The locals don't know

The corollary of this is that if you are a local you should do some more touristy things.

I don't mean to go to a tourist trap and get scammed, but just enjoy your city a little more and do some things that usually only tourists do.

For example, despite living most of my life in London, I've never been to the Tower of London. Why would I? It's for tourists. Except it's probably quite fascinating, especially for a local.

I am Swiss and like most 30-40yo from my generation, Hiking in the splendid nature, lakes and mountains, visiting touristy places and the overall scenery was something uncool, for old people. We were forced to do that in school. Nobody in their right mind would do it. :)

I then moved abroad to Bangkok, working an office job. Although BKK is great for consumerism and convenience, especially with cheap labor available for almost anything, you can get quite lazy. The bad traffic, non-pedestrian friendly (non existent) city planning and little nature left also makes it a bit cumbersome to find nature nearby. This made me appreciate nature, hiking and nice scenery. (Of course Thailand has lots of beautiful nature and scenery, but not so much of an active outdoor scene)

Coming back to Switzerland after 6 years, I became the biggest tourist, going hiking every weekend, spending time at our tourist destinations, but also all the second tier ("unseen") places only locals know. I tried so much stuff that in the past I thought is tourist stuff, and most of it is simply great.

I also became much more understanding, open and helpful to expats, foreigners and tourists in my country.

The title is a non sequitur from the argument. The point is not to ask for a "bring a non-local to work day" where you tag along to a rando doing their normal routine.

The thing that locals do know a lot of the time, is the spots that are actually great but not hyped up by influencers/social media, the cool spots that are often good by virtue of not being well known, etc. And no one is arguing that the locals know all the best cultural attractions, the point of asking locals for advice is to understand what they see in their own city.

This is where platforms like Couchers.org or whatever come up, where you want to actually understand the locals, more than just see the hyped up touristy stuff (which often can also be phenomenal!).

I live in a tourist town (population 45k, with 2M visitors this past season). It's truly lovely. Our museums kick ass, the food and cocktails punch above their weight, and there are countless activities in the off season. Sure, I can get a cheaper burger or pay less rent just a few miles down the road, but instead I stay and benefit from tourists pushing the quality upwards. I often see folks focusing on the low-effort schlock shop, damning all tourists, before heading to one of the 8 local coffee shops (who could never survive on locals alone). The best thing a local can do is to openly give recommendations, helping to hold competition and quality to a high standard.

It is obvious that "do what the locals do" should not be taken literally, because locals are likely working most of the day. So the authors actual advice seems to be "avoid what the locals do, when they don't want to do anything". Everyone else likely interprets it as "do what the locals do, when they want to have fun" which is good advice.

My daily routines are of no interest to tourist. They are probably similar to their own routines at home anyway. When I got out on the weekends it can get wild though and I'd wager it's exactly what many tourists are looking for.

I live in a tourist town. 3000 residents, 4 million visitors each year. And I'm just fine with the tourists not going to the places I go - we tend to like the quieter, more affordable places vs. the big fancy price-gouging places. But assuming that us "locals" just sit at home and do nothing is such an unfair and inaccurate assessment. Why would I want to live in a town as crazy as this if I did nothing here?

I enjoy having a vast variety of restaurants and activities that I otherwise would not have in a small town in the Midwest. The roads are well maintained, we have more parks than we otherwise would, there are trails, rivers, and tons of activities. We don't spend all our time partaking of the tourist activities, but we abso-freaking-lutely spend some time enjoying what the town has to offer.

The locals are living their lives on an organic cadence. They're not maximizing entertainment value or whatever. They will certainly know entertaining things to do, but it's literally not their job to entertain tourists. Maybe seeking out a Disneyland like experience in someone else's home is the problem? Bourdain, Rick Steves, et al. are fun to watch, but I can't help but feel they've actually made the world a worse place by romanticizing tourism. There are many sayings about how travel reduces prejudice... but if you actually look at it at scale, it's almost always a global negative.

> They might grab some mediocre Mexican food on the outskirts of Helsinki because they already eat Finnish food at home and want something different. They might hang out with some friends at the Kaivopuisto park. Maybe they would go on a hike? What I’m getting at here is that, even in the best case, the locals are usually not having very exciting (or very ‘authentic’) days.

Unironically this is the experience I’m often looking for in another country. I want touristy days, but I also want to see their supermarkets. Their stores. Walk through a local park. Sit in a coffee shop and read a book. One of my favorite things to do is try foreign food in another country, because Chinese and Japanese and Mexican food is different as it’s adapted to different counties tastes.

To paraphrase the philosopher Vincent Vega, it’s the little differences.

I was once on the bus (in my own home town) with someone from Dublin (which I was visiting in a week back then), he recommended I not go to Temple Bar: "It's just for tourists". So where should I go? "There are some nice bars in ${some District}".

Well I passed though said district and saw some pretty drab houses and some bars with TVs (not my thing). Went to Temple Bar: It was vivid, with live music and many cheerful people on the street.

So in short: I concur with the author.

My best travel advice (for urban areas) is simple: get lost. If you don't know exactly where you are or what's around the corner, you've got to take it as it comes, and that makes it all the more interesting. No FOMO or opportunity cost struggles, just what's in front of you right now.

This is both easier and harder with smartphones and GPS. Harder because, well, you know exactly where you are and have to actively ignore the phone. Easier because when you're ready to be done, you know exactly where you are!

As a local, one of the funnest things to do is to host out-of-town guests and to just do the touristy things in combination with local knowledge. Bus tours, museums, food, etc. Do it all. For me, it's stuff I'd probably never do unless pressed to provide entertainment for guests I care about.

So, do the local thing with tourists and retain a focus on a combination of showing off the best elements of being a local; with the wide-eyed enthusiasm of the tourist. As a blow-in to NY, I'd like others to appreciate it too.

Do what the tourists do, but with the locals. Do what the locals do, but with the tourists.

I work in tourism in Japan and so many tourists ask me what are some good places to eat. It’s such an annoying question because the honest answer is I eat what the locals eat, which is to say the most authentic Japanese cuisine is what you find in a Japanese supermarket. That’s what the people of Japan are actually eating. Of course that’s not really what the question is though, but my point is I’m not a good person to ask because I just eat normal stuff.

I think this author misunderstands the intent of the expression "do what the locals do". It does not mean "do what an arbitrary or random local does" or even "do what the median local does".

It implies seeking the experiences and places that are popular with the locals and not popular with the tourists. It means finding a killer teriyaki or pho place in Seattle and avoiding the space needle, even if an average Seattle resident goes to neither type of place every day.

It means avoiding Times Square and instead wandering the other streets of Manhattan.

The locals do know. Maybe each individual local only visits once a month, but the aggregate knowledge of the locals knows. Great hole in the wall places are known by locals.

I remember traveling 1000km for work. On the radio I heard of trips to where I lived. They were all prizes for some competition. I realized that my home was someone else's destination and my current place was where people from home's had chosen as a destination.

The grass is sometimes truly greener.

When I returned I looked at my home with the eyes of a tourist and went everywhere I could.

I have since traveled elsewhere. Some places are much better not to return to or even remain in.

> I’m skeptical of the term tourist trap (it’s mostly used as a term to place yourself as higher status/taste than other people, and is often used out of insecurity)

One thing I've read years ago about tourist traps is that one shouldn't be actively trying to avoid them, especially if they come from a country with higher purchasing power.

Some of these "tourist trap" activities are locals trying to make an honest living doing what they can. It should be fine to take a tuk tuk, or to buy paintings and souvenirs from people off the street.

Everyone should avoid getting ripped off, but what's 0.1% of a month's wages to a tourist could pay for an entire day's meals for a local.

There was one place i liked to go, it was kind of chill bar in a huge palazzo styled room. Like ballroom/theatre, with chill seats and sometimes small events. The place was huge and there was very little people. It got into tourist guides and is packed to the tits, with 4 western european teenagers getting out of bathroom stall at the same time... havent been there in years. So yeah. Locals used to but dont anymore :D

I think the writer of this misunderstands "tourist trap."

Tourist traps, at least as I see it, are places or activities that are more expensive than they should be.

For example, a tourist trap in Tokyo is going to the top of SkyTree. It's not something locals can really reasonably afford doing more than once, because it's really expensive. The price is such that basically only tourists would do it.

A less grumpy corollary: do the things in your town that you only do when you have visitors.

I try to add some randomness to my travels. Just pick a few random places on a map, research them for a few minutes, and if there is anything remotely interesting there, just go there. If you discover something more interesting on the way and never reach your destination, then you definitively succeeded.

Better advice isn't 'do what the locals do' or 'avoid what the locals do'. It's to actually talk to people, both locals and other travelers, instead of treating either group as a script to copy from a distance. Have a beer, ask questions, hang out, and see what people are really into.

For a friend's birthday we actually did a hiking tour through the city we grew up in, and realized we knew very little about the city we grew up in.

That should be enough motivation to start where you're already standing. Build up from there. Figure out if you want to see more mountains, more ocean, whatever. It's a great eye-opener.

My little related insight, is that maps are extremely lossy. Even satellite maps. Life on the ground, is full of detail.

When I travelled Japan specifically, maps didn't tell you much at all. It might look like a residential deadzone from high up, but be bustling with cool stuff to do when you walk through.

I live in Sydney, does anyone have any recommendations on things I should do?

Things I'd like to try -

* Visiting the tank stream (I believe there are tours)

* The Greater Sydney Bike Trail

* Walking from Manly to Bondi (80km along the harbour)

Things I've done but recommend if you visit -

* Walking the bridge (free)

* Catching a ferry to Manly or Taronga

* Climbing the bridge (expensive!)

* Centrepoint tower (since renamed to Sydney Eye Tower)

* The botanic gardens

* Any beach (I prefer the harbour beaches, there's dozens to choose from)

Edit: Sorry I cannot get the formatting correct

Locals trend conservative, always giving the advice "don't do that, you'll definitely die" because they remember one bad incident 10 or 20 years ago and never clock how circumstances have changed. My favorite is the time I was warned over and over by several different people about not going somewhere because I would surely be killed by foreigners or wolves. Dude, what? If there was a major problem with one, it would scare off the other. Are they working together?? lol

I live in a very touristy area:

> P.S. if you are a local, you can do all of this too.

Last year, after spending a bunch of money putting in a fence, and having a puppy that didn't travel well, we decided that we were just going to take a week off and be tourists at home. We visited the museums we've driven by daily for eight years, and had a blast.

And, living in a touristy area, I want to point out that "do what the locals do" is excellent advice. I'll tell you all about where to get great food, great hikes, and not-too-crowded beaches. (Except the residents-only beach. We reserve that for us.)

That would be lovely but seems people really really want to be in the same places I am.

This year just called defeat and I'm moving out to the countryside, hopefully. My city had almost no tourist three years ago and now I had to shout twice to a tourist guide for using a very loud speaker in the very street I live in.

Just today I saw a 1 start review in a place I really like, by a german lady that was baffled waiters didn't even try to speak english to her.

It's just impossible to fight this. Guess we'll have to make our nice place elsewhere until tourists find out.

I'd take you mushroom hunting (but really just exploring and running around in the forest this time of year), maybe pick up a trout on the way home to grill. That's a few days a week for me (the trout leas though).

As for touristy things here in Zurich - it's not really a tourist city. When we have guests from overseas we do have a set of activities to bring them on. When I've offered to bring them in the forest to find mushrooms/berries/etc they're usually not so interested.

I have been a tourist in Seattle for 15 years. I kayak the lakes, go to the popular restaurants, run the scenic routes, drive through winding roads to avoid traffic, do the basic hikes near town, spend evenings at the locks, joined the sailing club, take the rideshare scooters, karaoke at the passé locations, get groceries at pike place, see the tulips, get coffee at monorail espresso.

I wonder when I’ll ever “become a local”!?

On the other hand, too many tourists is a thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMYbYuhKFdw

This advice is so unnecessary to the point that it sounds weird. I lived in a touristy place, and trust me, as a tourist you won't be doing what locals do by default. No special decision, no efforts needed at all.

This article kind of misses the point - of course everyone’s average day is … average. But locals don’t spend all of their days like this, sometimes (once a week/month/year) they would do something fun, or they want to.

You asking them for advice or for them to show you around might push them to do something fun themselves, which they haven’t done in a while. But they have a lot more local context about what _might_ be good to explore or not.

They also know people - they themselves might have average days, but everyone knows that fun person that is the social glue that does all the fun stuff they can direct you - 7 degrees of separation and all that.

And lastly sure - treat the locals ideas with a grain of salt - I never do _exactly_ what the locals tell me, but it is another data point to make your own plans.

When I travel I like to make huge holes in my plans - uncharted time for me to fill in when I’m at location - from local sources or just doing the research then and there. It has always been more natural and interesting to do the sight seeing planing at location, so you can adjust and correct anyway. I guess have adopted the startup mentality of start small and iterate even for my travel experiences :)

Okay, okay, but Slay the Spire 2 is a fantastic game though and I've had an absolute blast playing it.

Do what you would do at home on a week off.

I spend summers in Central Portugal after enduring the winter of Canada's North. Sometimes my Canadian friends want to spend a couple of days in Portugal and ask me what's for a good place to visit, or a good attraction to go to, etc. I always answer the same:

I have no idea. I don't go as a tourist. I go to live in my family's home town for 6 or 7 weeks and not think about work. I don't have any recommendations for a checklist. I avoid the touristy places if I can.

I then turn it around on them. If someone was visiting Canada for 2 or 3 days, where do you tell them to go? I dunno.

Basically human "interesting-ness" is a very wide spectrum, skewed with a very long tail.

The average person may not be an interesting model for getting the most out of life in a short time in any particular place, but the top 0.1% of people measured by the texture, quality and interesting-ness of their lives exceeds any metric of "noteworthy events per hour" by a factor of 100.

OT, but I didn't know that .com allowed domains with a double-dash.

The phrase "do what the locals do" is very vague. Like, think about your own life - the "local" places that you go to hang out, drink, eat, have fun etc. differ very much depending on:

- your means of transportation

- how wealthy you are

- who you're with

- whether it's a special occasion or just a random Tuesday

There is one tourist trap I have seen often, and that is thinking one needs to do a certain list of things to see everything in your one visit of the place.

Check the lists of tourist traps, see what interests you and fill your day there with whatever excites you.

Seems analogous to never doing "kid stuff" unless you have kids.

> But today I imagine you visiting my hometown and spending a day with the locals. You’d probably end up watching reality TV, ordering some ‘New American’ food on Doordash (it’s a cheeseburger with Korean Kimchi Glaze™), and sports betting from your phone.

This is an idiosyncratic and gratuitously contrarian take on what the actual advice means. If you go to New York, you're more likely to have a good time at a random neighborhood bar that the locals frequent than at a bar in Times Square. If you're in a small town, at least some of the locals probably know about a good hike 20 minutes out of town with a great view that would be hard to find otherwise. Don't overthink it.

What is this post. The point is normal people do normal things in their normal lives.

I regret reading and commenting, but hopefully save someone else.

We lived close to the Formula One track in Melbourne for a time. They gave out free tickets to locals, as a kind of compensation for the noise and construction disturbance, so my young son and I enjoyed a day of rummaging around and seeing the cars, logos, hotdogs and candifloss. But the best bit has always been the epic flypass of the 747 or A380 and very noisy fighter jets.

Melbourne has spent a lot on extensive bike pathways and new train stops, and recently made some tram travel free [ as a crowd-pleaser to counter petrol price hikes ], so its quite a pretty city to explore on foot or bike.

Bangkok and Danang have some great cafes .. the best seem to be when you wander a few sois away from the main shopping zones.

I especially like seeing the old wooden elevated Thai houses, which are becoming rare. Another way to find hidden gems, is walk along the banks of a klong - you get to see the underbelly of the city, without the makeup.

The locals in Bangkok tend to love the new shiny hypermalls and pristine train stations that segway into them. The air-con is nice after an hour of roadside bargain hunting.

In BKK, if you like bargains on clothing or bricabrac, I _highly_ recommend going to the top floor of the Pantip building across and west down the road from the shiny upgraded 'The Mall' Ngamwongwan. The weekend indoor market is crazy busy with affordable bargain stalls with the cheapest jeans, tees etc. Smaller but more enjoyable than the massive and more famous Chatuchak. If by chance you need alterations, there are a couple of great shops on the 5th floor, iirc - 60 baht hems, wow. The 4th? floor foodcourt is quieter than most. There is a whole floor of Thai buddhist good luck charm amulets. You'll have to run the gamut of outdoor stalls to get into the place, but that can be fun. There is also an incredible coffee shop down soi 27, called "High Coffee Roaster". I was stranded looking for my airbnb, and a local came out of a shop and asked me if I was lost .. then recommended a local cafe I could wait at until checkin. The cafe staff caught me smelling my coffee, as it was so good, and then gifted me a tiny dish of ground coffee specifically to smell .. incredible coffee and superb service.

Title: "The Locals Don't Know"

First line: "My best piece of travel advice is to avoid doing what the locals do."

The writer seems incapable of distinguishing between the special, cool local things the locals KNOW about, and which a tourist might well benefit from trying, and the things locals DO because they don't do those special, cool things every day. Instead locals are usually doing similar things to what we normally do.

Which renders this article rather pointless.

They know more than the author that’s for sure.

The corollary of this is that if you are a local you should do some more touristy things.

I don't mean to go to a tourist trap and get scammed, but just enjoy your city a little more and do some things that usually only tourists do.

For example, despite living most of my life in London, I've never been to the Tower of London. Why would I? It's for tourists. Except it's probably quite fascinating, especially for a local.

I've been exploring related feelings in the related "For me, this is just a Tuesday" space. I had started to feel like a food tour group was stalking me personally. My usual Tuesday lunch. My usual Friday dinner. So forth. The first "gut feeling" was irritation. It's a lot of people showing up in a small space with random lectures distracting from whatever I was doing while eating (such as often reading a book).

It took a couple weeks, but I realized that I was the spoiled one and the other side of "For me this is a Tuesday" should be "I'm glad my local businesses are interesting to tours" and "It's easy to forget how impressed I might be with this lunch if I was visiting some other town, isn't it great it can be my 'usual Tuesday'?"

I started listening to some of the lectures. I could easily mock some of them and/or clarify/edit/fix mistakes in them, but also they can still be an interesting bit of perspective, including the way that tourists respond to them. It's fun to have that tourist perspective of the local area.

It's also a fun reminder to do and try more of the tourist things locally. When your "usual Tuesday" is someone else's exciting and desired vacation experience, what else are you seeing with the somewhat dulled eyes of being a local but would greatly enjoy if you thought like a visitor to your own city?

Tower of London is not a touristy thing its a culture thing.

I know quite a lot of all the cities i lived in. I have been a good tourguide to friends and family because you just learn stuff about your city.

I will not go to that one ferris wheel because some company build it, i saw them building it, its in a location which is weird, and why would i go on a ferris wheel in my city?

But everything else? The main castle, yes! The residence, english garden, white rose, german museum, Shirker's Alley, old michael, etc. yes! Have been plenty of times.

This comment resonnate with me and in the last few months that is why I have been working on a side project to "be a tourist" in your own town.

https://www.izeria.com/en

Where you can discover places near you and connect to their history, I have also added some check-in mechanics and quiz to gaming the experience and for to actually go see the place in person.

Think Pokemon go but for Wikipedia places.

I’m routinely surprised by native San Franciscans who’ve never been to Alcatraz, seen Pier 39, or gone whale watching. Yes, they’re touristy things to do. They’re also very interesting and lots of fun!

In case you don't know:

"Tower Hamlets residents visit for just £1

Local residents within the borough of Tower Hamlets can visit the Tower of London for only £1.00."

It's worth a visit being a tourist or a local.

I've lived in London, various places within the M25, for about 40 years now and still walk around looking up and enjoying exploring both new and old places. We do the Hidden City treasure hunts which is a great way of finding new spots.

Tower of London is good, there is so much history in there and a number of exhibitions well worth seeing.

I've done most of the "tourist traps"[1] and really enjoyed them. The London Eye gives you great views, especially at sunset; The Shard (cocktail bar, not done the viewing platform) is a bit expensive and style over substance but still worth doing once; Buckingham Palace is a world class historical living building; The South Bank has a lot going on and also gives great views of London; The Royal Albert Hall is a stunning concert venue; most of the big museums are free.

The one place I've not done as it really doesn't appeal to me is Madame Tussauds.

[1] Compared to other cites apart from the pedal rickshaws and the find-the-lady on Westminster bridge I don't think London is inundated with rip-off tourist traps like many other cities appear to be.

Wasn’t this the original definition of staycation. That you would stay at home and make day trips out to local destinations for a week.

I live in the DC area and it is kind of sad that a lot of people here haven't been to the various Smithsonian museums (which are free) here, or haven't been since they were children.

As a fellow Londoner I can confirm it's worth visiting and the crown jewels are also nicely presented. Don't be fooled into queueing for the bloody tower torture chamber, anything you can see seemed to be a Victorian fantasy.

They have been fracking oil like 15 minutes walk from my previous house since 1986… I just found out after seeing a curious sign on a fence around a pretty secluded terrain when taking a stroll. It only became public knowledge a year or so ago when the government announced publicly that they would continue operations for another x years. Protests are still ongoing. Take more local strolls!

> I’m skeptical of the term tourist trap (it’s mostly used as a term to place yourself as higher status/taste than other people, and is often used out of insecurity)

One thing I've read years ago about tourist traps is that one shouldn't be actively trying to avoid them, especially if they come from a country with higher purchasing power.

Everyone should avoid getting ripped off, but what's 0.1% of a month's wages to a tourist could pay for an entire day's meals for a local.

I don't think people should get ripped off just because they can afford it.

If you visit Sweden, don't buy ice cream in the historic area of Stockholm ("gamla stan").

As an American you might think "$10 for a single scoop of vanilla, that's nothing. A minimum wage worker packing groceries earn twice that in an hour back home". But you are not helping a starving ice cream labourer with your purchase, you are simply being taken for a ride. Walk a couple of blocks more and check the signs, and you can buy it at half price from a respectable establishment instead. Most likely the ice cream will be better at the next place as well.

By my definition "tourist traps" are both low quality and high price... and also fairly easy to avoid. If you can walk three blocks away from a major attraction and find restaurants that are both cheaper and better, then the other ones are tourist traps. If they're decent quality but merely expensive due to their location, then they're charging for convenience and there's nothing much wrong with that.

> Some of these "tourist trap" activities are locals trying to make an honest living doing what they can.

The local working in hospitality is earning minimum wage, the premium you pay goes to the landlord.