Sure Signs That You Are Caught In A Tourist Trap

Beware The Tourist Trap!

So you have decided to strike out and explore the remote, unspoiled part of your destination. Not for you the comforts of a smart hotel and the ease of booking travel tickets in English. But what if you go off track and are unwittingly heading into tourist land? Here are a few tips that should help you turn around before it is too late.

The sure fire sign of a tourist trap is the presence of any form of garnish in your drink. If you get a Mojito with a parasol or a coffee with a sparkler in it you are in the wrong place. Run, run for your life before the menu in nine languages appears and the Mariachi band asks for a day’s budget as a tip!

Everybody likes to see people wearing traditional costume but you are heading into tourist land if everybody is in jeans except for the woman who is heading directly for you wearing local garb. In Colombia for example, every tourist spot has women wearing bright clothes and selling fruit out of baskets. In Northern Vietnam we saw two members of an American tour group knocked over and trampled by a mob of Red Dzao women trying to get onto their bus with a sack of embroidered cushions. It was a sign that we needed to trek to a different village before they homed in on us.

Be aware that the tourist trap appears in many forms and can disguise itself and appear without warning. In Guangxi Province, China, a couple of hours cycle ride out of Yangshuo (a bona-fide tourist trap), we found an old woman alone by the side of the road wearing a huge straw hat and stopped to ask her for a photograph. As soon as we got off our bicycles, her entire family jumped out of the ditch by the road chanting “photo money, photo money”. It was such a well laid tourist trap that we paid up with good grace!

The truth is that after a while, we all crave a tourist trap. After two weeks of bus travel around rural Guatemala drinking Chicha Morada (maize juice) with the locals, there aren’t many travelers hard-core enough not to pop into Starbucks in Antigua for a latte. Even the ones who swear blind that they don’t will eventually be found sneaking out of the side door with a foamy top lip.