Good afternoon my fellow travelers. Today I want to share a few thoughts about learning customs and courtesies when traveling outside of your own comfort zone. Be it 2 states over or oceans away, you should not only research the sites you want to see while in the vacations spot of your choosing, but look at some customs of the area. Learn to be a polite traveler. Learn to say please and thank you. I know this sounds simple. We all learned this when we were about 3 years old by our mothers. The truth is I have heard many a weary traveler return home and complain about their entire experience because the "locals are so rude". These same people make the same complaints no matter where they go. Maybe it's not the "locals". Did you ever think of that?
This past fall I got the opportunity to travel to Paris, France for a couple of days. I was a little nervous because I have always been told that the people in Paris are rude. As with all my travel experiences, I took the time to learn just 3 simple words in the local language: Please, Thank you, and You're Welcome. I did not become fluent in French. Just those 3 simple words. Let me tell you, no one was rude. In fact, we had people on the train volunteering to help us read the map and find short cuts to the sites we were heading out to see. One gentlemen even took the time to inform us of all the "local" sites that aren't on the map. We saw museums and parks that were beautiful and not full of other tourists. Because we found short cuts on the train, were able to spend more time at the places we had on our list and see places we didn't know existed.
It was the most amazing few days of vacation, all because I took the time to be nice. I have numerous examples of this but I'll leave some stories for another day. All comments are welcome but remember to be nice.
The Eiffel Tower
No comments:
Post a Comment