In any walk of life if you put a group of strangers together and ask them to live side by side for a period of time and you will have an “interesting” melting pot of characters. When travelling it can be especially entertaining when everybody is shoved together on a coach, boat or some group adventure. I was musing on all the amazing people I’ve met over the years around the world who have enriched my life and pondered that if I shared stories about them it would be the dullest piece of travel writing ever. However, if we dip our toe into the murky, (some might say) bitchy world of the “annoying tourist” then it gets a whole lot tastier.
Sometimes the “pain in the backside” can ruin an experience but I’ve found that, on the whole, they can enhance the adventure. Their behaviour instantly unites the rest of the party and people who had previously had nothing in common have a united cause to bind them together. I was on a tiny craft with nine other travellers sailing around the Galapagos and thanks to Wolfgang we had the best time ever. Wolfgang was solitary, selfish and cold. He held everyone up on hikes by taking an age with his super expensive camera, helped himself to more than his portion of food and bragged about how his wife, back home in Germany, would be furious if she could see him smoking on this trip. Despite the fact none of us spoke the other’s language we instantly became a band of brothers and sisters thanks to our Teutonic tourist. One evening when he was puffing away at the starboard end I grabbed his camera, fired up his long-distance lens and took ten shots of him enjoying a crafty fag. Forget swimming with Manta rays, discovering wonderous islands and indigenous species whilst communing with giant tortoises. No, the highlight of my Darwinian dream holiday was the thought of Mrs. Wolfgang flicking through his camera reel on his arrival back in Berlin.
On a coach tour around San Francisco it was Larry who united a disparate bunch of tourists from every corner of the globe. Larry was a misogynist, or so his wife, Mandy, told me. He was loud, brash, a tad wiffy and from Texas. As we hopped on and off around Twin Peaks, Haight-Ashbury, Golden Gate Bridge etc. he became increasingly obnoxious towards his other half. Eventually in a candy shop at Pier 39 Mandy picked up a rather handsome packet of dulce de leche fudge, Larry glared at her before screaming “You might as well just smear it straight onto your hips!”
To conclude our trio of troubling tourists let me introduce you to Michael from Portsmouth. He was the truly dreadful human being who sparked a collective criminal act during the lunch stop. His worst crime started before the coach set off when a mum and her disabled child sat opposite him. He complained about this for some unknown reason and muttered his way to the back of the coach. A shocked tour party all clocked this and the tone was set. His second worst crime came at the very end when he was the only one not to give our kind, charismatic guide a tip. A guide who never once mentioned a tip all day. At lunch in a rammed rooftop restaurant overlooking Paleokastritsa Beach he took up a whole table and only ordered a drink. He then disappeared to take some photos accidentally leaving his phone on the table. I saw it glistening in the midday sun. Could I? Should I just grab it and hide it maybe? As these thoughts swirled around my head I looked around at all my fellow coach party who were thinking the same thing, all nodding at me, all imploring me to do the deed. Emboldened by their support I picked up his iPhone 14 Pro Max, smashed into a thousand pieces to the sounds of cheers and whooping from my new gang before being lifted head high like a Greek god and put back on the coach. Well, that’s what I wanted to do. I stopped at the bit before smashing it but that sense of communal action and righteousness was the highlight of the day.