>Crash a wedding. You are not a nuisance; you are the celebrity guest! ... They will usually feel honored. You can offer the newlyweds a small token gift of cash if you want. You will be obliged to dance. Take photos of them; they will take photos of you. It will make your day and theirs. (I’ve crashed a wedding in most of the countries I have visited.)
That will only work if a white tourist wedding crashes in a poor country. That will not work if I (as a brown-colored southeast asian) do it.
Yeah, a few of these items sound a lot like "white tourist in poor country".
Like the one about asking the taxi driver to drive you to his mom, like holy cow that's creepy. Imagine asking an American Uber driver "hey drive me to your mom's" and see how they'd respond.
It doesn't even have to be the US, that already wouldn't go well in Eastern Europe. Such things can be seen as extremely disrespectful and are a sure way to get a punch in your face in some places.
Lots of these tips seem like what you'd hear from someone regularly traveling someplace like Egypt, where the taxi drivers will openly tell you about their life/family/etc.
I travel alone as a woman a lot, and while it's not as dangerous as many people fear, I'd never ask a taxi driver to take me to (potentially) his private residence in a random neighborhood in an unfamiliar city.
> People in other places are not saints. You might get cheated, swindled, or taken advantage of. Paradoxically, the best way to avoid that is to give strangers your trust and treat them well. Being good to them brings out their good. If you are on your best behavior, they will be on their best behavior. And vice versa. To stay safe, smile.
Idk I would recommend it to a single female traveler
Just imagine this interaction from the mom's perspective. (Because the author sure hasn't!)
You're minding your own business just doing laundry or whatever and your adult son just shows up to you house totally unannounced with a foreign stranger in tow looking for you to cook them a meal. Come on, that is really rude!
Like, it's clear this guy thinks the mom is a total NPC in this situation. It takes some serious delusions of grandeur to think the mom is "happy" about this interaction.
Honestly, I think that is a great way to describe what bugs me most about this list. It's the idea that other people are there for your entertainment.
Like: 'Go to a cemetery. Look for sacred places. People live authentically there.'
Like really. Why are you going to a place to watch people grieving for your entertainment? What -is- this list? After 50 years of traveling? This mentality is what he has to show for it?
Presumably the driver knows their mom well enough to determine how she would react, or call ahead to be sure. If it still blows up, blame the driver, not the passenger who initiated the request.
A taxi driver in a poor country is doing what he needs to do to get paid, probably with a bit of a tip. That doesn't make this interaction ok. It's exploitative and RUDE!
some are entirely incorrect. Lack of hygiene is a real problem in tropical countries. Pretending that all food everywhere is equal is some crazy level of white, sheltered nonsense.
I would never recommend that anyone eat anything uncooked in a country like India. You are asking for digestive woes.
No, that one is accurate. Street food is usually made to order and has high turnover if you pick a popular stall, which means it often is safer than touristy restaurants that rely on snaring a couple of visitors a day and thus has food sitting around for much longer. I spent 1.5 years in Thailand and the only time I got sick was from a fancy, touristy seafood place in Koh Samui.
You still have to use common sense though. The water/ice used in street food is often sus, so anything uncooked is best avoided, and you probably don't want to get your larb from the lady who keeps her raw minced meat in an open bucket marinating in the sun.
This depends. There are local places with cheap chicken rice in Thailand and locals go there but a savvy local will tell you: don't go there in the afternoon. Because they cook rice once in the morning and it hangs there all day! Usual customers maybe all have their gut adjusted but you don't
But yes I had a fair share of mild poisonings from touristy places. I blame fresh veg which in Asian cultures may not be so clean
I can't even imagine having this sort of attitude where you think that your presence is like a "celebrity guest" for strangers and and will be "making their day." You. Complete strangers.
Like, how does one have such an inflated sense of importance? And feel absolutely no shame in writing it out for the world to see.
It depends on the place. I've definitely been to a couple places where people were very excited to meet me (a large white man), practice their limited English, parade me around to their friends, and ask me about where I live.
I was constantly expecting them to want something from me in return, but it never happened. Actually they would often insist on giving me things. This has happened to me probably four distinct times. It's obviously more likely to happen in small towns that don't get a lot of tourists, and also more likely to happen in countries without white people.
I imagine this might not generalize to people of all races. It also helps to have an outgoing personality.
Of course, in tourist hotspots people are probably vaguely annoyed by your presence (or specifically and intensely annoyed, like in Barcelona apparently) and will either ignore you or try to sell you things.
tbf there are certain parts of the world where if you're young and white and friendly you absolutely do get the celebrity treatment, including wedding invitations[1] and especially a lot of photo requests. There are also parts of the world and families where a foreign guest unknown to most people there would be extremely awkward even if they had a genuine connection with one of the party.
I'd have gone to the wedding of the daughter of the Indian chap who sat next to me on a bus for a couple of hours the day before if there hadn't been logistical issues, because the invitation was genuine and I'd have been able to have proper conversations with the wedding party and feel like I was there for more than just free food and music. I don't think he needed me to make his day though :)
Yeah, while I did like the Laser-Back strategy of going to the most remote location first and meandering back to the departure city, reading the names at the bottom shows only one phenotype of person wrote/edited this.
That will only work if a white tourist wedding crashes in a poor country. That will not work if I (as a brown-colored southeast asian) do it.