Lately we have seen a spate of articles online repeating old stereotypes about American tourists. To our glee most of these articles have had long strings of comments telling the writers that they are wrong.
Blonde may have left one or two responses calling the writers lazy and unoriginal but we neither confirm or deny that. But more surprisingly, Brunette is mad as hell and she’s not gonna take it anymore! Therefore, we are here to bury stereotypes that are harder to get rid of than bedbugs.
Stereotypes about American tourists and food
We do not go around the world loudly demanding cheeseburgers and “American food”. Americans who have passports are overwhelmingly from the same states that elected Obama president. Many of those are states with high levels of urban populations, borders with Canada or Mexico, and citizens with higher incomes and levels of education than the states where very few people hold passports (think Mississippi).
They are not the people waiting in the drive-thru line at McDonald’s in the U.S. or anywhere else. They might sneak into McDonald’s for a hit of free wi-fi or a bottle of water, but not dinner.
Now this is not to say that we never embarrass ourselves in the food category. In Italy Brunette famously asked a waiter how to eat cheese. In Spain Blonde was tasting the wine at a restaurant and declared that it was “watery”. It was the water.
Instead of having demanding “Freedom fries” many American tourists do culinary or winery tours and take cooking classes.
Another aspect of our wonderfulness is that we tip – a lot! Many of us are pre-programmed to tip 20% on our meals. We do so even in countries where their citizens do not tip. So we may not be meeting the oft-touted goal of “eating like a local”.
Well, we aren’t local but we do seek out local chefs. And, speaking from our personal experience, waiters in non-tipping countries have never insisted on returning our tips. Dare we hint that they may see Americans as being generous (and a little stupid) because we tip?
Stereotypes about American tourists and inappropriate clothing
We go to other countries and try hard to avoid offending cultural and religious sensibilities even when they conflict significantly with our own beliefs.
We do not wear skintight cleavage-baring clothing (unless Blonde hasn’t been to Weight Watchers in a while). We do not wear white athletic shoes, shorts that give us wedgies, American flag T-shirts or baseball caps. (The “we” referred to here is primarily American Baby Boomers.)
Our men do not have their glistening bellies oozing over banana hammocks and our women are not topless or nearly bottomless. For those two things alone the world owes us a huge debt of gratitude! (If you don’t agree, go to a beach packed with Russians and/or Germans and get back to us.)
Stereotypes about American tourists shopping for stupid souvenirs
The Chinese are now the world’s biggest travel spenders. They travel in large part to purchase luxury goods that can cost as much as 40% more in China than elsewhere. They don’t travel to buy things made in China. We don’t either.
We travel to buy crafts, clothing, and artwork made in the country we are visiting. We refuse to buy keepsakes made in other countries (which made it almost impossible to buy anything but merino sweaters and boomerangs in Australia).
We like to help local artists succeed and – here’s the punchline – WE PAY FULL PRICE!
OK, this isn’t true 100% of the time but we have been told repeatedly, all over the world, that Americans are prized as shoppers because we pay the asking price. (Blonde is the exception to this but she was trained to bargain by a ruthless non-American. She horrifies Brunette.)
Stereotypes about American tourists being loud
One of the most often repeated stereotypes about American tourists is that we are louder than people in other countries. Have you been to Greece? China? Sicily? Seriously?
The Greeks know they’re loud, they makes jokes about it and they keep being loud in their own charming way. You never hear a writer say “watch out for Greek tourists – they make too much noise”. And if you did the writer would be shamed into a life of obscurity for using demeaning stereotypes.
And we are not speaking loudly on our cell phones because we can’t afford to use international coverage. So take that!
And the stereotype that American tourists expect everyone to speak English….
Update: Practically everyone under the age of 40 in the global hospitality business does speak English. And as much as we try to learn some phrases in the native language we have not always found that effort to be appreciated.
Brunette spent months studying Italian before our first trip to Italy. Several people complimented her on her accent. But one Italian man asked her to “just speak in English so we can get this done a lot faster”.
In places where there hasn’t been a common language we have had some of our best laughs with locals as everyone plays an impromptu game of charades. And the winner is Brunette who knew that “fish with a knife” in a dramatic reenactment was swordfish!
So if you want to learn Icelandic, go ahead. But we are happy to be very encouraging in helping locals practice their English.
Quelle surprise!
What American tourists probably will not do:
- Smoke where there are no smoking signs. Americans (at least Baby Boomers) who travel tend to be non-smokers or at least reasonably considerate smokers.
- Park on the sidewalk or drive on the steps (possible exception for Blonde).
- Spit in the street (unless you just fed us a deep friend tarantula).
- Push in front of you in a queue.
- Continue to tolerate old outdated stereotypes that piss us off.
If you would like to help our movement to dispel outdated stereotypes about American tourists please share this post – Americans do do that! Come to think of it, we invented it.