Have you ever met a smug traveller?

thegreatgonzo

Meangadh wrote: »

Do people really do that though? Or are they just telling you about great places they've been but because you've not been there it doesn't really interest you and it seems then like they're showing off when really they're just saying that they've been to an amazing place?

I think most people just like to share their stories. I don't think they're being smug. Sure, we might find them boring and irritating if we're not interested- but I'd rather that than someone who never leaves the country and has no clue of the world beyond their own back yard.

Oh they do. I've met them. Not many thank God but they are out there. I've travelled a lot on my own so I will start up conversations with most people I meet. With the case of the smelly swedish girl in my room in KL, she was rather hostile and told me that my plan to spend a month in Indonesia was 'nothing' to see any of the real Indonesia I should spend at least 3 months travelling there like she did. Also I hadn't seen the 'real' KL because I just missed the festival where people stick pins into themselves in a cave or something. In real life you can get the hell away from these joyless creatures but sometimes unfortunately you get stuck sharing small unventilated spaces with them.

ardle1

YAWWWWWH, I took a yawr out, let me thonk, oh yawwwwh I was in Indiaw and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

porsche959

CarrickMcJoe wrote: »

Do the female backpackers do that too?

These days, yes, on account of the new politically correct feminism they have now. :pac:

Buzz Killington the third

"I went off the beaten track"

did you fcuk... you stayed in hostels and got drunk for 6 months!

ScumLord

Your just jealous you've nothing better to talk about than the shyte you took this morning. If people have nothing more interesting to talk about than the cat they saw, or how it's too hot/cold/wet then I'm going to talk about the time I went to La tomatina, I don't like telling the story again but it's still better than looking at someone staring at their half empty pint wondering where their life went.

Everlong1

porsche959 wrote: »

These days, yes, on account of the new politically correct feminism they have now. :pac:

Does that explain Gonzo's smelly Scandi chick or was she just a knac*er?

thegreatgonzo

Everlong1 wrote: »

Does that explain Gonzo's smelly Scandi chick or was she just a knac*er?

I think she just didn't believe in showers or anti-perspirants.:mad:

conorhal

They typically snap back once the depressing reality of their credit card debt results in them living back home with mammy and daddy until they're thirty.
My only real gripe with them is being forced to sit through a feckin' slideshow of all their photos which, if you set the slideshow to 24 frames per second, would still constitute a realtime video diary of their entire gap year.

I really never again want to see another photo of scorched, alcohol dehydrated people gurning at a camera with arms around 'Ben and Sorcha that we met in Kualar Lumpar and travelled the Gold Cost with', having more fun then me at a series of beach bars that all look the same.
Still, their 'mad adventures' will only make you mildly jealous for a while, until you hear second hand about the two months in a cramped Brisbane studio apartment that they spent not talking to each other after Ben gave your mates girlfriend the clap.

KungPao

ardle1 wrote: »

YAWWWWWH, I took a yawr out, let me thonk, oh yawwwwh I was in Indiaw and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Aww, finish the story! I was just getting into it

KungPao

conorhal wrote: »

They typically snap back once the depressing reality of their credit card debt results in them living back home with mammy and daddy until they're thirty.
My only real gripe with them is being forced to sit through a feckin' slideshow of all their photos which, if you set the slideshow to 24 frames per second, would still constitute a realtime video diary of their entire gap year.

I really never again want to see another photo of scorched, alcohol dehydrated people gurning at a camera with arms around 'Ben and Sorcha that we met in Kualar Lumpar and travelled the Gold Cost with', having more fun then me at a series of beach bars that all look the same.
Still, their 'mad adventures' will only make you mildly jealous for a while, until you hear second hand about the two months in a cramped Brisbane studio apartment that they spent not talking to each other after Ben gave your mates girlfriend the clap.

The commentary is the worst:

Yeah, this is me in front of a noodle vendor in Da Nang...
This is me in front of the Sydney Opera House...
This is me and this carazy guy we met, LOL...
Yeah, this is me and Ramona, Clodagh, Shauna, and Lorna in a mud bath in Laos...we are so carazy...
Oh this is me with Xiuaong Lao, he was our taxi driver...

Facinating stuff!

KungPao

ScumLord wrote: »

Your just jealous you've nothing better to talk about than the shyte you took this morning. If people have nothing more interesting to talk about than the cat they saw, or how it's too hot/cold/wet then I'm going to talk about the time I went to La tomatina, I don't like telling the story again but it's still better than looking at someone staring at their half empty pint wondering where their life went.

Maybe some people are like this.

Not me though. When someone is back from a holiday/extended holiday, I am just happy for them and perhaps mildy interested in what they got up to. But people tend to talk as if they are shared memories and expect you to be as in wonderment as they are, but this isn't possible.

I lived in a far away place for a good while and came back, I try not to bore people with tales from there.

It's a bit like when somebody you know starts talking about their friends as if you know them.

"So Jeff then said to Joe..." And I'm like "I don't know these people, this story means very little to me".

greenflash

Not smug but I used to know a girl who talked a lot about 'when she was traveling'. Turns out she went to Sydney for six months and lived in a house with her housemates from college. She had a stopover in Singapore but didn't leave the airport, then spent the six months drinking in Irish pubs and banging some lad from Limerick. Traveling indeed.

jester77

I've met a few in my time on my worldly travels. Would often happen while sitting in the bar of the a swanky 5 star hotel and the person next to me would try to 1 up me by pulling out their amex black card.

snaphook

I yearned to "find myself" once.

So I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror.

.Henry Sellers.

They've some neck them fellas have, if I've to look at anymore pics of John and Mary down in Dingle, or Paddy and Ann in Cobh having a pint with the local priest I'll fcukin burst me guts all over the place, No more listening to stories about how great the Aran Islands are and how no one understands island life and how them and all the friends they've made there, are going to buy shares in Aran jumpers and make a killing come winter. The next one who says look at this album I'll open them up like a tin of beans....

Actually no I won't il sit down and look at all the slide shows nice and politely and wait till they leave then ill hop my skull off the wall as I couldn't bare to say I'm not interested.

snaphook

bboybaboy19 wrote: »

The only people who complain about others travelling and take the piss out of them 'finding themselves' as such are strangely the ones who've only ever left the country for a max of 2 weeks on a sun holiday to a tourist destination.

Reeks of jealousy.

I don't think anyone really begrudges anyone from travelling and seeing the world.

What get's people's backs up are those who won't STFU about it and carry an air of superiority about themselves instead of having a modicum of modesty and keeping it to themselves unless asked about it.

I am pie

Slide shows? Last time I had to watch a slide show was probably in the late 80s when my granda got himself a piece of fancy new kit to show us all his photos from his holiday in Malta.

Seriously doubt that many people are actually press ganged into a room to watch slide shows? Are they? More likely you are nosing through facebook photo albums.

conorhal

I am pie wrote: »

Slide shows? Last time I had to watch a slide show was probably in the late 80s when my granda got himself a piece of fancy new kit to show us all his photos from his holiday in Malta.

Seriously doubt that many people are actually press ganged into a room to watch slide shows? Are they? More likely you are nosing through facebook photo albums.

I didn't mean a litteral sideshow, rather the 'slideshow option' on your laptop player software, but some arseh0les have been known to hook their laptop powerpoint presentation of their gap year up to a projector.

Corcaigh84

RoboRat

How the fvck does one 'do' a continent?

Dig a hole, insert member, dry hump until you fire your dirty yoghurt. Simples :-)

minidazzler

thegreatgonzo wrote: »

I've met some very smug travellers, two horrible bitches from Cork in a campsite in Broome were the absolute worst. Also a swedish girl with BO in a hostel in Kuala Lumpur. And an English stock trader in Dar es Salaam. But most people I've met back packing were just normal people who realised they were just another tourist, so meeting just 4 out of maybe 100s isn't so bad.

YOU'RE THE ONE!!!!!!!

thegreatgonzo

minidazzler wrote: »

YOU'RE THE ONE!!!!!!!

C'mere and let me show you my Borneo slideshow:p

Jamsiek

I've always liked talking about travelling to be honest.
I find it a lot more interesting than the local gossip I hear when I go home sometimes.
That's why I like going at Christmas when other people from abroad go back.
Something different to talk about.

Had one Brooklyn wannabe rastaman in a rainbow sarong tryin to be funny across the bar sayin "hey Irish, tell a story. Oh yea, you have none. Go out and live man".

Everyone knew he'd been here like two months and was going back to work after a couple more. Guess not shouting my mouth off, acting stoned and wearing jeans and a t-shirt made me look so beta.

shane9689

haha ye would all love the new inbetweeners movie, it takes the absolute piss out of the "travelling student" stereotype....that said, i love travelling myself and i want to keep doing it, but the idea of it helping me find myself is stupid

beks101

I find this 'smug prick thinks he's great coz he travelled the world' attitude fascinating. I've never encountered it anywhere outside of Ireland and it's usually reserved to parochial begrudgers who would find it hard to be positive about anything.

I love meeting people who have been far afield, don't really care if it's your relatively common Half Moon Party crowd or someone who's been on a yoga retreat in India or someone who's been camel trekking around Timbuktu. They've still experienced something vastly different to me and will have some intriguing stories to tell which might teach me a thing or two about parts of the world I've never been to.

Tarzana

beks101 wrote: »

I find this 'smug prick thinks he's great coz he travelled the world' attitude fascinating. I've never encountered it anywhere outside of Ireland and it's usually reserved to parochial begrudgers who would find it hard to be positive about anything.

Ah gawd, not with the trite "begrudgery" nonsense again. Most travelled people aren't smug but there is a not insignificant smug minority.

LorMal

ScumLord wrote: »

Your just jealous you've nothing better to talk about than the shyte you took this morning. If people have nothing more interesting to talk about than the cat they saw, or how it's too hot/cold/wet then I'm going to talk about the time I went to La tomatina, I don't like telling the story again but it's still better than looking at someone staring at their half empty pint wondering where their life went.

Good man! Typical Irish begrudery thread this.

Heckler

Been around Europe and the US an awful lot but seems if I haven't been to Australia or Asia staying in a ****ty hostel I haven't travelled.........

STUDENT TRAVEL **** !!! a la Jay