Vacation Etiquette for Americans

This turtle doesn’t need this bag, as he certainly won’t be doing any seaside shopping. “Multiply your left-behind paper plates and cups, soft drink bottles, etc., by the hundreds who will use that picnic area in a given week and you see why some areas look like one big garbage heap. Crews eventually will pick up after you, but you’re not thinking of the others who want to enjoy the outdoors, nor of the multi-million dollars of taxpayers’ money spent on cleanup alone.”  –Photo source Canadian Wildlife Federation

How Are Your Travel Manners? 

Check Yourself

A tourist is judged by his travel manners and the better they are the better the impression made on strangers at home and abroad. The better also you will enjoy your trip if you exercise the rules of courtesy. Good manners add to good service you get too from the motels, hotels, roadside eating places, airlines, trains and buses. Those catering to the vacationer if pinned down could give you a list of gripes that long for correction. They are tolerant, because they are seeking the tourist dollar. But, from talking to various persons in the travel industry, we have compiled –

“Pauley’s Easy Guide for Testing Your Vacation Etiquette”

• Do you hog two seats in the bus, train or plane by deliberately placing your coat, purse or other paraphernalia on the second seat, hoping thereby to seal it off? 
• Do you on planes hang assorted cameras, coats or other accessories including flight bags in your area so that they overlap and create a hazard anyway discomfort for the person behind or in front of you? 
• Do you light a cigarette, pipe or cigar without asking whether smoking bothers the person sitting next to you? 
• Do you use the ash tray nearest you or prefer to lean over and use one of your neighbor, dusting ashes as you go?
• Do you march up to the reception desk of hotel or motel and elbow others aside who are in line ahead of you to register? If you've pushed your way past others a little more patient during a busy tourist season, you’ve just won a top award for crudeness. 
• Do you adapt, if the conditions are not as perfect as promised ? Some of the overseas countries are just getting into the swing of seeking you as guest for a holiday and the shower may not always work, the soap supply not be ample. But point out politely that flaw in the service. Creating a scene does not create a favorable impression of Americans. 
• In motor travel, especially in the United States, do you trash the roadside picnic areas as if litter did not hurt? Multiply your left-behind paper plates and cups, soft drink bottles, etc., by the hundreds who will use that picnic area in a given week and you see why some areas of the United States look like one big garbage heap. Crews eventually will pick up after you, but you’re not thinking of the others who want to enjoy the outdoors, nor of the multi-million dollars of taxpayers’ money spent on cleanup alone. 
• Do your driving manners show in reverse? Tail-gating or nudging out of your lane at a stop light for a quick getaway when the light turns green? These invite disaster. 
• Do you remember to say thank you to the filling station attendant, the policeman or anyone else who acts as a free guide? There are a dozen times a day the tourist has a chance to say “thank you,” and make traveling a treat instead of a trauma. – By Gay Pauley, Women’s Editor, (UPI) New York , 1963

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia