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Worried About Looking Like a Tourist?Complete
Listing of Ed and Julie's
What? You'll get lost? You'll have no pictures for the family back home? You'll starve if you can't order a meal? You don't want to miss the sights? You have no fortune to spend on new clothes? Here's the "dirty little secret" no one ever tells you: unless you have experience and training in foreign espionage you're going to be found out. In about 30 seconds after arrival. Most of us are more-or-less identifiable as tourists visiting the big city near home; why wouldn't it be so overseas?
If it's not our clothes or our camera or the occasional gawk at the sights, most of us give ourselves away overseas as soon as we try to speak a word or two of the language. There's nothing wrong with being a tourist, and certainly nothing wrong with being an American. |
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Clothing should be the last of your concerns. A little common sense and knowing what makes you comfortable are about all you need to select your wardrobe for your European visit. We do have some constructive
suggestions to help with your travel wardrobe in A Dress Code
for Visitors to Europe ... Dressing for Success. And don't worry about the first part
of the title either ... we really don't have a dress code. It's just that so many people
have asked us that question.
As one European wrote in an Internet travel forum, "Dress how you like, but spare us our ears - your loud voices are deafening." What makes some of us unwelcome guests is not our clothes but our behavior. We become uncomfortable when guests in our home loudly complain that things don't look, smell, sound, taste or work the way they do where they come from. Europeans also. If you've had the good fortune to entertain your four-year-old grandchild you know what we mean. "That's not the way Mommy does it." "I don't want Shredded Wheat, Gramma; I want Froot Loops!" "Where's my toys, Grampa?!" Babbling in tot-talk we're not used to interpreting, the grandchild yammers LOUDER -- which doesn't help our understanding much at all. Well, being loving grandparents we buy Froot Loops and Count Chocula, listen carefully, and keep a supply of toys on hand. But we can't expect whole nations to cater to our whims. We make our European hosts uncomfortable when we carp about getting Scotch instead of rye when we order "whiskey", or upon getting a glass of straight vermouth, without ice, when we unthinkingly order a "Martini". Ninety percent of the world understands what liters and a kilograms are ... why shouldn't our European hosts expect us to know? (If you don't, we have a primer at European Weights and Measures.)
And they are appreciative when we can at least say, "please", "thank you", "hello" and "goodbye" in their language. "Nice weather today, isn't it?" is even better. (You'll find ideas on how to do this in Language Skills.) We pay at the front of the bus in the U.S.. In Europe one boards most often at the back and disembarks at the front. Both systems work well ... God ordained neither method. Do some of us ask, "How much is
that in real money?" Ever notice, as Ed did as a child, that foreign-speakers on buses in our hometown seemed to talk loudly, presumably because Americans couldn't understand them? We notice the same thing on trips to Europe ... about Americans. Annoying? To fellow travelers as well as the locals.
Dislike change? Would you be unhappy if your shower has no shower curtain? Used to having certain foods cooked a certain way? Find 'foreigners' annoying or threatening? Never try new foods? If so, perhaps you should consider carefully whether you should visit Europe. You will find things different there. Most visitors enjoy the differences, even if finding them amusing occasionally. But we've known people who are really miserable on a trip to Europe ... because, we think, they're upset by having to accept 'so much' change all at once for an extended period. It's not being a tourist or looking like a tourist that makes anyone an unwelcome visitor ... it's being a boor.
What to take? What to take it in? How to pack it? See Packing for a European Vacation. After Note: This article is written from the perspective of an American's thoughts about how Americans can be well thought of as guests in Europe. For the most part, if not entirely, the advice apples more or less equally to anyone from anywhere visiting anywhere. We don't share the view of some, mostly Americans, who blatt that 'all' Americans are rude, crude, boorish, undereducated, underappreciative. Most of the Americans we see overseas are well behaved and fit our advice to a T. We can say less about other nationalities because they're harder to identify. We can tag an overheard American accent easily. It's more difficult, in Germany, to identify a Swiss or Austrian visitor, or in most of Switzerland a German or Austrian visitor. Overall, Americans behave very well as guests, and most Europeans welcome Americans, and most visitors, warmly. Complete
Index of Ed and Julie's Our Favorites Trip Tips and Tools Copyright © 2000-2001 E.J.
Gehrlein Traveling
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orried about looking like a tourist? Here are some of the things
to do if you want to avoid this terrible fate:
o stop worrying
about looking like a tourist. We do urge you not to wear white buck shoes, white
belts, loud slacks, tube- and tank-tops or tractor-pull caps. But don't worry about looking
like a tourist.
erhaps the real question is, or ought to
be, "What can we do to make ourselves welcome guests in
Europe?" Put another way, "How can we avoid being boors?"
uropeans don't expect Americans to speak
their language well, or even very much. However, they find little purpose when some of us
SHOUT in English to 'make' them 'understand'. 
hings aren't the same in Europe
as they are at home. Which is one of the reasons we enjoy Europe. While things are
different, we find at least as many things better, as those we prefer less. The differences,
good or bad, are often the best part of the experience.