how far does a person need to travel to be considered a "Tourist" ?

[Turnip]

I would say this is less a question of distance but of attitude.

Typical German tourist until spring season 45.

Typical German tourist ever since then.

 

[tonyb]

We live 2 hours up the I5 from Seattle and (before Covid) travelled there regularly. We always consider ourselves tourists when we cross the 49th. As well, especially during the pandemic lockdown will declare it "Tourist Day" and head downtown and play tourist in our own hometown for the day........and do our best to view the city through different eyes.

Can’t say that I often crossed the border during the 46 years I lived in Seattle and environs, but on that handful of occasions I did, I knew I wasn’t a local. That international border makes a real difference. San Francisco felt more like home to me than Vancouver. I’d imagine that British Columbians similarly regard Winnipeg, say.

 

[belfastboy]

Can’t say that I often crossed the border during the 46 years I lived in Seattle and environs, but on that handful of occasions I did, I knew I wasn’t a local. That international border makes a real difference.

In 1966 I skipped out the first month of my senior year of high school to live in Seattle or White Center more specifically. Of course there was a girl involved but after a month it got boring as she was in school during the day and I tired of hanging out. So it was time to end the romance, return home and complete my senior year. But it was fun while it lasted. I shall never forget Linda Sue H.... from Oklahoma....she loved me but her daddy hated this long haired Canadian kid.

 

[tonyb]

Tourists who think themselves something other than that get on my nerves.

No, Ms. Recent Graduate, visiting some exotic land for a few weeks or months while eschewing the hotels and the standard tourist destinations in favor of hanging with the locals doesn’t make you any less a tourist. What you’re actually doing might more accurately be called slumming.

 

[Turnip]

But what often enough proved to be true is that worldviews of folks who never viewed the world are the most dangerous.

 

[Bushman]

I would say this is less a question of distance but of attitude.

Typical German tourist until spring season 45.

Typical German tourist ever since then.

 

[tonyb]

But what often enough proved to be true is that worldviews of folks who never viewed the world are the most dangerous.

There’s some truth in that, I suppose. But still, getting a look at another part of the world (which could as well be a “foreign” neighborhood in one’s own city) doesn’t make a person of that world. It may impart some new understanding. And maybe it won’t.

Sometimes a little knowledge is more dangerous than no knowledge at all, which is what too often happens when a person thinks he understands more than he actually does.

I’ll acknowledge being a bit jaded by having known in my earlier days too many young people who were essentially slumming in my world. They were free to go back to their upper middle class and higher circumstances after they’d had their fill of street life. They saw some grittiness and inevitably found they’d seen enough of it, once the novelty wore off.

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

"How far" isn't really the nub of the matter. It's "why". A caravan of 5,000 Central Americans heading for the Rio Grande wouldn't be called "tourists" by anyone, no matter that they are more than 1,000 miles from home.

 

[Zombie_61]

...A caravan of 5,000 Central Americans heading for the Rio Grande wouldn't be called "tourists" by anyone, no matter that they are more than 1,000 miles from home.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe they all somehow went to the same travel agent and he got them a really good deal.

 

[Fifty150]

 

[Turnip]

…
Maybe they all somehow went to the same travel agent and he got them a really good deal.

Maybe they are all veterans of the country’s largest travel agency called „ARMY“…

 

[HelenMachine]

Just visit one country, and you will already become a tourist

 

[HelenMachine]

Just visit one country, and you will already become a tourist. By the way, I love traveling. My favorite destinations are Europe, especially Germany and Switzerland. The landscapes and the historical places in this region are amazing, and it is easy to travel without having a car, which helps to save some money. I am always traveling by train in Germany. I always buy the train tickets from dbauskunft.com. I like that there is a schedule for trains, and they always arrive when it is written in the schedule.

 

[belfastboy]

I have travelled a lot in my life but somehow never enough. As a 'traveler' who encounters other 'travelers' who complain about all those tourists cluttering up the place, causing congestion, line ups at the museums etc etc......my common rejoinder is; "You mean folks like us?" Regardless of whether I eschew cargo shorts and a fanny pack and consider myself a 'traveler' I clog up the space just as much as all those damned tourists.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Having lived in tourist traps all my life, I'd say the real definition of a "tourist" is a person who spends thousands of dollars to travel thousands of miles so they can tell the locals how much better it is where they come from.

 

[Tiki Tom]

I have travelled a lot in my life but somehow never enough.

Amen, brother.

 

[tonyb]

There’s more than a handful of old mining towns out here in the West that would be ghost towns if not for tourism. Skiing, which took off after WWII, was the salvation of many such settlements up in the mountains.

I haven’t skied in decades (I break more readily than I bend these days), yet I still enjoy being in a ski town, whatever the season, but especially in winter.

 

[Ratskorogami]

The three definitions of a tourist were: Travel distance of greater than 50 miles.

 

[Ratskorogami]

The three definitions of a tourist were: Travel distance of greater than 50 miles. Travel distance of greater than 100 miles. Travel distance of greater than 50 miles, including a night's stay. To summarize, travelers are people who go somewhere else. Tourists are people who go to another place to have fun. Some people prefer not to be called tourists. I consider myself a tourist because I always have to search for an ibis hotel near me just to sleep there for a night and then head back to my trip. But I consider a tourist a person who visits another country.

 

[tonyb]

I have travelled a lot in my life but somehow never enough. As a 'traveler' who encounters other 'travelers' who complain about all those tourists cluttering up the place, causing congestion, line ups at the museums etc etc......my common rejoinder is; "You mean folks like us?" Regardless of whether I eschew cargo shorts and a fanny pack and consider myself a 'traveler' I clog up the space just as much as all those damned tourists.

It’s like the guy who complains of the traffic he encounters every workday rush hour.