Worlds worst travellers, Aussies taking the lead!

[AFLflyer]

I recently read something which said Australians are taking over from Americans as the worst and most annoying global travellers from some sort of poll results

I have travelled a fair bit O.S and am not sure i quite agree with this, but there are certainly some D.H ozzies out there. Ive seen plenty of your loud Bogan pissed Aussies in SE Asia and Bali and plenty of whinging older travellers. I recently heard a story about four aussies whinging through 15 days of an African safari, because they expected Australian living conditions because they paid in Aussie Dollars back at home, they didnt want to experience any of the culture, just wanted to keep clean.. Your in Africa for f. sake!! i think the BIG problem is people travel for the wrong reasons...

you cant beat the naivety of the yanks though, best comment of many i've heard was at Ayers Rock. Around the base there was a massive hollowed out cave thing (this is best read in a strong californian accent) " they should build a cafe here, its perfect!"

anyone have any annoying traveller stories.?

[devilsadvocate]

I've both seen and been an annoying Aussie traveller.

You should head to Turkey for Anzac Day! The number of shirtless southern-cross-tattood w@nkers in Istanbul a few days before the 25th is ridiculous. It's embarassing.

Having said that, I don't mind a beer or 30, so was happy to participate in the debauchery-fest that is Oktoberfest.

Probably the worst of the worst of Aussies overseas is the Walkabout pub in Shepherd Bush in West London. I went there once during my 2 year stint in London to see Dave Hughes. It was a cold, wet Tuesday night and there were hundreds of dero, pissed Aussies acting like complete spastics. I also lived around the corner from the Redback hotel in Acton and that ran a close second for terrible behaviour.

I also met some Aussies who were absolute legends overseas.

IMO, the key to being a good traveller is respect. If you're in a muslim country - respect their rules. If you're in London - don't whinge constantly about the weather -you'll sound like an absolute arse. If you're in the USA - don't even crack a smile while in customs/security, let alone crack a joke - you'll end up in Guantanamo.

[Wedgie]

Aussies are easily the worst from my limited experience, every Yank Ive met has been great.
Kiwis and Germans are probably the rudest though.

[AFLflyer]

I've both seen and been an annoying Aussie traveller.

You should head to Turkey for Anzac Day! The number of shirtless southern-cross-tattood w@nkers in Istanbul a few days before the 25th is ridiculous. It's embarassing.

Having said that, I don't mind a beer or 30, so was happy to participate in the debauchery-fest that is Oktoberfest.

Probably the worst of the worst of Aussies overseas is the Walkabout pub in Shepherd Bush in West London. I went there once during my 2 year stint in London to see Dave Hughes. It was a cold, wet Tuesday night and there were hundreds of dero, pissed Aussies acting like complete spastics. I also lived around the corner from the Redback hotel in Acton and that ran a close second for terrible behaviour.

I also met some Aussies who were absolute legends overseas.

IMO, the key to being a good traveller is respect. If you're in a muslim country - respect their rules. If you're in London - don't whinge constantly about the weather -you'll sound like an absolute arse. If you're in the USA - don't even crack a smile while in customs/security, let alone crack a joke - you'll end up in Guantanamo.

yeah i agree there is good and bad, phuket gets my vote as the worst place for tourists, makes me sick seeing those old sketchy average joe blow in the arm of a young thai chick.. i like Thailand but Phulet in particualr I can't stand. I reckon i would stay away from those London pubs too. People like that are always worse in groups.

[AFLflyer]

Aussies are easily the worst from my limited experience, every Yank Ive met has been great.
Kiwis and Germans are probably the rudest though.

tightest and most rude IMO go to isralies.

french are rude.

and yes there is alot of generalising in my post..

dont you find the yanks too full on? chill out a bit.

[devilsadvocate]

Aussies are easily the worst from my limited experience, every Yank Ive met has been great.
Kiwis and Germans are probably the rudest though.

tightest and most rude IMO go to isralies.

french are rude.

and yes there is alot of generalising in my post..

dont you find the yanks too full on? chill out a bit.

I met some rude yanks and some full-on yanks, but I also met some very smart, friendly yanks who are embarassed about their country's image overseas.

The thing I found most irritating about Americans though is that they think their currency is just accepted everywhere. I recall countless yanks coming into pubs and into our hotel in Canada and when it came time to pay they'd say "oh, what's that in real money". FFS, you arrogant bastard, you're in Canada where they have their own currency! So whenever this happened, there would be a price in CAD and a price in USD that was generally 2-3 times what it would have been had they had CAD. Suckers. Good for tips though!!!

[devilsadvocate]

Agree too that Frenchies are rude. I'm yet to meet a pleasant one. I don't want to write them all off as rude, but I've worked, lived with and met probably 100+ and am yet to meet one that I really liked.

It's a pity because they have a beautiful country.

[A Mum]

Not so much 'bad/worst' travel stories - and I can't think of any instances off the top of my head...lol.
But....
Having lived at Ayers Rock for 3+ years & working in the only bank up there.
(Therefore seeing just about every tourist that came in)

I can say about tourists (And this is not everyone of course there's a mixture of good and bad out there...lol):

German's were the worst to get along/deal with.
Aussies complained the most.
Japanese men would not speak to you - the wives had to do all the talking.
American's were very arrogant.
English tourists were actually mostly the nicest ones.

When I first started in the bank up there - it was primitive days.
We had no frontline computing system and one back office computer shared by all of us - and everything had to be done manually.
Tourists would come in and find themselves in a 25+ line up out the door and have to stand there sometimes for an hour to be served - so yeah - by the time they got to the staff at the counter we heard allllll about it !!

And when I say primitive - it was before 'phone banking' days and to find out the balance of your account on a weekend you had to swipe your card through an eftpos phone which told you how much credit you had

Was heaven when they opened up a new branch next door to the old one and we all had computer systems like the rest of Australia - and we even got an ATM !!!

The line ups were still big and we still heard the complaints - but was 100% improvement on the early days.

Oops sorry digressed a bit there...lol

Having said that - overall I have to say I loved living up there - was the best days of my/our lives
Talking to the 'nice' tourists was always a highlight.
They used to have to present us with their passports when cashing travellers cheques etc,
and I used to love it when it showed it was their birthdays and I'd point to the date and say
"It's your birthday"

I digress again - oops - okay over and out

[AFLflyer]

Not so much 'bad/worst' travel stories - and I can't think of any instances off the top of my head...lol.
But....
Having lived at Ayers Rock for 3+ years & working in the only bank up there.
(Therefore seeing just about every tourist that came in)

I can say about tourists (And this is not everyone of course there's a mixture of good and bad out there...lol):

German's were the worst to get along/deal with.
Aussies complained the most.
Japanese men would not speak to you - the wives had to do all the talking.
American's were very arrogant.
English tourists were actually mostly the nicest ones.

When I first started in the bank up there - it was primitive days.
We had no frontline computing system and one back office computer shared by all of us - and everything had to be done manually.
Tourists would come in and find themselves in a 25+ line up out the door and have to stand there sometimes for an hour to be served - so yeah - by the time they got to the staff at the counter we heard allllll about it !!

And when I say primitive - it was before 'phone banking' days and to find out the balance of your account on a weekend you had to swipe your card through an eftpos phone which told you how much credit you had

Was heaven when they opened up a new branch next door to the old one and we all had computer systems like the rest of Australia - and we even got an ATM !!!

The line ups were still big and we still heard the complaints - but was 100% improvement on the early days.

Oops sorry digressed a bit there...lol

Having said that - overall I have to say I loved living up there - was the best days of my/our lives
Talking to the 'nice' tourists was always a highlight.
They used to have to present us with their passports when cashing travellers cheques etc,
and I used to love it when it showed it was their birthdays and I'd point to the date and say
"It's your birthday"

I digress again - oops - okay over and out

wow, you would have seen it all A mum! that would have been quite a job!! what did you love about living there? not much around a part from the obvious attaractions? great place i agree, but to live? although, i would like to see the rock in pouring rain.

[Q.]

Yanks, closely followed by the Japanese. The Yanks just think the world revolves around them and act accordingly (and don't get me started on their Peace Corp volunteers, what a bunch of egotistical spit****s).

Aussies tourists can be fairly obnoxious (and ignorant) too, but have hung out with some absolute gems recently to make me think that all the wankers are probably confined to European contiki tours.

[Gingernuts]

I'm off to Europe in a couple of months and one of the things I'm really looking forward to is seeing who else from what countries will be on the coach tour that we're doing.

Hopefully we have some nice ones cause we'll be stuck with them for 27 days!

[AFLflyer]

Yanks, closely followed by the Japanese. The Yanks just think the world revolves around them and act accordingly (and don't get me started on their Peace Corp volunteers, what a bunch of egotistical spit****s).

Aussies tourists can be fairly obnoxious (and ignorant) too, but have hung out with some absolute gems recently to make me think that all the wankers are probably confined to European contiki tours.

and dont forget Phuket and the thousands in Kuta!

[AFLflyer]

Yanks, closely followed by the Japanese. The Yanks just think the world revolves around them and act accordingly (and don't get me started on their Peace Corp volunteers, what a bunch of egotistical spit****s).

Aussies tourists can be fairly obnoxious (and ignorant) too, but have hung out with some absolute gems recently to make me think that all the wankers are probably confined to European contiki tours.

Have you finished your trip yet Q? awesome photos you have shared.

[Q.]

Yeah mate, back home now. Thankfully I have football to keep me busy

[A Mum]

wow, you would have seen it all A mum! that would have been quite a job!! what did you love about living there? not much around a part from the obvious attaractions? great place i agree, but to live? although, i would like to see the rock in pouring rain.

We lived up there twice:
First stint was for 3 years (1993 - 1996) - second stint was for 12 months (2000 - 2001)

I loved it so much that when we came home after the original stint - I (almost) cried every day for 6 months from being 'homesick' from the place.

The earning potential up there is huge - most people have more than 1 job - some have 3
The key here (Mostly for the young ones) is not to earn big $$ and then drink it all away...lol.

The school (kindergarten to year 12) had a total of 80 kids.
It was great when the kids were under 8 years old.
Lots of 1 on 1 with the teachers.
However second time around was not so good and the reason we came back was because the kids had nothing to do and were at the ages where they now wanted to play football and the likes.

What the tourists don't see is that the residents have a 'residents' hotel - so only residents
A gym that hosts sports such as indoor netball, basketball etc, etc and a swimming pool.

The 'local' thing to do is darts on a Thursday night.
We met lots of amazing people - whom we're still in contact with today.
We had an annual 'pram' race
Aboriginal communities used to come out with a football team and play the residence once a month,
They came from 5 hours away by the truck loads just to play football - it was awesome!

After you've lived there for a while you don't even see the rock...lol... it becomes invisible !
When it did rain yes - you could rush out there and watch the rain like waterfalls just run down the rock.
Was amazing - and definitely a highlight when this happens.

The biggest downside - the supermarket costs - unbelievably high !
But then that turned into a highlight as well - because we used to drive to Alice Springs every now and then and load up 5 or 6 trolly loads of groceries/supplies to take back to the rock.
And the isolation can sometimes get to you.

I was lucky though - working in the (only) bank was the best because you got to meet all the locals.
The job was tough - busy - sometimes no lunch breaks - but it was worth it

It's probably changed now - nothing stays the same I suppose - but anyone pre-kids or little kids I highly recommend it as a lifestyle and a way of earning good $$

I suppose it's the simple life - you can mostly walk everywhere - it's busy but relaxed.

[Pseudo]

In my experience:

- The French do not deserve their rude/arrogant tag. Admittedly I have not dealt with many French tourists, but as a tourist in France I have always found the French to be utterly polite and eager to help. I believe it does help if you make an effort to speak French to them; even a simple "Parlez-vous Anglais?" is enough to break the ice. When I have seen the French be rude with tourists, it has always been with......

- The Americans. Most of 'em are fine, but there is a significant subset of Yanks who will blissfully ignore the language and customs of the place they visit. I have seen yanks approach French people in the street and start blathering "hey buddy can ya tell me where the blah blah blah....". More often than not this is met with a Gallic shrug and a grunt. Most amusingly, I have seen this happen not 30 seconds after I had approached the same person, asked directions in halting French, and been answered in perfect English! When doing the tourist thing myself, I found that if any other tourists whose paths I crossed were rude to me, they were pretty much always Seppoes. You want to see an ugly American tourist then head for Amsterdam. Sit yourself down in a "coffeeshop" and listen to the frat boys brag to each other about how much dope they smoke back home, as they toke from unrealistically large multichambered penis-substitute bongs. The city is literally crawling with young Americans making asses (sic) of themselves.

- I don't doubt that the Aussies don't fly the flag well at times, but this would be limited to the situations when A) a critical mass of them assemble in one spot, and B) they drink beer. I've done the Contiki Europe thing before and I've been as guilty of this as the next Aussie. However as actual tourists I think the Aussies tend to be more respectful of people and customs.

- The Krauts can be a nuisance when actually travelling. I've seen them getting cross with QANTAS staff when they haven't gotten their way. I've seen them push in at airports with complete disregard for any other humans waiting in line. As individuals however the Germans would have to be the nicest race on the planet.

Anyhoo, that's my chauvinistic observations....

[Pseudo]

I'm off to Europe in a couple of months and one of the things I'm really looking forward to is seeing who else from what countries will be on the coach tour that we're doing.

Hopefully we have some nice ones cause we'll be stuck with them for 27 days!

When I did my bus-tour a decade ago I did one of the few tours that ducked into Spain. As a consequence about a quarter of the group came from Spanish-speaking countries. We had half a dozen Mexicans, a Bolivian and a Colombian. By far the Aussies were most highly represented, but we also had a couple of Kiwis, a couple of Canucks, 5 or 6 Seppoes, 2 Springboks and a Singaporean.

Curiously it was the Mexicans who had all the high-tech gadgets like digital cameras (this was 10 years ago, they weren't so prevalent then) and video cameras...

[whufc]

In my only OS travelling experiences which was in Fiji, we found that most aussie tourists in our resort were jack asses, they obviously came from medium type wealth and thought because they were in a five star resort they were all a sudden superstars.e,g ordering fijian barman on the resort to order them a taxi just to go a further 50 meters up the resort, they had no apparentent health issues as they were all fine to party on in the resorts bar that night. Then also complain when the taxi took more than 2 minutes, also my pet hate was clicking at the fijian staff nothing ruder imho.

By the end of our 3 week stay it was so funny we would be 5-10 deep in the line at various restaurants and bars but would get pulled to the front of the line by the local fijians because we had been very polite and respected there culture and participated as much as possible. The local fijians were absoluley magnificant, nothing was to much trouble for them as long as they were shown the same respect back.

Fiji is full of Indians, now they were the rudest people i have ever met even the indians in Aus i find completely rude as well, they were out for nothing more than making another dollar and didn't even try and be nice or polite in their endevour, my wife was spat on by an indian bloke because she didn't by a junk necklace for $50 fijian dollars, we already had spent $200 fijian dollars of the bloke. Lucky i had my wits about me over that or i might have ended up on 'banged up abroad'

[AFLflyer]

wow, you would have seen it all A mum! that would have been quite a job!! what did you love about living there? not much around a part from the obvious attaractions? great place i agree, but to live? although, i would like to see the rock in pouring rain.

We lived up there twice:
First stint was for 3 years (1993 - 1996) - second stint was for 12 months (2000 - 2001)

I loved it so much that when we came home after the original stint - I (almost) cried every day for 6 months from being 'homesick' from the place.

The earning potential up there is huge - most people have more than 1 job - some have 3
The key here (Mostly for the young ones) is not to earn big $$ and then drink it all away...lol.

The school (kindergarten to year 12) had a total of 80 kids.
It was great when the kids were under 8 years old.
Lots of 1 on 1 with the teachers.
However second time around was not so good and the reason we came back was because the kids had nothing to do and were at the ages where they now wanted to play football and the likes.

What the tourists don't see is that the residents have a 'residents' hotel - so only residents
A gym that hosts sports such as indoor netball, basketball etc, etc and a swimming pool.

The 'local' thing to do is darts on a Thursday night.
We met lots of amazing people - whom we're still in contact with today.
We had an annual 'pram' race
Aboriginal communities used to come out with a football team and play the residence once a month,
They came from 5 hours away by the truck loads just to play football - it was awesome!

After you've lived there for a while you don't even see the rock...lol... it becomes invisible !
When it did rain yes - you could rush out there and watch the rain like waterfalls just run down the rock.
Was amazing - and definitely a highlight when this happens.

The biggest downside - the supermarket costs - unbelievably high !
But then that turned into a highlight as well - because we used to drive to Alice Springs every now and then and load up 5 or 6 trolly loads of groceries/supplies to take back to the rock.
And the isolation can sometimes get to you.

I was lucky though - working in the (only) bank was the best because you got to meet all the locals.
The job was tough - busy - sometimes no lunch breaks - but it was worth it

It's probably changed now - nothing stays the same I suppose - but anyone pre-kids or little kids I highly recommend it as a lifestyle and a way of earning good $$

I suppose it's the simple life - you can mostly walk everywhere - it's busy but relaxed.

sounds good A Mum, great experience all round!! maybe all your life at a place like that could wear thin! there would be endless camping adventures around, which would be cool.

[Bum Crack]

In my only OS travelling experiences which was in Fiji, we found that most aussie tourists in our resort were jack asses, they obviously came from medium type wealth and thought because they were in a five star resort they were all a sudden superstars.e,g ordering fijian barman on the resort to order them a taxi just to go a further 50 meters up the resort, they had no apparentent health issues as they were all fine to party on in the resorts bar that night. Then also complain when the taxi took more than 2 minutes, also my pet hate was clicking at the fijian staff nothing ruder imho.

By the end of our 3 week stay it was so funny we would be 5-10 deep in the line at various restaurants and bars but would get pulled to the front of the line by the local fijians because we had been very polite and respected there culture and participated as much as possible. The local fijians were absoluley magnificant, nothing was to much trouble for them as long as they were shown the same respect back.

Fiji is full of Indians, now they were the rudest people i have ever met even the indians in Aus i find completely rude as well, they were out for nothing more than making another dollar and didn't even try and be nice or polite in their endevour, my wife was spat on by an indian bloke because she didn't by a junk necklace for $50 fijian dollars, we already had spent $200 fijian dollars of the bloke. Lucky i had my wits about me over that or i might have ended up on 'banged up abroad'

If an Indian (or anyone for that matter) spat on my missus, I would have pounded the **** out of them.