I grew up in northern Michigan, in the heart of the tourist trap area, about an hour south of Mackinaw City, Mackinac Island, etc. We call tourists in that part of the state "fudgies" because they are all toting bags of fudge from the fudge shops that abound in that part of the state. A lot of my friends in college worked on Mackinac Island, where no cars are allowed. You get around by foot, bike or horse-drawn carriages. I remember they all loved the first two weeks on the island, but by the end of the first month, they all called it "Mack-atraz." We could always pick out tourists from "downstate," aka the greater Detroit area. One of my favorite encounters was once when my dad and I were driving somewhere, and we got stuck behind some guy towing his huge boat. That was fine, except he didn't raise the boat motor before he left, and his propellor was hitting the asphalt and throwing sparks as we drove north on US-23. Gotta be from Detroit, my dad said. When we got close enough while passing him, we could read the boat's name and port location on the back. Grosse Pointe (high-rent area of southeast MI). Sure enough.

That said, Michigan is a beautiful place to visit anytime of year. Check it out:

Tourists
 

Hear we have five casinos,I worked at one of them for three years as a bartender on the boat,I remember my first summer with the tourist comeing to the casino to play for the first time.This was the first summer horseshoe was open..barely,this is the bible belt hear the regligous folks were standing on the corner preaching the sin of the casino and gambling..on the tv chanels on Sunday casinos got hot air time a plenty.One nignt about 3:am thes guy comes up to my bar and orded a drink for him and his honey( lady of the night)the face was real familuar but I couldnt place it till he used his credit card to get cash to play with( my bar had $.50 rolles of coins to play the bar slots) this guy was a well known preacher from hear.He said the best way he knew to understand the casino was to come see it for himself..then make a judgement call.We saw lots of this over the years I worked on the boat.Then there were so many ppl who had never seen a casino before,like kids in wonderland.One night a older cople hit a jack pot for $20,000.00 they had no clue how much ther has won..thought it was $200.00 I had to call the EMT's just incase they were needed.Corse ther were the aholes who thought they could be aholes in the first degree,treated ppl bad,make fun of the city for being back wards.Im shure many have seen some rude ppl in resturants,My goodness I thought most ppl had some decent manners but after working at one of the buffets for a while as bartender for it and the hotel I have seen about all of the crazy things one can see.Like the blackened frog leggs that some lady thought were something else that she screamed and near fainted,we had some traditional cajun dishes one week end,nuff said..was a riot cause most ppl who live hear havent eaten some of the dishes.

I grew up on a small island in Canada, a very popular tourist destination. i worked in the local hotel bar, and we had tshirts made that on the front said WELCOME TO SALTSPRING ISLAND!

on the back, it said, NOW GO HOME.


I hated tourist season there, and I have to say, ignorant tourists are not limited to one country, its global! We dont have chain restaurants there, no golden arches etc......I was enjoying a quiet solitary walk one day, minivan loaded with kids, parents, barking dogs, and what was probably the entire contents of their house pulled up, music blaring, dogs barking like mad, and kids screaming, "hey, look, there is a local, you can tell, look at her shoes....hey you, come'ere, yeah, you...hippy girl............where is the closest McD's, well, if you turn around and take that ferry, drive 5 miles you will find one......yeah sure, liar, where is the one here on this rock. Well, fine, just joking, drive up this road, turn right at the next one, and follow it til you come to the Golden Arches, cant miss em

said road went up the mountain to the fire station lookout, 10 miles of potholes, washboard, unpaved road, so narrow even a VW bug might not clear the brush on either side of it. Dont know if they ever came out!!

Not that anybody HERE would do this.......
 

You're so lucky to have grown up there, Saltspring Island is so great. (That was the only island I ever visited when I was living in Vancouver.) I promise I didn't act like an ass. I just went hiking and then went home.

Here in stupid Sarnia during the summer we have a stupid outdoor music festival that brings in stupid people from all over stupid north america. I kinda hate Bayfest every time I see an out of province or out of country licence plate.

Those cars with our of province/country plates are almost always driven by people who have no idea where they are going and are too busy looking for street signs to pay attention to pedestrians - so every time I leave my apartment I feel like I am putting my life at risk. My "some jerk making a right turn didn't see me crossing the street and almost hit me today" stats go up about 20 fold when Bayfest is here.

And jesus, you drove all the way from Kentucky to come see KISS? Really?

[QUOTE=betenoire;349768]You're so lucky to have grown up there, Saltspring Island is so great. (That was the only island I ever visited when I was living in Vancouver.) I promise I didn't act like an ass. I just went hiking and then went home.

it was an amazing place to grow up. As a kid, we had acres and acres of forest, farms, a lake across the road, orchards so full of fruit, we would make ourselves sick from eating! As an teen, it became a bit close. Everyone knew everyone, if you skipped class, you would be found out bythe time yougot home!! LOL
It has become a tourist mecca, which IMO has had a negative effect. Property prices are outrageous, low income people cant find a decent place to live for a decent rent. If you do, you have to vacate by May, because everyone wants to rent any space they have to tourists. You cant find a place to park in town, and stores and shops hike their prices for the season.
I get that tourist dollars fuel business, but at the same time, locals seem to get the short end of the stick.

I live in Nashville and a great portion of our income is also from tourists.

I worked at Opryland USA for 5 years and most of my other jobs have been tourism or travel related.

It really is...take a vacation...leave your brain at home!

Though Opryland closed in 1998, people still show up here looking for it.

One of my favorite things, when working in a hotel was when people thought turn down service meant their room had been broken in. :|

Tourists here wear cowboy attire...middle of humid 113 degree Summer and tourons with cowboy hats and boots everywhere? or those umbrella hats. Oh and black socks with sandals.

They run around looking for stars to ogle, and as Nashvillians we don't notice stars, we want them to stay here, not the tourons. I have no idea if Whispering Bill is still around. Zero clue.

I could go on and on....

Here in San Diego we have these cars that can be rented out so that folks can take tours of Balboa Park and harbor areas.. These cars are all very small, bright yellow and look like lil dune buggies.. Sometimes they run in packs6 to 10 at a time. Those are always fun to see..

Also, the store that I work at is a leather/fetish retail store.. We seem to get a lot of tourists walking in.. In fact, anyone that visits Hillcrest seems to HAVE to visit our store.. Usually later at night and after a few drinks.. They giggle and ignore me and my coworker then they either want to plkay dress-up or wack at each other with 100 dollors worth of leather flogger.. And they like to take pictures.

Yeah.. Not good tourist or shopper's etiquette. I tend to be a lil snippy with them when they take down our displays to play with them or to take pictures with the "gimp" mask.. lol I also like to kinda follow them around and educate them on the finer points of fetish gear and play. They usually leave after that.

Bah.. lol

My favorites are the Asian tourists with the big cameras that come in.. lol Yeah, really :D

really?---how come?

reading that makes me very uncomfortable...is the ethnic descriptor interchangeable?...and if it is, how would it read?...

why are they your "favorites"...good tippers?



My favorites are the Asian tourists with the big cameras that come in.. lol Yeah, really :D[/QUOTE]

[/QUOTE]

Sorry if that seemed racist or something.. My main reason for saying that is because they come in, look around and leave.. Very quiet and polite.. Not like the drunk rude ones. Plus, it makes me feel like we are something to see, you know? that we'll be part of thier story when they get home.

Hope that helps.

-Tony

hey Tony...

thanks for taking the time to respond, and to do it in a way that didn't make my eyes bleed :)

yes, it did sound 'racist' to me...I think we often risk that when we use sweeping statements about any ethnic, or other wise identifiable, group of people, as unintended as it may be...add to that the fact that we don't know who is on the other end of the screen, it's always good (in my estimation) to steer away from generalized statements...

I do understand now, much better, what you intended to convey...and, again, I really do appreciate you taking the time to clarify...I imagine it gets to be wearing to have people come into your place of employment and behave as though they are on some kind of field trip...I do hope, that for the most part, folks behave and it's as stress free as any job dealing with The Public can be!

thanks again...all the best

Nina




Sorry if that seemed racist or something.. My main reason for saying that is because they come in, look around and leave.. Very quiet and polite.. Not like the drunk rude ones. Plus, it makes me feel like we are something to see, you know? that we'll be part of thier story when they get home.

Hope that helps.

-Tony[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I've heard that. :( I think it'd be great to be a kid there, for sure. But I guess most places that are great to be as children are little less great to be when you're an adult and you have to worry about money and stuff.

I went through a pretty short-lived phase where I wanted to move there, actually. The phase ended as soon as I looked at house prices. ;) You know how that goes.

We live in Corpus Christi and I get really frustrated with the amount of trash that beachgoers leave on the beaches and in the parking lots. I don't know if they are tourists or locals and don't care. The city does just about everything but put their trash in the trash can for them: they give out recyclable bags, put out extra trash cans during busy weekends like Memorial weekend, all along the beach every few feet, even put out large dumpsters on the busiest beaches. Yet still, despite all this, people leave fast food bags and wrappers and balled up dirty diapers on the beach and in the parking lots. They make zero attempt to walk over to a trash can and throw it away. Me and Rufus walked over to the beach last week and I spotted multiple wrappers, bags and two dirty diapers. There are constant letters in the paper begging people to pick there trash up. I don't get it! Every Monday morning I watch the city come to the beach across form us and two city trucks spend half the day cleaning the beach and the parking lot after the weekend.

M

I often had the same problem with tourist hear in louisiana,How many times ive been ask if I spoke english or did I just speak cajun slang.I would anser them is the fue words of italian and spanish that I know.They would think is really cool,if they knew what the words translated ment they would faint.