Travel Snobs

We went on our first cruise, and enjoyed the evening company (the same people each evening), but breakfast and lunch, it was different holidaymakers each and everytime. The first questions were always
Where are you from?
How many cruises have you been on?
What do you do/did?
When we said it was our first cruise, the shock nay horror expressed became wearisome!
We have travelled extensively but wanted to go to the Caribbean and felt a cruise was the best way to see as much as possible.
However, we have decided that this will be our one and only cruise!
Not sure if you would describe them as travel snobs, but most of them expressed their view that cruises were the best way to travel! When we said we were unsure if we would do another cruise, we were distinctly persona non grata!

Meant to say in the US it was for the National Parks and involved a lot of driving and our coach had privileges and so we avoided the dreaded queues of cars going through eg Yellowstone. Plus had a better view of wildlife out the elevated window position!

Louizalass ... we don't go on tours to meet people, we go as a couple so neither of us has to drive and/or navigate and can enjoy the scenery. Especially for trips that would take in days of driving around to get from A to B, plus organising accommodation, etc. Did two weeks around Spain, Greece and the US within the last several years. We have even taken train trips now and then in the UK just to avoid the driving.

On coach tours, we keep to ourselves once at the accommodation and go out and about on our own as most others do. Some do gravitate to each other and chat and hang about together, others don't! There is no pressure to eat at the same time/place or table unless it's a small village stop where something's been organised.

On the coach, the TD is usually pointing out places of interest, or letting us know what the next stop will be, or often if a long leg of riding, they put on a movie! If we'd done our own driving on the long coach holidays, we would have been knackered (I'm mid 60s, OH is mid 70s).

If you really want to keep to yourself and are not travelling with a companion, take a book or your tablet and keep your head down.

Our children live in Oz and America so when we go on holiday we go to family! But if we were to go by ourselves somewhere, it'd be just that - by ourselves!

Am sure these organised tours are great if you like meeting new people; I do like meeting new people as a rule but I've got one of those faces which attract the bores and the yappers - how do you avoid these people if you want to escape them?!!

I have a very dear friend who is a 'virtuous' travel snob. She makes six or seven long haul trips a year, some to stay with friends, but whenever she goes on holiday, it is a Fair Trade trip visiting remote countries seeing Fair trade projects and buying all her souvenirs from the producers, and does she let us know about it!!

Personally, I think it would be a lot more virtuous if she stayed home and didn't make such a massive contribution to climate change through her air flights. There are plenty of charities, like Practical Action who devote their funds to finding and implementing practical solutions to the many, usually very basic problems, communities like the ones she visits have and can do more to help these communities than her purchase of their products does.

Even worse than travel bores abroad are travel bores at home. We have one who visits our local coffee shop, and he makes sure anyone unfortunate enough to be in earshot has to hear where he's been and where he will be going next week. We do quite a bit of travelling because we like to see new places, but none but our nearest and dearest have to know about it.

We've been to Lake Como twice, on a bus, with a budget company. Not everyone's idea of fun, I know, but it's actually dead easy for anyone who can sleep/read on the coach (and boy, can we sleep - I swear I missed Switzerland altogether last time!). We then had an all-inclusive stay for a week in a lakeside hotel, for much less than half the price of others using a more upmarket tour company. And because we paid so little, we could upgrade to a wonderful room with lakeside view and balcony, and still be much better off than those who'd never use a budget option.

The worst example of travel snobbism I know is when my sister and husband won a wonderful Caribbean cruise and met some lovely people, but were treated like the poor relations by one of the couples at their dining table. They were horrible, never missing an opportunity to put them down.

I went on holiday with my son age 9yrs because OH and I were trying to cover the summer school holiday between us. On the first day at Minehead holiday camp, we got talking to a man and his son at the communal lunch…BIG MISTAKE! He followed us around for a couple of days. In the end I had to take my son off site to the sea side to avoid him. Why do men think you are fair game if you are alone?

Why do people put up with 'single supplements'? They sell you one bed, why do you have to pay for two? If the excuse is that you are taking up a double room then they should build more single rooms shouldn't they? What a rip off!

We went on a package holiday to Greece. Unfortunately we clashed with what looked like a Rally of the German Socialist Party. We were moved out of our room to an annex because the whole building we were in was allocated to the Germans. They took over in the breakfast room and also at dinner. Pushing and shoving was the norm. It was like being surrounded by Nazis.

In the end we started going to the tavern in the town. It was brilliant....but it was empty because the travel company kept their holidaymakers on site. The poor villages had to put up with the noise, but did not benefit from visitors to the town or restaurants. I felt really sorry for them. We had a great time once we had left the complex and ventured out in to the real world. The people were friendly, the music was good and the food was delicious. Better than German sausages anyway.

The trouble with package holidays is that you often get lumbered with the most boring, horrible people who stick to you like glue.

Some years ago we went to the Monaco Grand Prix. We stayed with friends near Nice and they organised a lift into Monte Carlo for us. They had a wealthy friend staying with them who informed us that the whole thing would be a rip off, everything would be wildly expensive and food would cost a fortune and basically we might as well not go. We ignored him, got our lift into Monte, bought tickets for 20 euros each, bought very tasty chicken baguettes from a van for about 3euros, and spent a lovely afternoon sitting on the hillside with a few hundred others enjoying the race. We got the train back afterwards. A long wait because there were so many of us but certainly not expensive and not a snob in sight.

We went to Sorrento last year with a well known travel company .We have done organised long haul holidays but usually 'do'Europe ourselves .It was surprisingly relaxing and very good value .A bit too much 'nannying'for us but you soon learn to tune it out
Most people on.the trip were actually very well travelled ,but some were aging and in many cases one partner's health was not brilliant .W'd do it again in an area where travelling independently is a hassle. We met one couple at the hotel who admitted getting everywhere by public transport was a pain (no-one not in the first flush of youth /in their right mind would willlingly drive in this area)

I jusr went to Italy with One Traveller who were very good at looking after you. Several people felt it was the best of the solo companies they had used.

We have been lucky on our tour holidays that way. Did do a tour of Greece and had an overbearing tour director... left us all shaking our heads and wishing she'd just shut up! Finally someone took her aside and told her we could do with just some quiet time to enjoy the scenery. Turns out this well known UK tour company requires their TD's to give out a certain volume of information and she was new! We said we'd not report her if she left some bits out. By end of tour we all loved her to bits and were sad to leave her and the coach driver.

Our funniest tour was the National Parks Canyonlands in the US. Being American, I grew up on East Coast and had never seen the Grand Canyon LOL! So off we went. One mother and daughter on the tour had done this tour about 8 times. It was the cheapest way to get a good hotel in Vegas where they extend their stay by a week at the end. They were so much fun as they knew the whole tour by heart. I guess they just liked travelling around first before settling down at the slots and tables. Our TD was on the verge of offering them a job to round up the strays who never seem to make it back in time from various stops.

This is making me want to book something, somewhere...in the US. But first want to be sure Trump does NOT get into office!

It is funny when I meet these people near where I live part of the year in Portugal. Then they start telling me where I should go and the best places to eat which I politely listen to. Then they ask me have I been here before and I tell them I live here. The funny thing is they don't ask me where to go etc.

Sunseeker
We went on our first but definitely not our last Rail Discoveries holiday.
There was one lady by herself who mixed easily with us and others.
DH has decided he's had enough of airports and flying so we tried this. Loved every minute of it as did others but not the TSs of course.
Travelled premium class on Eurostar breakfast going out and dinner coming back. Then high speed train to Spain then coach to lovely 4 star hotel. We found nothing to complain about.....fantastic

We usually travel independently, and find we always meet nice people,I havent met travel snobs.We have plenty here around where I live, people here ask what kind of holiday we have had, then dont wait to hear, thats the end of the conversation, but immediately they begin to tell when they were there, in great detail. I am really disappointed at times, as I think it is nice to be able to tell prople what kind of holiday we have had.
One thing I cant stand, is getting on a plane and having a "talker" next to me, needing to talk the entire journey, I must admit I usually only fly over to the UK, and it takes two hours, but sometimes two hours are nice to either read, or just relax, this is somethig coming fom me who is definately a "talker" Better be quiet now!

inishowen. That sort of person needs to be wound up; invite my DH!!!

I met one on a cruise. She asked how many cruises I'd been on. I said it was our first. She replied she'd been on five. She asked if I'd heard of Leeds as that's where she was from!!! When I told her I was from Belfast she looked like she was sucking a lemon and turned to speak to someone else.

Thanks Jayanna and Maggie I will make a note of those - like the idea of mixing with people from other countries too!

We did a cruise on a small recently refurbished chartered ship. The owner and his wife, wealthy Eastern Europeans were on board - perfectly friendly but not overly so. One couple made a beeline for them managing to sit at their table at mealtimes, sitting at the bar with them every evening and hanging onto their every word. The other passengers were very amused that this lasted about three days and then it became obvious that the owner did his best to avoid them cutting them dead when he saw them come into the dining room.

Archers/Cosmos tours are very good. We've developed a bit of an Archers habit, I must confess! If you're up for it, they have a system where they pair off singles (if they want to share a room and save the single supplement). We had two women on our tour once who were absolutely chalk and cheese, but got on like a house on fire. There are usually Americans and Canadians on the tours as well as British people, which makes the company more interesting.

Sun seeker, have loved my travels with Just You. A friend regularly uses Solos. Explore also very good if you don't mind roughing it a bit.

We have just returned from Western Sicily using a well known travel co. We knew we would have to mix with all sorts, we chose the holiday because it seemed interesting, and we only had to turn up at the airport.
Most of the group was very nice, chatty and friendly. but... there were two groups of five who considered them superior and NEVER mixed with us "plebs"; they were taken off the coach first so as to eat only together. In fact at the end of 8 days I realised that some of the people were actually with us and not some other random group! It rather spoiled it.
But what rankled was the the tour manager pandered to such behaviour! we all paid the same, we should have been equal. No, they were far more equal than the rest!

overthehill off topic I know but who did you travel with? I often travel alone and have been considering going on an organised tour and would like some recommendations.