How to behave on holiday

Holidays are portrayed as the ultimate means of relaxation. You jet off somewhere with your new holiday wardrobe, lounge about on the beach, visit a few museums, and eat as much ice-cream as you want. Leave your worries at home! Whether you want to sunbathe or sight-see, holidays are a time to do as you wish! Quite.

Unfortunately, if you want to avoid being the impatient and greedy hotel guest who jumps the queue for the toaster at breakfast, or better yet, the eager photographer who knocks over a kid in your haste to get that perfect photo, leaving your worries at home does not mean leaving your manners back there with them. We all get annoyed with other tourists on holiday (how else would Germans have earned the reputation of always hogging the sun-loungers?), we get even more annoyed by tourists when we’re at home and can’t walk down the road due to their slow wandering. There are things you can do though to avoid a slur of abuse being hurled at you in a foreign tongue.

Firstly, if you’re flying somewhere with a budget airline, just because you don’t have an allocated seat does not mean there aren’t enough seats on the plane. There is no need to cause a stampede as you rush to the aircraft. If you can’t sit next to whom you’re traveling with, don’t worry. So long as you’re both on the same flight, you will end up in the same place, I promise. Speaking of flights, if there isn’t enough room in the overhead lockers to store your bag, it isn’t the end of the world if the air hostess asks you to place it by your feet. I once witnessed a lady throw a hissy fit because her bag was moved from an overhead locker to underneath her seat. She claimed that along with her flight ticket came the right to store something in the overhead locker. Note: you will not find this ‘right’ in any airline’s terms and conditions.

Let’s now tackle how to behave in a hotel. Everyone hates a queue jumper. We can’t help it, it’s written in our genes. This means that at breakfast, if there’s a buffet, you can’t just barge in and take the last Danish pastry. It’s very tempting to I know, the general awkwardness that accompanies breakfast buffets makes queue jumping very easy. No one’s going to shout at you first thing in the morning, and what with everyone’s hesitation over what to go for, sneaking in can be easy. It’s rude and selfish though, so just don’t do it.

Now sightseeing. If you’re part of a tour group, the safety in numbers rule will not necessarily protect you from other tourists’ wrath if you decide to block access to various museum rooms as you listen to your guide. This may not be so easy if you’re in a big group but if you see someone wanting to get passed, don’t deny them the freedom to move. If you’re the kind of person who goes to museums to take photos of the paintings, don’t sigh if someone would rather look at a painting for a while and is in the way of your shot. They’re doing what you’re meant to do in a gallery.

Talking of photos, etiquette applies here too. There are places where using a camera is just down-right inappropriate. Anywhere infamous as a place of suffering shouldn’t be treated as a photo opportunity. A funny pose at a murder scene won’t actually be funny. And if anyone asks you to stop taking photos, the instructions shouldn’t be ignored. Doing so will earn you a snide remark at the very least and potentially a spot of bother with the law. I saw two policemen approach two camera happy tourists today for a telling-off (this would not constitute an opportunity to pose with a policeman, something so many people consider an essential holiday snap). Secondly, don’t bother trying to take a photo somewhere teeming with people if you don’t actually want anyone in the photo. You won’t get 50 odd people to stop and wait while you decide to be artistic, but there’ll always be some people who do stop and wait… and wait… and wait. You wouldn’t ask a stranger to do stop and wait in any other situation, so why do it just for a photo?

So don’t just do as you wish while on holiday. There’s no need for bad manners. Be nice to others and they just might be nice to you (well, you never know!).

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