’s room?” “Why does it
take so long to drive everywhere?” “Why can’t you just get rid of paper money?”
But then there are some
stupid questions that I enjoy, like when a client asked if Lake Michigan was
the Arctic Ocean. Or if President Obama was really from Kenya.
On my last tour we had an old lady that was
traveling alone and we nicknamed her "The Toad". She looked like a
toad and sort of acted like one. Always saying something negative or asking
stupid questions like, "What is that building?" It was just a random
office building or "What street are we on?" Does it really matter?
You're not driving. And we were on a highway from Lucern to Paris. She was
annoying!
We hate country
comparisons. The Aussies are
particularly bad with this: “Why don’t you wear helmets on motorcycles?” “Why
don’t you make guns illegal?” “Why don’t you have plastic money?” And here’s my
favorite: “Why don’t you have fresh food in America?”
Questions like these put
me, as an American, on the defensive, feeling like I need to stand up for my
country and work as an ambassador working to educate. So one thing I encouraged
my clients to do was to ask the question more constructively. And this goes for
when Americans are traveling abroad themselves.
Try recasting the
question: “Why do you have paper money?” Or: “Why do I sometimes see people
wearing helmets on motorcycles and sometimes not?” There’s a big difference to
asking, “Why do you…” instead of “Why don’t you…” It may seem
small, but asking the question with “don’t” tells me that they are already
judging our laws and customs and food. Whereas if someone asks a “do,” it shows
that the person is truly curious, and my answer is naturally going to be more
forthright and authentic.
I like his answer to this. I also hate it when
people say something another culture does or something they eat is weird. It's
not weird it's different. Just because you're not use to see it or eating it doesn’t
make it weird.
We don’t appreciate when
you don’t tip. Tipping is a custom that
can be hard to comprehend and understand. Even a lot of people in America are
opposed to it. But being opposed to something isn’t enough to ignore it… You
can be opposed to taxes, but you still have to pay. In the travel industry,
tipping is the lubricant that keeps the machine rolling. You see cheap tours,
excursions, and fares — what you don’t see is that many companies make their
bottom line by assuming that tips will cover their employees’ wages. It’s a
system that certainly has its ugly side but I would argue that tipping works on
the ground level. If you’re willing to tip, you get your drinks and meals
faster, and you get better service in the process. I’ve spent a lot of time in
other countries, and typically those without a tipping culture tend to offer
worse service.
As a guide I always made
the majority of my income off tips. But, it’s important from my perspective.
It’s my job to be indispensable every day. I never deserved tips, but I always
earned them. And in the process I worked exceptionally hard to showcase my
continent, my country, and my city. With that said, there are dozens of
well-meaning, hard-working people we encounter in the process of a tour who
offer everything from white water rafting and hot air balloon rides to great
dinners and drinks… and those people also rely on tips. I stake my reputation
on each group, and when they don’t tip it’s a reflection on me.
I really don’t like this part. I feel like I have paid so much for the
trip when you include the flight and the tour that I don’t want to tip the
amount the tour company recommends. I always tip but probably not as much as I
should.
We hate drunks. Enjoying drinks is a big part of enjoying a
place but getting wasted every night is just stupid. Especially when you’re
disrupting the experience of other travelers. If that’s your aim, here’s a pro
tip: save the $3,000 airfare and use it all at your local bar; the experience
will be basically the same. You’ll wake up hungover trying to figure out what
happened the night before. Having a few epic nights on a vacation is totally
fine, but when you’re entire vacation is an epic night, your next vacation will
probably be to a treatment center.
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| {this isnt what it looks like, okay maybe it is} |
Late again? We WILL
leave you behind. I was always pretty lax
when it came to being on time. But you also don’t want to punish the people who
are consistently on time by forcing them to wait for the latecomers. So if
someone was consistently late, they could expect to walk out one day and find
the motorcoach long gone. It’s an expensive pain in the ass to catch back up
with the group. My advice: if you’re chronically late, find someone to be your
on-time buddy.
This actually happened to us on my last tour.
There was an older couple and the husband didn’t make it back from The Red
Light District (in Amsterdam) in time to catch the bus. So our tour director told
his wife she needed to get off the bus and wait for him. She made sure they had
the address to the hotel but they missed dinner and the river cruise.
We hate people who
aren’t open to food. I used to have a rule:
if you made a face of disgust as I described a meal, then you’d be the first
that I’d make try it. Eating is key to travel, and if you’re not trying things
beyond your comfort zone you’re robbing yourself of the full experience. Food
is as central to culture as language. And travel is about understanding as much
as it is about leisure. The last thing you should be doing is trying to eat the
same when you’re abroad as you do when you’re at home. Don’t complain that the
bread or soda tastes different. Savor it. Human memory works in really bizarre
ways, and you’ll be surprised at how a taste lingers in your mind far longer
than a sound or a sight. So even if you’re sure it’s going to
be disgusting, you won’t know until you try. And be ready to expand your
horizons — you may just fall in love with something you never would have tried
otherwise.
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| {discovering new sweet treats in Prague} |
Kind of goes with what I said above, it's not weird its
different. And I am one to talk, I'm a pretty picky eater but I will be brave
and give it a go when on vacation. The grossest thing I have eaten was a small
bite of raw pork in Amsterdam; did I know that is what it was…NO. If I had I wouldn’t
have eaten it. And the most interesting thing I have had was horse in Norway.
