More and more tourists are behaving badly. Weteher it is defacing historic properties, disrepecting cultures or putting themselves and others in danger. Is it beciase of likes on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook or are they just plain morons?
Transcript
Welcome to another episode of The Traveling Fool. My name is Bob Bales. I am your host, the original Traveling Fool, and I know last time I said I was gonna talk about a destination, but something has just been gnawing at me, and so I’m going to get it off my chest this week, and I’m gonna talk about stupid moronic tourists.
Travelers who just have lost their ever loving mind when it comes to air travel, traveling to destinations, and just ruining it for everybody else. Whether you’re on a flight for a business meeting, or whether you’re on a flight with your family going to some holiday destination. It seems to me that there is more and more of a rise of just bad travelers and bad tourists out there.
But before we get started, I want to remind you, go to the website, TheTravelingFool. com. You can check out the blog and there’s also a link to podcasts on there and you can download all the old podcasts and everything if you want to. There’s also a place on there where you can sign up for the newsletter.
If you do, I promise not to bombard you with a bunch of useless garbage every day or even every week. I only send out the newsletters every now and then. Just to keep people updated on travel news and travel contests and things like that. So, buckle up. Here we go. I’m going to rant and rave this weekend.
Now the tourists, they’re doing a lot more dangerous things than ever before. Putting themselves in harm’s way. Disrespecting cultural and historic properties. And all for what? Mostly for likes on social media. Which just boggles my mind. They think they’re going to be famous. They think they’re going to wind up on the cover of Vogue or the cover of some popular magazine or get viral clicks on TikTok or Facebook or Instagram or whatever it is.
And it just chaps my butt to no end every time I go someplace and I run across these idiots. And there’s more and more of them out there. every single day. Now when I travel, I also do Instagram and Facebook. That’s about all I’m on. I share Twitter every now and then myself, but I don’t do TikTok. I don’t do all this other stuff.
I don’t do it for likes or anything else. You rarely see me in any of these photos. It’s photos about destinations and experiences. Because when I travel to a destination, because I’ve been invited, that’s what they want. They want to highlight their location. They want to highlight the beauty, the culture, the people.
And they want to inspire people to travel there. I have never yet been inspired to go to a resort because of somebody lounging by a pool in a bikini in some fake pose. Not once have I ever been inspired to go to a destination because some moron dipped his feet into a historic fountain for likes. It just, it, it really just boggles my mind that the audacity of some of these idiots, and I’m going to highlight a few of them for you today.
I’m going to make them famous. That’s right. Now here, this first one, and this came according to CNN, a 22 year old German man was detained in Florence, accused of damaging a statue, in the 16th century fountain of Neptune in the Piazza Della Signoria. The city estimates the damage to be over five thousand dollars.
Now this fountain features a statue of the Roman sea god Neptune atop a shell shaped carriage pulled by horses. This moron, who has not yet been named, scaled a protective barrier around the monument Early one morning, like in the early morning hours, imposed on the statue, while two of his moron friends on the other side of the barrier took photos of him.
Now, according to investigators, reconstruction, after one o’clock in the morning, the tourist in the piazza, along with his two friends, climbed over the fence, and climbed onto the edge of the pool. And then he jumped, climbing onto the horse’s leg, reaching the base of the carrier. And after having some photos taken, he decided to climb down.
During his descent, he placed his foot, once again, on the hoof, breaking part of it off and damaging it. An alarm went off, however, he and his moron friends escaped but, it was all captured on the closed circuit television. Now, what possesses you to go up to a historic, cultural fountain, hundreds of years old, that has a warning barrier around it, and go, “Boy, I bet you this is going to get some likes. Hey, take my picture while I jump on this horsey”. Well. Needless to say, he causes over $5, 000 worth of damage. And you wonder why people don’t like tourists. Another one, an Irish tourist, has broken a statue out in front of the iconic building in Brussels after it reopened to the public following a three year, 150 million dollar restoration.
Now, he can blame it on being just drunk and stupid. He was filmed trying to ride the lion statue. I guess he figures, let me jump on top of this statue of the lion, I’ll get a bunch of pictures taken and I’ll be famous. Well, there’s two statues located on both sides of the entrance to the building. And they were restored as part of the project.
As he tries to climb down part of the statue, believed to be a torch, that’s attached to it. broke off. He was arrested and he’ll be facing a little bit of punishment there. Equal opportunity morons. We got one from Germany and one from Ireland. But not to be outdone, this Romanian tourist was arrested in Athens at the Acropolis after he decided to steal some pieces of marble from the ancient Greek landmark. He was caught after another tourist noticed him placing his hands on the section of the Acropolis, the remains of the gateway leading into it, looking suspicious.
Now when police approached him, the tourist claimed he didn’t know that taking parts of the Acropolis in stone pieces was illegal because they had already been broken off the structure. Ah, you can’t blame him, he’s only 36 years old. He was charged with theft and will be prosecuted under Greece’s antiquity laws.
So I guess, just goes to show you, I mean, just because you go to another country doesn’t mean that stealing is legal there where it’s probably not where you come from.
So next time you visit an antiquity, some historic place, some place that’s thousands of years old, don’t be trying to steal pieces of it.
Now, another Italian landmark was defaced by tourists this summer. Now, all of this has happened in just like the last six months. We’re not talking years ago. This historic landmark resulted in damage to several works of architecture. A four hundred and sixty year old riverside passageway connected to the galleries in Florence was sprayed with Munich soccer related graffiti in the early hours of August the 23rd. The perpetrators of the alleged act, according to the Italian police, were two German tourists among a party of 11 students staying at an Airbnb in the center of the city. So, you ever want to go to Florence? I know that the biggest thing on your bucket list to do and see was to go see a 460 year old icon spray painted by a bunch of morons and their soccer team, or celebrating their soccer team. Cause I mean, that’s why I go. I mean, I always go someplace hoping to see that some idiot has defaced a historic property. But, we’re equal opportunity here. This next one’s an American. He was born in Thailand, but he’s still an American. He became an American citizen. He owns a business in the United States
He decided he wanted to advertise his marijuana business. Thailand recently, a few years ago, legalized marijuana. So he decided to fill up a fog machine with marijuana and blasted a street full of tourists with smoke to promote his marijuana business back home. This happened in Phuket. According to the Thai police Facebook post, this guy admitted that he acted and he did it, but he didn’t know that it would be inappropriate to do that.
He figured it was okay. He said, “You know, I didn’t know. I mean, you guys got it legal over here. So I figured I’d just smoke everybody out with this marijuana fog machine”. Well, he’s having a visit with the Thai police in their friendly jurisdiction over there. In Malta, remind you now, all of this has happened in just the last six months.
In Malta, a 20 year old Italian tourist fined 2, 000 euros. After admitting he damaged the steps of the Office of the Prime Minister in the historic castle or Castile in Valletta. He carried his scooter up the main entrance, up these steps, so he could get a selfie of himself at the front door. And when he brought his little scooter down the step, he wanted to have his scooter in the picture.
I mean, who doesn’t? “Here’s me and my scooter. I’m standing in front of a door at this famous place. Y’all take a look at me and hit like now! I want to get a lot of likes for this photo”. Well, when he carried his little scooter down, he broke off pieces of the steps. Causing about 2, 000 euro worth of damage. And his excuse was, “Yeah, I did it, but I didn’t see nothing wrong with it. I mean, shoot”.
This next one happened in Bali. Bali gets a lot of these morons. I don’t know what it is about Bali. I’ve never been there. I hear it’s absolutely stunningly gorgeous. Everybody talks great things about it, but, oh, God help them. They do seem to attract a lot of idiots. Bali, in 2023 alone, tourists have walked naked in the temples, posed nude on sacred trees, argued with locals because of a religious procession diverting traffic. They wanted to go down the street, and this religious procession was in their way. I mean, I can’t blame them. They wanted to hurry up and get to the damn beach. And they broke visa guidelines. As of June, Bali’s deported 136 offenders for similar offenses.
Not to be outdone, we got England. A tourist from England accused of defacing the Coliseum. He’s a 27 year old fitness instructor living in Bristol. He defaced this ancient monument by engraving his and his girlfriend’s names into a 2, 000 year old landmark with a key. He filmed it for social media. I mean, they’re not, there is stupid and then there is really stupid.
“I’m gonna do this illegal act and show you how stupid I am. But then, get this, I’m gonna put it on social media and show everybody how stupid I am. And I’m gonna show my face, and I’m gonna smile real big so the police can find me easily”. Well, they found him. His excuse? “Well, I didn’t know it was old. You mean I can’t do that? I was just, I was just showing my love for my girlfriend”.
Amazing. Now, here’s some more German tourists and another Italian statue. 17 tourists from Germany blamed for causing significant damage to a 19th century Italian fountain statue. A 150 year old statue valued at over 200, 000 dollars located on the grounds of a villa where they had rented the villa through one of these Airbnb things.
Now, a couple of the tourists decided to embrace the statue inside the fountain. And then one of them decided to get a stick and knock the statue over. They all laughed and had a good time. Hey, that was fun. Let’s go get us another beer. Woo! Well, they’re in trouble. Meanwhile, this 150 year old statue won’t be around, unless it’s restored, for anybody else to admire it.
Japan. It just goes on and on. And I remind you, this is just the last six months or so. A teenage tourist carves his name into an 8th century temple in Japan. According to police, the 17 year old Canadian used his fingernail to carve J and Julian into a pillar of this UNESCO World Heritage Temple. I’m sure that he didn’t know it was that old.
I mean, after all, young love, you just want to carve your name into a temple that nobody from your hometown has ever seen. But, “Hey, if I film it for TikTok, they’ll see it. I’ll be famous”. Now, there’s a video of a tourist climbing Rome’s iconic Trevi Fountain. Why was she doing that? Well, she, you know, there’s signs everywhere.
Don’t climb on the fountain. Stay off the damn fountain. Stay away from the fountain. Don’t get in the fountain. Yes, I’m talking to you. Don’t do it. Well, she sees the signs, but… Her water bottle was empty, so she decided to climb into the fountain and fill up her water bottle. So, video shows her walking over rows of rocks to reach the center of the 18th century landmark. Fill her water bottle from a spout in the fountain. But then a guard saw her, blows his whistle, and got into a little brief discussion with her before the guard escorts her away. I’m sure he escorted her to the local police station.
I don’t know what her excuse was. It’s just like, “Well, I was thirsty”.
There’s a very famous church in San Jose Church. It’s in California. Unknown persons attempted to gain entry into the San Jose Church causing damage to the historic structure.Including the historic and culturally significant Rose Window. They damaged it. So I guess, well, they’re on a road trip. They always wanted to see this famous church, probably get a selfie. Put it on Instagram for likes. They get there and the church is closed. Church is locked. What to do, what to do. I know, we’ll just break into it. We’ll break into the church. Well, they didn’t get in, but they sure damaged it.
Oh, Japan again. This time involving an Australian man. We go all around the world. Recently, an Australian man was told to leave Japan. Now, this guy is a farmer who decided that farming wasn’t good, so he turned into a travel blogger.
He was told to leave Japan after sharing a video of himself boarding a woman’s only train. Japan has women only trains. So they don’t get harassed by creepy guys. They feel safe, they get on the train, bunch of women, they can get to work, go wherever the hell they want to go. No guys ogling them, grabbing them, or doing just creepy stuff like the Australian guy.
But he, he told everybody, “Don’t worry, I’m a, I’m a train inspector making sure that there’s no men here violating this safe place”. He’d already been in trouble with the Japanese and had already made headlines since arriving because he’d been walking around town without a shirt on while not illegal, it’s kind of culturally insensitive and frowned upon. Also going into a dog’s… Dog Cafe, you know where people can bring their dogs in and do all kinds of…Well, he was going around petting all the dogs and filming them after guests, and the people told him, don’t be touching the animals. And he was filming them all after people told him not to. And I guess the Japanese finally had enough and told him to go back to Australia. Maybe he should take up farming again.
Barcelona has been just inundated with people. The city, I mean, another place I haven’t been to that is just, from what I understand, gorgeous, but unfortunately it attracts morons. Lots and lots of morons. Well, there’s a hilltop in Barcelona that during World War II I guess was an anti aircraft battery and now it’s, it gives you a really good view of the city and People live there on the hill, real close by, but they’re having a hard time getting home because hundreds of people are swarming on top of this hilltop so they can take selfies.
People can’t get home. Every night the police are having to go up there and break up parties of drunken tourists that are up there drinking and yelling and listening to music and taking selfies and just being morons. There’s a very famous deli in downtown Barcelona. Owned by a guy named Tony Marino. It’s been around for over a century. They offer expensive cheeses, Iberian ham, wine. Very famous, very old, very cultured delicatessen. Or deli. And he’s noticed a huge uptick in visitors lately. But he says most come in just to, uh, Look. It is ornate interior and take selfies. They take selfies with the hardwood shelves and the marble countertops.
He said one day he came out of the store room and they had a few men setting up a tripod in the middle of the store. They were speaking English, never said anything to him. Just started filming. Then they left. He said it’s become a zoo. People are coming in. They’re not even saying hello. They’re just coming in, taking pictures, disturbing everybody, and walking out the door, getting a selfie in front of the cheese with cheese in the background and, you know, smiling like a moron. Well, he was fed up, so a few months back he went to his office, wrote up a little sign. And it’s still taped to the glass door. It says, if you’re just looking, five pounds per person. He says it stopped some of them from coming in, but a lot of them just come in, pay five pounds, take a selfie and walk out the door.
This summer… Tens of thousands of people cheered on a drunken tourist walking around in his underwear on Spanish TV. With a guy standing in a public fountain swinging a street sign over his head. Another moron.
This one happened in the United States by a British tourist. Alright, Britain, we don’t want to leave you guys out. A British tourist jumps into the pool at Elvis Presley’s Graceland Estate after being escorted away by security, or before being escorted away by security. Revealed how, and we’re going to name him. Why not? Everybody else has. Tommy Purcell, he jumps over a low gate with a sign reading, Restricted Area. Do not enter. Maybe it was the American accent on the sign that confused this British guy and he didn’t understand the sign. I don’t know. But he jumps over the sign saying, Restricted Area. Do not enter. And then he walks over to the pool. Takes his shirt off. Places one foot on the diving board. Prompting a female security guard to run towards him. But before she could get there, he jumps into the pool. With his shorts and sneakers still on. I guess he just wanted to go for a quick swim. It’s amazing. I swear to God, social media is ruining… Well, I don’t think social media is ruining tourism. I think idiots that want selfies. Show themselves smiling in front of something, and nobody cares. I mean, nobody cares at all. Except maybe your moronic friend that’s with you.
Yellowstone. Yellowstone Park in the United States. They’re, they’re getting fed up. Gorgeous park, known for its beauty. It’s thermal. geysers, it’s wildlife, nature, beauty, and morons.
It seems like almost weekly, I mean almost daily, but especially weekly, a video surfaces of somebody in Yellowstone doing something stupid. They’re either putting their hands and feet into a scalding hot thermal pool. or trying to get a selfie with wildlife. There was one guy who took his shirt off and started chasing a wolf. Yeah, that’s smart.
I’ve got a video of a group of tourists running towards, not away, towards a family of bears. I, I, I don’t know what’s going on in your mind. I, I don’t know what’s wrong with you people. You don’t run towards a bear. He’s not gonna go, “Oh, that must be Janine from Portland. Everybody smile, Janine wants to get a picture with us. Come on kids, line up so Janine can get a picture with us”. It’s a bear! They don’t know what the hell the damn photo is. They’re gonna eat you. One tourist got real up close and personal with a wild bison. It didn’t go well. The bison, the bison was polite, I got to admit, polite and restrained. All he did was drop his head and pin the tourist underneath his head.
I saw the video, I saw the photo of it. You got this bison, weighing a couple thousand pounds, he’s got this massive head. And he’s got it, pinning this guy, laying it sprawled out on the deck of the floor there, on the ground. I, I guess he figured, okay, I, I could kill him. But this is fun, I’m just going to sit here and hold him down for a while and let him scream.
There’s another one out there. All this is in Yellowstone. Another one. Got a photo. The first photo shows the sign, Danger. Do not approach the wildlife. Big letters, all caps. The second photo shows her, and you can see the sign in the foreground. She walked past that sign and got within about two feet of the bison and was getting ready to pet him. And a ranger saw her and started yelling at her.
Now she was across from the Old Faithful gas station. And someone else had just been charged by that bison. I guess she figured, “Well, I’m, I’m a lot prettier than that other person, so he’ll like me”. And they, You know at some point you just want to sit there with a camera and just, I, I guess just sit there with a camera and wait for some idiot to do something so you can document it for insurance purposes or something, I mean like. I don’t, I don’t know. I mean, uh, I, I want to see the part where some guy says “my wife was killed by one of your bison”. “Hold on a second, sir. We’ve got to get over here with a camera that shows what your idiotic wife was doing at the time”. “Oh, never mind. She deserved it”.
There’s a… I gotta, you gotta love this guy. You gotta look him up. He’s on Instagram. It’s called Tourons of Yellowstone. It’s a mashup of tourists and morons. Clever name. Tourons of Yellowstone, he’s on Instagram. He posts a lot of these videos. There’s a video on his site that shows two individuals walking up to a bull male bison on a bridge in Yellowstone National Park.
One tourist that I watched this one on, on his Instagram feed, one tourist comes within just a couple of feet and the husband. Brave. Brave man. He’s got his wife in front of him. She walks up to him. He’s a couple feet behind her. He’s like, “Well, you know, if it charges, it’ll get her and I’ll I’m not gonna do that”. But he lets her while he’s holding the camera. He lets her get within just a couple of feet and the bison’s standing right off of the bridge and the bison jumps up onto the bridge scares the hell out of them and they start running away. But, I mean, he’s brave. He let his wife get right up there in front of him.
Now a few months ago, there was a woman who gained national attention after dipping her foot and fingers into the scalding hot Yellowstone hot springs. In late August, another man was banned from Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks after a federal court accused him of going off trail in the thermal area and entering Yellowstone while under the influence of alcohol. He’s facing criminal charges. Federal criminal charges. I don’t know what these people were doing in school. Uh, I mean, I was not the brightest student. I, I, I’m real proud of the fact I got solid C’s. But even I knew that thermal springs meant hot. I mean, I’m not talking, you know, jacuzzi bathtub warm water hot. I’m talking hot. You don’t put your hand into a thermal spring.
Another man shared a video of his wife approaching a bull moose at a park. It’s, I mean, they just don’t, they don’t learn. I, I don’t get it. There was a woman caught on camera at Olympic National Park climbing onto a cliff. I saw a picture of this too. It’s, it’s insane. She takes her young daughter, looks to be around 8, 9, 10 years old. Climbs over the barrier, down an embankment, within feet of the raging waterfall. Standing on a ledge of a cliff. Hundreds of feet in the air. I mean, this is not a walking trail to get down there. This is not a sightseeing area. She purposely went down there and stood on this little bitty cliff so she could get next to the waterfalls so somebody could take a picture of her and her daughter standing next to the waterfalls. It is. I mean, it’s, it’s bad enough being stupid, but it’s really bad when you gotta drag your daughter into it.
Oh, here’s one in the Smokey Mountains National Park. A man got into, uh, well, he got, he, he got a little scared because he was harassing a black bear in her three cubs, and he was trying to lure the cubs away. So he could get a picture of him, but he didn’t want the big bear in the picture, so he was trying to shoo mama bear out of the picture. Yeah, that, that, that’s not going to go well. Uh, Mama bear got upset. She charged him. He, he, he managed to get away. I guess she had already eaten for the day and wasn’t that hungry, but. I mean, oh, God. I’m going to get a picture of me and these little baby bears, but I don’t want that big ugly one in the picture, so I’m going to…”Shoo! Go away, bear! Go! I’m telling you, get out of here! I’m going to take a picture of you and your little babies”. Man, how stupid can you be? My God! Oh, here’s one. This one just started recirculating on social media.
Filmed climbing over a safety barrier at Upper Yosemite Falls to get a better view. On Yosemite Falls Trail, the oldest and one of the most popular routes in the park, offers great views, but it is known for its steep drops and sometimes loose, slippery surface. It makes it very easy to slip if you’re not careful. So what do they do? Well, they passed over the barrier that says, Stop. Don’t, don’t go past here. Because they wanted to get to the edge of the cliff and get a photo from the edge of the cliff. That little zoom feature was broke on their camera and you know, if you take a picture from 15 feet away from the cliff you get all them nasty rocks and stuff in the photo so they wanted to get right on the edge of the cliff and get a picture without the nasty rocks in the picture. Their zoom was broke, so they had a good excuse I reckon.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming. I saw this moron’s Instagram photo. He gets within like a foot and a half or two foot of a moose. A big moose. So he could snap a selfie and post it to his Instagram. And, and post on there with a clever title. “Look who I’m having breakfast with this morning”. Oh, jeez. I mean, You, you, you gotta think at some point, some of these animals have figured out, you know, “Don’t do it, Fred. Don’t, don’t hit him. Don’t, just don’t do it, Fred. Just leave him alone. He’s too stupid to know what he’s doing. “But I, I’m gonna charge him and eat him. No, don’t do it. He’s not worth it”.
A pair of tourists. Now this one’s really well, this one’s just being re shared on social media. But it happened back in 2021. So this one’s out of the six month window that we’ve been talking about. But it’s making it’s rounds back again. A couple in Banff National Park in Canada. You can take your pets into the park. You can take your doggies and your kitty cats. But they gotta be on a leash. Well, they see two bull elk. So what do they do? They come out of the car with their Rottweiler. And he’s not on the leash, and they let him charge the elk.
Well, tourists are yelling at him, that elk’s gonna kill your dog. “No, he ain’t. You don’t know my dog. My dog’s mean. Watch this”. Well, he’s charging and growling at the elk and they’re, they’re looking at each other going, “shall we kill the dog or not”? And they’re, you know, kind of charging and backing up against the dog and this moron in Canada thinks it’s just hilarious. So they’re looking for him, even though it happened in 2021, if they find him there he’ll, I hope that dog finds a new home. He’s got morons for owners.
Now here, a group of unaccompanied children in Yellowstone National Park are trying to feed an elk and her calves with handfuls of grass while the parents stand way away taking pictures. Now, if you know anything about animals because You have to have common sense, and obviously the parents don’t. You don’t go screwing around with the babies. And they can, they can get real upset. Now thankfully nothing happened, they kind of made enough noise that the children got scared and ran away. And daddy was like, “Get back there Darlene! I didn’t get a good picture!” But they got away before anything bad happened. You can’t blame the kids. You gotta blame their moron parents. But, in 2018, there were a couple of people hospitalized after being attacked by one of those cows in Yellowstone.
And, oh, here’s another one from Yellowstone. This guy, he’s smart. He brought his bull call with him. It’s like a bugle like device that when you blow it, it sounds like a bull elk. which is used for hunting because it calls them it means there’s another bull elk in the area and they’re very territorial so they want to find him and they want to go into mortal combat with each other so he figures I’m gonna walk up to this bull elk might and call one, you know and see any come into the area. That would be stupid enough, this one he goes up to one on the side of a parking lot. And blows his little bull call. Well, The elk took that as a challenge and was prepared to defend itself, but The elk, I guess, decided that, um I guess his friend was like, “No, Harold, don’t do that. The boy’s stupid. I know, I know you want to kill him, Harold, but don’t do it. The boy’s stupid”. So, the elk kind of made a few grunts and walked away. They, you know, the elk are smarter than the people in Yellowstone.
Now here’s a, here’s another one from Tourons of Yellowstone, their Instagram page. There’s a video on there showing a man harassing bears. You gotta be a special kind of moron to be harassing a bear by charging towards them and growling, shirtless. And one of the videos shows a bear chasing him for a little bit.
And, oh, another one on August 4th. A large crowd swarming a bear and her two cubs. So they can get pictures and videos of the bears. I mean, it’s, I saw this one. It’s, They’re standing on the, next to the road, the bears, while everybody slams on their car brakes and jumps out of the car and there’s like 10 of them run over towards this bear and just surround this family of bears. That’s not smart people, that’s, that’s, I mean that’s stupid. That’s a special kind of moron right there. One person said, “I tried my best to get them away but these people are clueless so, uh, I, I just left, I didn’t want to see what was going to happen”.
It seems like more and more people are doing stupid things. Whether it’s out in nature at parks or visiting cultural and historic places and doing damage to them and getting drunk and acting like a moron. It just seems like it’s happening more and more and more. And the only thing I can figure is it’s got to be because of social media likes.
People thinking they’re going to be famous on social media. Well, they’re famous because… They’re recording what illegal and stupid things they are doing and more than that, they’re winding up in trouble. And a lot of countries are fed up with it. CNN reported that a lot of countries are starting to implement rules for tourists.
For instance, Bali, who, bless their hearts, they’ve had their share of their morons. Um, in June of this year, they introduced some new guidelines including rules about, proper behavior in sacred temples. and proper behavior with the locals and respecting the natural environment. And they also need a license now to rent a motorbike. Because you go to a lot of these Asian countries, and I’ve done it. I’ve been to, you know, islands in the Philippines and other places where you can… Rent a motorbike and all you got to do is just give them cash, they give you a motorbike, you jump on, you take off, they don’t care whether you know how to ride it or not. Well, now you need a license for a motorbike rental in Bali. And you may not set foot on any mountain or volcano in Bali due to their sacred nature. Travelers can only stay in registered hotels and villas, which will impact a lot of their Airbnb properties. And they’ve also introduced a new tourist task force to enforce these restrictions, even conducting investigations and raids if necessary. And you can’t blame them, you know. At some point it’s like, yeah, we have a beautiful island, we want tourists to come, we want them to experience this, we rely heavily on tourism. Just keep your morons at home. Uh. And so, and they blame social media as part of the problem when it comes to bad tourist behavior.
A lot of other destinations have taken similar steps. Iceland, Hawaii, Palau, New Zealand, Costa Rica. They’ve all adopted pledges for visitors to abide by the local laws and customs. Campaigns in Switzerland like No Drama Campaign. And Austria’s See Vienna, not Hashtag Vienna. In other words, go out and see Vienna. Experience the people, the culture. Not hashtag Vienna on Instagram and TikTok. Finland’s got a campaign, Be More Like a Finn. And the Netherlands has, How to Amsterdam. Because they’re trying to attract well behaved tourists. In fact, they’ve got a ban on young men between the ages of 18 and 25 aimed at guys from England because all they do is they It’s like a real quick little trip to go from England over to Amsterdam and all these little single drunk guys in their early 20s go over there and get drunk and raise hell for a weekend.
And Thailand has even taken things further, in fact they’ve fully closed off some tourist locations and beaches and things, at least temporarily, just to get rid of the tourists, clean up the mess, try and repair the damage. Help some of the impact that some of these morons have had on tourism.
I mean, I’ve traveled a lot. I’ve traveled in Asia and Europe and Central America and all over the place. I have, I have run across a few moron tourists. The only thing I can say is, if Nobody cares about social media and Instagram. If you’ve got it and you want to post and you want to show off, that’s fine.
But, there’s a big difference in posting something that, a beautiful temple in Bali or the waterfalls in Oregon or a fountain in Italy. You don’t have to be in the photo acting like a moron just for likes. Nobody has ever visited a place because you acted stupid there. There’s not a resort one that can, and I’ve asked a lot of resort owners. I have asked how many times has somebody booked your resort because of that girl standing out there by the pool taking pictures of herself? They all say none. Because it doesn’t tell you anything about their property and how beautiful their property is. Doesn’t tell you anything about how nice the beach is or the forest or the the hiking trails, if all you’re going to do is stand there and do some fake pose with the sun and your hair blowing in the background.
It’s not about you. Travel is about the destination. The history, the culture, and the people. Like a lot of people out there, when I was young I read National Geographic. That’s where I really wanted, it stirred something in me that I wanted to visit some of these places and see some of this stuff. And I don’t recall a single one of them photos having the photographer there with some goofy smile on his face aboard an ancient Greek statue.
I mean, it was, they didn’t do that. That’s not what tourism is about. It’s not about the social media. It’s not about the likes. It’s not about Instagram, TikTok, followers, Facebook. None of that other nonsense. Yes, when I go, I have to post and I do live posts and stuff. The only ones you’ll ever see me in is normally at the end of the day I’ll smoke a cigar and tell you about my day there.
But during the day in the majority of the posts that I have, I would say well over 90%, you’re not going to see me in any of them because it’s not about me. You don’t want to see me in any of these things. You want to see the places. The food, the culture, the people. That’s what makes travel special. And so like I said, I know I was going to talk about destination this week.
I promise I’m going to do it next week. You’re going to love it. But this week, this is something I just want to get off my chest. And if you’re guilty about doing any of this stuff, I forgive you. Now stop it. Go out and enjoy the place and enjoy the place for what it’s worth. Not for the likes. Until next time, don’t forget to hit that little subscribe button.
Okay, this has been The Traveling Fool. I’ve been your host, Bob Bales, and we’ll see you next time on The Traveling Fool.
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