30 Things Tourists Get Wrong About Popular Destinations, According To People Who Live There

Australian here.

Sydney and stuff are expensive. But the one thing that people underestimate about our country is the sheer size of it, people go to the hotspots like Uluru, GBR, Sydney and Melbourne but they forget that it is a country nearly the size of USA. It's not small and you will meet people who have never left their state before.

I used to live in Bangkok, Thailand.

Not all Thai women are prostitutes and easy. In fact, they're pretty conservative and preserved.

Most of female millennials are educated white collar workers. And we're more into Korean or Japanese culture/people than the western. Everyday BKK women won't approach men first because it's a big NO NO unless they're from certain areas.

Those who work in sex industry come from the poor parts of Thailand or near by countries where there're not many job opportunities.

That New Yorkers are rude.

We can be totally. But it’s because you mess up the flow of the rest of us who need to get somewhere.

If you get lost a New Yorker will jump at the chance to help. Need a photo taken for your vacation someone will take the snapshot.

I don’t live there, but a lot of my family does and I’ve been there (Jamaica)

It’s a paradise

No, it isn’t. A lot of people can’t afford food, water, and electricity at the same time (apparently electricity used to be cheaper but since the government is a total assh*le they sold it to some company and now it’s expensive)

Probably not a misconception because it’s sadly one of the things we are known for (especially if you live in the uk) crime. Our crimes are pretty bad. Not as bad as Latin America, but it’s still bad, and our job market isn’t exactly helping its case (it’s pretty bad, and the mlms also are not helping) (do keep in mind that some places are saferthan others, like port Antonio)

The people here are nice

Well yes, but actually no. We tend to be vain and general assh*les to other Jamaicans . We will treat tourists nicely if your a tourist because your basically one of the few things that fuel our economy

And don’t come if your gay, they won’t mind killing you and your spouse for being bad to the Bible or some sh*t.

The country is nice, but we could really use a do over..

New Zealand here. It's sold as a clean green eco country where there are views out every window and you can romp along the empty tracks and beaches to your heart's delight... The realty is a lot different. The country is going through an eco crisis, water quality in most rivers has dropped to the point where they are not swimmable, old school sewerage overflows are contaminating the beaches and every track of international note is shuffling room only. While there is still stunning scenery, the rest of the country is struggling to keep up with an influx of people alongside a housing crisis that's made home ownership a pipe dream for many.

Tourists often think that, being such a small country, they can drive from A-B in X hours as that's what it would take back home for that distance. The realty is that the majority of our roads/highways are single lanes on winding roads with one way bridges and few chances to overtake. The drivers suck and you will cop a gesture or two if you dare look at another driver.

For the most part people are nice and friendly but it's like every other developed country. Leave something of value in your car and it'll get nicked. Walk down a dark Street at night and some P head will try one over on you. Flash a bit of coin and someone will figure out a way to part you with it.

New Zealand's a great country but it is a heavily developed country which comes with all the associated problems. It's a long time since it's been 100% Pure.

Tokyo. It's not the perfect paradise people imagine it to be. It's a major city, just like London, New York, Toronto, etc, and has major city problems.

The trains run at 130% capacity; garbage & graffiti almost everywhere; rats, cockroaches, feral cats, & attack crows (no robots just yet) roam the city; the homeless population just gets shunted around or thrown in jail (little support for them)...

I live in a touristy part of Wales and would like this cleared up.

We don’t all suddenly switch to speaking Welsh when an English tourist arrives.

There are genuinely people that believe as soon as an English person enters a pub, say, that all the Welsh people who were previously speaking English suddenly switch.

Appalachian tourist destinations.

Unless stuff in the giftshops is advertised as locally made, you can get it in bulk for cheaper off the Internet, because that's totally where the boss did. And the locally made stuff is sometimes nice, sometimes makes you miss Regretsy.

The food stuff, check the labels.

No, the locals do not like to be called hillbillies, except Hillbilly who owns Hillbilly's Junkyard, and he is a character, let me tell you.

Yes, we genuinely are this friendly and really do like to talk with strangers this much, but it comes from either the terrifying isolation of deeply insular small towns where everyone knows everyone else's business or being a transplant who has to drive three solid hours to so much as a decent-sized Costco.

Some of the kids get backpacks full of food every Friday from volunteers at the schools because even if their folks had the money for groceries, they might not also have the hour and back's worth of gas to get them that week from the nearest store.

No, we are not paid a living wage at this tourist site. Incidentally; management is a family and doesn't understand why $8/hr isn't enough to live on.

When I lived there, I had four jobs and the two that were tourism-related were purely to stave off the boredom and have an excuse to see people."

But if you go about four, maybe five hours that way, depending on the traffic, it's our nation's capital, so...yeah.

Living in Bali. Yes there are some beautiful places but its really dirty here. There is literally garbage everywhere as the local government doesn't have a trash collection program. People burn their trash everywhere. Also tons of corruption by police that try to supplement their income. Lots of poverty and poor people from whole of Indonesiz trying their luck here. There is a reason why the Indonesian government is trying to steer tourist to the "new Bali's" : it is overcrowded.

I'm from Spain, we don't drink Sangría and we don't have Paella (not PAELA, PLEASE) every day.

And there's more than football, every time I meet someone and they ask me where I'm from, the one and only question appears... Madrid or Barcelona? F*off