Observations and Facts about Tourist
Living in Bishop and the Eastern Sierra for 21 years, I have had a lot of time to observe, think about, and question the behavior of that special group of humans known as Tourist. I’ve decided to create a few posts about them and share with you the information I’ve obtained over the years. Now if these observations are a little uncomfortable to you, if they sound a little to much like your own behavior when your in the Sierra, don’t be upset with me. I’m just trying to have a little fun 
So here we go,
Observations and facts about tourist:
- If you are a photographer and you pull into a turn out to take a picture on a busy tourist road, within 60 seconds of setting up your tripod you will be surrounded by tourist, parking at the strangest angles and all pointing their cameras in the same direction that yours is pointing.
- If there is wildlife in the area, they will try to feed it and want to touch it, all the while exclaiming, “Oh look how cute it is.”. And if the wildlife is something big, like a deer or bear, they will form a wall and and advance on the poor animal with their camera flashes popping all around. Oh, and most of them will have the red eye reduction on too.
- Here is one that’s particular to what I call “Tourist Fishermen”.
If there is a bridge with a sign nearby that reads “No Fishing From Bridge”, there will be at least one Tourist Fisherman fishing from it. If there are fish visible in the crystal clear water below the bridge, then there will be a major swarm of Tourist Fishermen plunking their Power Bait into the water and all of them asking “Why won’t they bite?”.- This one happens in the winter when it’s snowing and chains are required. It may happen in all mountain resort areas in the country, but I know it happens with the Southern California skier tourist.
At the chain up area there will be one person trying to put on the chains while five or six more stand around freezing their butts off watching and offering no help to the poor person fighting with the chains. And also, at least one person will have shorts on! This one use to crack Tammy up. She would even take pictures of them and send to her friends- To finish off this first installment of tourist observations, I will share with you a quote by John Muir that he wrote in the 19th century.
“The average tourist just loves to be told what to look at.”
So there you have it. I hope I didn’t offend to many of you out there. I don’t think I did because I know SierraVisions readers are smarter than the average tourist.
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Nice observations, made me laugh. We get our share of tourists here in Big Bear Lake. If I may, I have 3 more observations.
1) In winter, a few days after a snow, and the roads are now bare from snow melting. There are still drivers driving with chains on. It only breaks up the road, and damages the vehicle.
2) Tourists never buy groceries at home. They buy out all the milk, bread, eggs when they visit here. In the winter around ski season it’s hard to get milk at either of our 2 grocery stores. Another thing I noticed, almost all the items in thier shopping card are alchohol.
3) And my very favorite one…tourists burn wood in thier fireplaces in the summer…when it’s 65 degrees out at night. =D
Tourists always seem to be driving on the same two lane highway you are only they are in front going 3mph towing a travel trailer.
While fishing bishop creek with very light taqckle, I observed a tourist and his children fishing the creek with deep sea tackle!!!!
So Funny…..especially the guy with the shorts because that is so true and something I have observed many times. Or better yet sandals or flip flops in the snow.
When I was growing up in the Owens Valley, we called them “Flatlanders”. My favorite is when one flatlander stops to put chains on, they all stop to put chains on….even if the chain control isn’t for another 5 miles. They’re like lemmings!
My brother, who has lived in the San Bernardino mountains for over 20 years, has said that is what he calls people who only come up to the mountains a couple times a year - “Flatlanders”. LOL. He can always tell who they are because they don’t know how to drive on the mountain roads and their cars are very, very clean….and so are the chains that they stop and put on…sometimes they are new in the box - never been put on their car before. He has been very nice and helped people out when the weather was so bad and they obviously didn’t know what the heck they were doing. One New Year’s eve, when it was snowing really hard, he helped a guy and his wife who has been on their way up to Big Bear. They gave him a bottle champagne for his trouble.
OK… thought I would add to this, as well, especially since the story about someone in shorts is so very true. I wonder if these guys wear shorts in the summer along with everyone else, or just decide to slip them on as the temperature begins to drop and the cold winds start to blow. I find it amusing. Some information I got while visiting Denali in Alaska… a huge, magnificent park, where you were told not to walk on trails, but to simply make your way across the tundra, as they wanted to keep it as unspoiled as possible. At the time I went they were experimenting with the idea, thinking they might use it at other parks. I add this, as sometimes you see people (toursits) tramping off the trails and crushing whatever bit of grass or wild flower might be poking up. In Denali, that would be quite acceptable… Take Care…
Ha! Very good! I’m such a brat that when I go to parks like Yosemite or Yellowstone I always think about how funny it would be to stop in random places (always in safe pull-over spots) and stop and point at nothing. Then leave before they can ask me what I’m looking at. I’ve only done it once and felt kind of bad but…not really
Such good observations about those flatlander tourists. I especially love (please sense the sarcasm in my voice!) the ‘hiker’ tourists who attempt to climb mountains in their jeans and street-savvy shoes. Then they complain about blisters. Or the unobservant ones who ignore the signs about wildlife and open range and end up hitting that black cow simply because they were going to fast.
Such good observations about those flatlander tourists. I especially love (please sense the sarcasm in my voice!) the ‘hiker’ tourists who attempt to climb mountains in their jeans and street-savvy shoes. Then they complain about blisters. Or the unobservant ones who ignore the signs about wildlife and open range and end up hitting that black cow simply because they were going too fast.