Americans Recommend Foreign Visitors Avoid These 45 Things When They're Traveling The Country

Ordering a large at a restaurant, or *especially* a movie theater. I don't care how hungry you think you are, you will not eat/drink it all in one sitting.

Heavily depends on where you are going....but don't assume the price you see is the price you pay. Sales tax isn't included on most price listings and Tip is expected for food service.

DO NOT TRY TO BRIBE COPS. As f****d up as American cops are bribery does not fly. Unless you're wealthy or powerful.

I find a lot of foreigners have about 2 1/2 inches of a personal space bubble, while us Americans value our space. Keep at least a 2-3 feet distance when conversing with strangers. I've had an Italian guy come so close I thought he was going to kiss me. Very uncomfortable for someone who isn't used to a lack of personal space.

Driving from New York to LA.

We had an exchange student from France staying with us (NY). one day, we saw her with a map of the US, said she was going to take a bus to California because she had heard so much about it on television.

We had to sit down and explain it was going to take a week, each way.

"Lol I have some German friends who flew into Texas and wanted to make a day trip to Los Angeles during the week they were in the US. After that first trip, they planned much better and now visit the country by regions and give themselves more time."

Don't interact with police unless you absolutely need to.

If there is garbage on the street or on the floor of the establishment, there are other regulations being ignored. If the floor isn’t clean, the rest of the place isn’t clean either. I know that sounds very snobbish and privileged, but coming from absolute poverty and climbing my way out, it’s absolutely correct.

If you're visiting a well-known and large city (New York, Boston, Seattle, Las Vegas, Houston, etc.) Avoid contact with people passing out CDs or offering to give you free things because they will try to charge you for it once they reel you in.

If you’re visiting Alaska, DO NOT visit rural or remote areas alone, especially if you’re inexperienced.

Alaska has the highest missing persons rate (about 168 missing people per 100k of the population, and we have 730,916 residents as of 2023), and the VAST majority of the state is unpopulated, unexplored and untamed wilderness. There’s even the Alaskan Triangle, a huge expanse of land between Anchorage, Juneau, and Utqiagvik (formerly known as Barrow) where more people go missing, along with disappearing aircraft, alleged paranormal and extraterrestrial sightings, and much more.

My advice, if you’re a first-timer to Alaska, is to stick to Southcentral Alaska. You’ve got Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley, where there’s plenty of tourist attractions. If you’re feeling more adventurous, there’s whale-watching and glacier tours in places like Seward and Homer. If you want somewhere further in the interior, there’s a two-hour drive to Talkeetna, or a another 6 hours to Fairbanks!

Avoid looking lost and unorganized in areas of big cities with high crime rates. Dress functionally, always keep the illusion of knowing where you are and where you're going, pay attention to your surroundings. Bad people will target folks who look lost and unorganized more often than people who appear oriented.

Don't expect the US to be pedestrian-friendly. Some of our larger cities are, but even they pale in comparison to EU cities. You need to drive here. NYC is basically our only major city that's not true of, but even there, public transport is not as good as that found in a lot of European and east Asian nations. You should expect to have to rent a car as part of your vacation expenditure if you don't have other accommodations.

Gary Indiana!! Do not, under any circumstances, go to Gary, Indiana. Ever

The heat. If you're going to hike in the desert, bring plenty of water.

Generally, you should tip at sit-down restaurants with full service (ie waiter comes and takes your order, brings food, refills drinks and clears your dishes). At these places, traditionally the minimum is 15%, but most people I know tip closer to 20% standard.

Hollywood Boulevard.

My cousins came from Oklahoma with preteens/teens and I tried to warn them that it wasn't really a good place and especially not for kids. They didn't listen. When I saw them that night, their mom said "I should have listened to you. It was horrible"

Don’t do the kiss on the cheek greeting. Well, as someone already mentioned, the US is 50 separate places with different customs, but the peck on the cheek, if that’s common where you’re visiting from, isn’t so popular here. It was something I had a hard time getting used to when visiting friends in Colombia.

Don't lock anything valuable in your car. This includes the trunk.

Look up the crime rates of any city before you go there so you know which areas to avoid.

The typical touristy places. This is a massive country with so much more to offer than Disney, Las Vegas, Hollywood, etc.

For the most part, the US is reasonably safe as long as you're not looking for the dangerous parts. For example, don't visit the ghetto – the worst parts of the US are arguably more dangerous than the poorer parts of some other developed countries.

Hollywood is a tourist trap. Honestly, the entirety of LA is just a difficult place to visit and it's not set up well for tourism.

New York can be a bit dirty as a city, mostly due to high density. It's a great city to visit with a lot to do, but it can be overwhelming if you're alone since it's so big.

Chicago is actually a pretty nice city to visit, the reputation is mostly due to the bad areas, but if you're visiting, you're probably going to be in the city where it's reasonably safe.