How can you tell if someone is an out-of-towner where you're from?
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They ask for directions.~
They have really clean cars. lol
I live in the hills and our vehicles are always covered in dust. The shiney, clean cars, driving really s-l-o-w-ly down the highway looking at the scenery are a dead give away. Also almost everyone out here drives a truck or an SUV, not too many BMW’s and Mercedes and Mini-Coopers. We need vehicles that call haul horses and hay and ranch supplies.
They have a camera, an RV, and their fishing hat matches their boots.
They don’t know how to read a simple subway map and they ask for directions. Who am I kidding, even native New Yorkers do this. I hate everyone.
They drive too slow, especially coming into intersections. They make turns from the wrong lanes. Clearly, they need GPS systems.
They walk around with tourist map in hand.
I am from New England.
They say something positive in a genuine, non-ironic way, and smile like they would like to keep the conversation going.
It’s summertime and they wear t-shirts and shorts and flip flops. Everyone local knows that’s a good way to freeze to death in San Francisco between May and Labor Day. The hottest selling souvenir at Fisherman’s Wharf in the summer are fleece jackets with an SF logo on them.
If I lived in Florida they go swimming in the winter…. they also drive a rental car.
@zenvelo Haha..amazing what a mere 100 or so miles means to the weather in NorCal. I remember taking my daughter to Marine world once and we ended up spending about $150 on sweatshirts for the family. lol
Where I live, the out of towners are usually the most obvious to spot. They’re the drunk idiots that hurl abuse at the locals – such is the price of living in a tourist spot. Unfortunately it’s not just the tourists, it’s also the uni students who come from afar to attend the uni here.
It’s worse in the summer. Oh my..it really is that much worse in the summer.
They go on the Duck Tours
They don’t have a southern accent.
when they ask for directions for something that isn’t the welfare office
If they speak English or ask where really obvious places are. This is a small town, doesn’t take long learning where everything is. And there’s nothing to see here except waterfalls and some crazy guy downtown who always wears an ushanka even when it’s really hot out.
If they take pictures of the Impeach Obama Guy while I’m trying to talk to him, I doubt they’re from around here…
They use their directional indicators (turn signals), and they stop at stop signs.
@chyna Hah, I don’t know about that… I’ve done a lot of traveling, and when I ask for directions, locals invariably make reference to places I’m expected to be familiar with already, which is why now I generally begin my approach with “I’m not from here. Can you tell me where…?”
I’d say the biggest determinant here is accent. Then perhaps clothing style. Tourists are pretty easy to spot in any town, I think.
They are decent drivers and/or don’t wear red on game day.
When I worked in San Francisco, I used to laugh my head off watching people coming out of the BART tunnels. They would have on short pants, thin tops, etc., expecting Sunny California. They go into the City and realize the number one tourist keepsake purchased is a sweatshirt.
I’ve always liked what Mark Twain had to say about San Francisco weather:
“The coldest winter I ever spent was summer in San Francisco.”
They have no air of cynical hatred about them, they wear bright clothes, they get startled by people on the way to work rushing through their photo op, they spread out into a slow-moving, sidewalk-blocking line, they smack people in the face hailing a cab (true story), and they have a lot of trouble with the subway. I kinda like ‘em.
They try and park on the grass verge outside my house after it has been raining, silly silly silly people, I just roll my eyes……
Where I am from or where I live? Where I am from is the metro DC area, and a huge percentage of people there are from out of town LOL. Politicians, diplomats, immigrants, Navy and other branches of service, it is so commonplace to not be from Maryland, Virginia, or DC. I actually grew up on the MD side of town, and Marylanders do have a specific accent in the area (southern Maryland actually sounds very southern) but it is still hard to pick up major accent difference between MD and most of the northeast and eastern parts of the midwest. But, if someone with a big southern, midwest, or new england accent shows up, you know they did not grow up there. But, they might have been living there for many years.
Where I live now, outside of Memphis, TN, if someone looks foreign they probably were not born here. Memphis seems to only recently be getting immigrants from Latin America and Asia. Accent also gives people away. There is not a very strong southern accent here, people with southern accents I have to ask if they are from here or not. Accents from other areas of the country give people away. Also, if they are white and democrats I assume they are not from here originally, but that is not always the case, but the majority of the time it is.
Oh, women’s hair cuts coupled with other traits sometimes give away what part of the country a person is from. TN does a lot of that inside out mullet. You know, short in the back and long in the front.
Party in the front, business in the back. That’s just so wrong.
@Coloma Duck tours are these boats with wheels, they look like WW II landing craft. They drive tourists around towns in these things. Started in Boston, I have seen them in half a dozen cities. They can go in water, but I don’t think I ever have seen one do so.
@zenvelo, the Duck Tours go around the downtown area and then roll down a ramp into the Charles and head on up to Cambridge by water and then back. I believe they are refitted WWII amphibian vehicles.
They wear coats when it’s cold, southern soft bastards.
I’m from the same place @JLeslie is from, and what she said is what I’d have said. The DC area was very diverse, so you’d meet people from all over the world, but they could have been living in our area for 20 years.
In West Virginia, where I live now, accent (or lack of) is a strong indicator.
In Philadelphia, the Duck tours go into the Delaware River, get hit by barges throwing everyone into the water, drown two Hungarians, and get the tours put on hiatus for a year or two while the courts sort it all out.
Can you tell how broken up I am about this? Oh. I don’t think anyone mentioned that all Duck tourists get these noise maker thingies that sound like quacking ducks, and they blow them furiously as they make their way through town.
We also have trolley tours of town, which are much quieter. Much nicer. you can buy a ticket and ride it around town all day long.
Who needs ducks?
Around here it’s safer to assume everyone’s a tourist unless otherwise informed.
Where I live, anyone not carrying an umbrella or wearing a waterproof hooded coat is a tourist.
Visitors often carry huge rucksacks or stare about them in a baffled sort of way. It’s not always easy to tell however unless they start to speak and then it is obvious.
When I traveled in asia I swear, I ended up buying like 7 umbrellas in various spots caught in the rain. Umbrella vendors make a killing in asia. lol
@Coloma
Duck Tours are loud, obnoxious carriage-like tour buses that tour the town. They eventually turn into floats and go somewhere into the river/harbor. I’ve never been on one myself, but they are in many major tourist traps areas.
I have to admit, I had to google it to make sure that what I was saying was accurate.
It’s not easy because the city is largely inhabited by out-of-towners. People with accents, dress, appearance, and degrees of lostness of all kinds are residents, and some of them have been for a long time. I tend to assume that everybody I see lives here, even if they ask me for directions.
They dress/walk/talk different. Their diction and accent is different.
Often they will have a confused or intrigued look on their face, looking at a very average building, or tourist spot.
I live in a college town that has special nicknames for everything, as well as specific conventions about how you refer to the school. These are all based on very old traditions and often make no sense (like the area still referred to by the name of a store that occupied a small part of it about 150 years ago). Visitors, therefore, are easily identifiable in virtue of being the only ones not speaking in code.
We have code for tourists. Some are definitely local terminology…others are just really bad language.
They block the gas pumps at my local market and then act all indignant when you ask them to move. ” I just need a bag of ice, I’ll only be 2 minutes!” Really? Well…I just paid for my gas and you will move your car now!
Flatlanders! Pffft! lol
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