The Triposo Terrible Tourists Survey: Bad Behavior Abroad Revealed!

One of the best parts of travel is the chance to get out of your comfort zone: try new things, meet new people and have exciting experiences. Of course, it’s possible to take it a little too far. So we over here at Triposo recently conducted a survey to find out more about how people behave when they travel abroad.

Our survey covers everything from travel etiquette and manners (like hogging the arm rests and asking to switch seats incessantly) to drunken misbehavior and foreign fraternization. We talked to more than 700 respondents from 62 countries to find out what kind of terrible tourist behavior they’ve engaged in or caught others doing.

Check out some of the results below:

Social (Mis)behavior

No hotel room? No problem! Seventeen percent of respondents admitted to hooking up in a public place while abroad. Others indicated that body language was sufficient for intercultural communication, with 16 percent admitting to a hook-up with someone who did not speak their language. Overall, 70 percent of respondents admitted to some sort of fraternization while abroad. Here are our key findings:

• 25 percent admit to a one-night stand.
• 6 percent admitted to cheating on a significant other. (Men were twice as likely to cheat.)
• 5 percent broke up with a significant other.
• 6 percent admitted to soliciting sex. (All of these respondents were men.)

Drunken Behavior

60 percent of our respondents admitted to partaking in some sort of adventure that was fueled by alcohol. Unfortunately not all of these adventures had a happy ending, as 11 percent admitted that drinking led to hurting themselves or someone else. Others reported drinking led to some unsavory public behavior abroad:

• 20 percent admitted to urinating in public.
• 10 percent admitted to vomiting in public.
• 5 percent say drinking abroad led to naked escapades in public.

Just Plain Bad Behavior

Some respondents told us about illegal or questionable behavior abroad, including more than 20 percent who admitted to stealing while in a foreign country, even if it was just a hotel towel. Other findings include:

• 15 percent admitted to buying or selling drugs.
• Almost 14 percent admitted to some form of trespassing.
• 6 percent admitted to smuggling contraband.
• Less than 2 percent report being arrested, though more than 10 percent reported being held at the border.
  

What about you? What kind of bad behavior have you witnessed (or maybe taken part in...) while traveling abroad?