Bad Trip: How To Annoy Your Tour Guide

by Laurel Miller on

We’ve all been there. Maybe we’ve been one. The person on a guided tour or trip who’s a complete, utter, pain in the ass.

Perhaps it’s unintentional. Maybe it’s due to deep-seated issues that would cause empathy in another situation. Or just possibly, it’s because the person in question gets off on being a jerk. Does it matter? Whether they provide unwitting entertainment or seething aggravation, that person manages to disrupt others’ enjoyment of the experience. The person who really suffers, however, is the guide.

I’ve had good guides, bad guides, guides who should be nominated for sainthood, but regardless of their skill, they have a difficult job. It’s not easy to wrangle any combination of clueless, headstrong, enthusiastic and grumpy tourists, and get them to points A, B and C on schedule – ideally with an unfailingly polite attitude and unwavering smile on your face. It’s a gift, being a guide possessed of technical, personal and mental skills.

Even those who love to travel solo occasionally require the services of a guide. Thirteen years as a travel journalist has given me a lot of material (in part because my favorite thing to ask guides for are bad client stories).

As a holiday gift, I’m providing a list on how to annoy your guide. Follow it, and I promise you’ll always be remembered – just not fondly.

Wear inappropriate clothing/shoes
I had an absolutely priceless two days in the Atacama Desert last year with two middle-aged Chilean couples. Read: they were such drunken louts, it was painful for the rest of us to keep our mouths shut. My favorite experience with them was on a late-afternoon hike of the stunning Kari Gorge.

The key word here is “hike.” To which one of them, a spoiled Santiaguino physician’s wife, wore staggeringly high boots with a narrow wedge heel. She was also completely shit-faced, so when she wasn’t face-planting on the rocky floor of the gorge, she was screaming at her worthless husband to help her climb up the craggier parts of the trail. The rest of our small group finally broke down and pitied her as we summited a steep, mile-long sand dune. She was openly weeping at that point, clutching her chest in panic (a chain-smoker, she thought she was having a heart attack; ironically, her cardiologist husband was the least concerned of all of us).

Because we had to spend so much time waiting for her, we nearly missed the highlight of the excursion, which was watching the sunset from atop a cliff. By not bothering to check what kind of outing she was taking, she kept the rest of us at her mercy, tested our guide’s patience, and subjected us to her marital issues. Um, awkward.Overstate your abilities
Along the same lines, this woman wasn’t fit enough to master a climb up a flight of stairs. It’s not just inconsiderate to fail to accurately access your physical abilities; it can be deadly. At best, it will ensure you and your guide (who will have no choice but to coddle and devote extra time to you) have a miserable time; at worst, you may well end up having that coronary in a sand dune. Don’t be that person.

Bring your bad attitude with you
True story from a sea-kayaking/orca-watching trip I took last summer. We were on the northern tip of San Juan Island, just miles off of Vancouver Island (i.e. Canada). Our guide pointed out this interesting fact to us, which elicited the following response from the one unfriendly person in our group. She was a taciturn woman in her 30s, a self-professed “bird-lady” who owned 12 parrots.

Annoying Client: I made a promise to myself to never leave this country for any reason, whatsoever.

Hapless Guide: That’s an interesting promise. Why?

AC: Because I believe in America. I don’t ever want to support another country’s economy. Why should I? I even go out of my way to buy products made here.

HG: Aah….hmmmm. Okaaay.

I’m not sure what I love most about this incident: that this woman knowingly took a trip to the Canadian border, or that she supports exotic bird smuggling from foreign countries.

Be late/unprepared
A great way to piss off your guide, and everyone else in your group. Also helpful in ensuring you won’t get your money’s worth from your trip or tour, since the schedule will be compromised. This one’s a winner!

Whine
Because nothing is better for group morale than someone who complains about everything.

Engage in excessive PDA with your significant other
It may start off as amusing for your guide and fellow travelers. Trust me, by trip’s end, they’ll be ready to kill you. Get a room.

Don’t pitch in
Hey, Princess. I know you paid a chunk of change for this (fill in the blank: raft trip/backpacking trip/guest ranch stay). So did everyone else. But your guide and support staff are working their fingers to the bone for very little pay because they love what they do. You know what else they love? Guests or clients who make even the smallest effort to help them out. Ask where you should stash your gear, collect firewood, help chop vegetables or cook dinner (right). Not only will you gain their respect and gratitude, you may even enjoy yourself.

Be high-maintenance
It’s not all about you. You have a pretty good idea of what you’re getting into when you sign up.

Forget to mention your “dietary restrictions”/preferences
Travel companies are savvy enough these days to always include a section for this on their registration forms; I’m not talking about legitimate food allergies or intolerances. But please be honest, not ridiculous, and if you don’t like what’s being served, be polite about it – especially if you’re in a foreign country.

Refuse to interact with your group
I can be a bit of an introvert, so I get how hard it can be to socialize with a group when you’re just not feeling it. But guides tend to stress about the lone client, and feel pressure to ensure they’re having a good time. If you really don’t feel like socializing, assure your guide that you’re just shy, but having a great time. Otherwise, I really recommend faking it till you make it. Once I come out of my shell, I’m usually grateful, because I end up meeting fantastic people who make my experience that much more interesting.

[Photo credits: donkey, Flickr user jaxxon; sign, Flickr user frotzed2; cooking, Laurel Miller]

iNeverSolo.com Helps You Travel The Backcountry More Safely

by Kraig Becker on

One of the long-standing rules of backcountry travel has always been that you never set out without first letting someone else know where you are going and when you expect to be back. In the past, that was sometimes accomplished simply by leaving a handwritten note on the kitchen table before heading out the door. As low-tech as that sounds, the approach was still useful if you ever ran into trouble, as at least someone knew where to start looking for you. Now, a new website called iNeverSolo.com is bringing that same concept into the 21st century, giving us a way to keep loved ones in the loop whether we’re traveling across town or around the globe.

The concept of iNeverSolo is a simple one. Users go to the site, create an account, login and input their planned itinerary. It could be as simple as a one-hour hike on a local trail or as complex as a round-the-world adventure. You can add details such as what time your excursion will begin, how long it should last and when you expect to be finished. You can even opt to include important waypoints, significant milestones, modes of transportation and the location of your final destination. After that, you just add email addresses or mobile phone numbers for your emergency contacts so that they can be alerted if you fail to arrive back home as expected.

The site has plenty of obvious uses for hikers, backpackers and climbers who routinely head into remote regions, but its usefulness can extend to others as well. For example, if you’re a solo traveler who will be out of contact for a while, the site can help you let others know that things are going fine on your journey. iNeverSolo is so versatile in fact, that it can be used for something as simple as going out for a night on the town or taking your dog for a long walk. Any activity in which you may need to alert someone of your location should you run into trouble is fair game.

Best of all the service is completely free, so there is no reason not to use it.

[Photo Credit: Kraig Becker]


Watch Man Break Record For Freediving Under Ice

by Kyle Ellison on

If you’re one of those people who goes down to the local swimming pool and attempts to swim the length of the pool twice without coming up for a breath, I have news for you:

Stig Severinsen owns you.

In the YouTube video above, the record-holding, freediving Dane (who also casually has a PhD in medicine) shatters the Guinness world record for longest freedive beneath ice on a single breath of air.

Oh yeah, and he’s in a Speedo.

Sure, this happened in March, 2010, but who cares? The concept alone is insane and the video is astonishing and wildly entertaining. Notice that when he successfully pops out of the icy cold water he opts to flash the “OK” sign, speak in English for some unbeknownst reason, and then casually relax with his bare arms on the ice sheet as if it’s a post-massage hot tub session at the resort.

Just for fun, let’s just look at a few more pieces of trivia for the intriguing Dr. Severinsen. According to his Wikipedia page, this 39-year-old human lung enjoyed such childhood pursuits as underwater rugby (in which he competed for the Danish National team), and also dabbled in underwater hockey (where he strangely enough competed for the Spanish National Team).

Combining his love of breath holding with yoga and physiology, the adult Stig set out to redefine the realm of possibility by shattering numerous freediving and Guinness World Records.

Around the same time of this stunt, Stig set a second Guinness record by holding his breath for 20 minutes and 10 seconds in a tropical swimming pool. Oh wait, that’s right. It wasn’t a swimming pool. It was a tropical shark tank. As if being the only human to ever hold his breath underwater for 20 minutes wasn’t enough, he decided to immerse himself in a cauldron of sharks.

Not one to rest on his laurels, however, Stig would break his own record two years later by holding his breath for 22 minutes, and for his efforts he was subsequently declared to be “The Ultimate Superhuman” by the Discovery Channel.

Move over Dos Equis man; Stig Severinsen might just be the most interesting man in the world.

A Wing That Lets You Fly Underwater

by Kyle Ellison on

What would you say if I told you there was a magical machine that combined scuba diving with hang gliding, required no training, and offered a way to fly past fish and outrace turtles?

You’d probably tell me I was on hallucinogens.

In all seriousness though, with the recent invention of the Subwing system, divers are able to tow behind a moving boat and actually glide beneath the water instead of up on top of it. It’s kind of like wakeboarding underwater, or snorkeling on steroids. The jury is really still out on that one.

Invented by a team of Norwegians who came up with the idea while sailing through the Greek Islands, the Subwing system is even compatible with its own GoPro setup so that divers can record their underwater antics.

What’s interesting is that – despite looking fun and easy – a rudimentary version of this system has been employed by friends of mine in Hawaii for nearly a decade. An upside down, concave boogie board with a hard bottom replaced the Subwing, and a standard nylon rope was run through holes bored into the upside down board. The result is the same ability to be towed behind a moving boat and fly past stationary coral heads at what feels like decently high speeds.

The problem, however, is that despite only traveling at 2-4 knots (as the Subwing website also suggests), since water is 800 times denser than air, the strain on your neck should you try to look to the side during your “flight” is actually rather strong. Without this peripheral ability it’s difficult to see something such as, say, an approaching turtle coming in hot from your port side. When I did this back in 2003 I nearly caught a face-full of turtle.

Nevertheless, this is an invention I am all for and one which continues to push the boundaries of conventional watersports.

Conde Nast Traveler Names Australian Resort Best In The World

by Kraig Becker on

For the first time ever, readers of “Conde Nast Traveler” magazine have named an Australian resort the best in the world. The 2012 edition of the magazine’s popular reader’s choice travel awards selected qualia for this distinct honor, handing out a perfect score of 100 for only the fourth time in the 25-year history of the competition.

This year’s reader’s choice awards saw more than 46,400 respondents who shared their thoughts on their favorite hotels, cities and islands from around the globe. Each of the candidates are rated on a scale from one to five in a variety of categories, with their final scores representing an average of the Excellent and Very Good ratings that they received. In the case of qualia that tabulated up to a perfect score.

Located on the privately owned Hamilton Island, qualia is surrounded by one of the most beautiful settings in the entire world – the Great Barrier Reef. The luxury hotel features 60 private pavilions with spacious accommodations, sundecks and private infinity edge pools that overlook the ocean. Two bars and restaurants, a private dining hall, a world-class spa, fitness center and library round out the a amenities that will keep guests cloaked in comfort for the entire length of their stay.

Hamilton Island is located in the Whitsunday Islands, quite possibly the most beautiful place I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting. For those who can’t get enough time on the beach or water, it is simply paradise. If you’re adventurous enough to enjoy snorkeling or scuba diving, the Great Barrier Reef is amazing as well. I spent hours just floating along watching colorful and exotic fish by the hundreds. As someone who tends to usually favor mountains over beaches, this was still one of my favorite destinations ever.

[Photo credit: qualia]