Being a Good Host
Forget about being a good tourist – today let’s talk about being a good host. We happen to live in Washington, DC, a city that welcomes (that might be a strong word) 16 million tourists each year. But many Washingtonians seem to take the attitude that all these tourists are at best, an inconvenience and at worst, a scourge on the city.
Why won’t they walk faster?
Why won’t they stand on the right side of the escalator so we can walk down the left?
Can’t you shut that screaming kid up?
Don’t you know there’s more to DC than monuments and museums?
And so on.
Being a socially conscious tourist includes connecting in a meaningful way with the local people. If we, the local people, are rude, apathetic, or unhelpful in any other way, we are impeding this connection from happening. In fact, we are contributing in a negative way to a traveler’s experience. As travelers ourselves, that not what we should aspire to.
We need to keep in mind that the tourists who descend on our fair city are attempting to have fun, better themselves through education, and spend time with their loved ones – exactly what most of us want to do on our own vacations, where we also hope and expect the local people are kind and patient with us.
Let’s do our part in this relationship – don’t hurry past someone who looks lost – instead, ask if you can help; give a smile to a visiting child on the metro; have patience with the clueless, short-pantsed, sandaled crowd on the Mall. It doesn’t cost you anything and we’d be willing to bet it will make your shriveled, black heart just a tad bigger.
A call for patience in a land of immediacy! Well stated.
It’s odd how we can lose sense of a travelers vulnerability, until we end up in a foreign city and get shoulder-checked by some frantic business man.
Deep breathes everyone.
This is so true! I spend most of the week in Pisa, and I work near the Field of Miracles… you can imagine how many tourists I see throughout the year. I have always wondered why the local people are more often rude than they are nice to both tourists and students (who also account for a large percentage of the “foreign” population of the city). Sometimes it looks like they are a nuisance rather than a resource.
Well said! And a very nice post!
Gloria