Most people like to stay low-key when travelling. You want to avoid wearing loud shorts, funny hats, and fanny packs for fear of being ripped-off or pick pocketed. Sometimes there’s really not much you can do to hide your out-of-towness. While touring through Italy or France, for example, even if you buy all new slim-fit super stylish outfits, find some great looking shoes, and get a smart haircut that somehow stays perfect even after taking off a scooter helmet, it’s still nearly impossible to properly emulate the local I’ve-got-places-to-go-but-I’m-cool-and-I-know-it look.
In those cases where camouflage won’t work you might as well go the other way and make yourself stand out from the crowd right? If you’re daring enough perhaps you could rent a flashy car like this one:
Of course in France and Italy the roads are pretty narrow and winding. That kind of power with those kinds of streets could really spell insurance-claim for your average North American. So what else could you do? A much easier option would be to do what we did on our tour of Nice, Eze, and Monaco a few years back: rent the team bus of the local football club for your tour.
We had taken a corporate rewards cruise that included all excursions so pretty much everyone took advantage of the tours. When we tendered into Villefranche sur Mer it looked like they had called in every single coach in the region to pick us all up. We were surprised to be assigned to a bus all done up in the colours of the Association Sportive de Monaco Football Club. Just riding the team bus was cool, but getting waved at and pointed towards everywhere we went was even cooler. In the picture below you can see some of our biggest fans! That was pretty much the look everyone gave us as we drove by.
Each time the bus stopped to let us off a small crowd would gather to catch a glimpse of the team only to be disappointed by a bunch of tourists filing out with our cameras, loud shirts, funny hats, and fanny packs.
This post was shared with Travel Photo Thursday hosted by Budget Traveler’s Sandbox.
That is some major traveling in style! What an awesome experience! Love the curious looks you captured of the gawking public.
I have always wanted to rent a red convertible in LA to drive up the Pacific Coast Highway. That’d be blending in, right? I like the waiting crowd in your picture.
I drove around LA in a red Mustang a couple of years ago. I agree that a convertible would have been better!
What a fun post! I could just imagine stepping off the bus to a group of disappointed folks. And can’t you just imagine stepping out of that car!!!
There was often an audible grumble as people realized that it was just a bunch of Canadians. š
Hahahaha, I had to laugh at this one. I wrote a post sometime ago about how to spot the tourists in NYC. No matter what we do, we don’t ever look like a local so just do like you did: embrace the fanny packs and the funny hat but rent team bus so everyone thinks you’re a celebrity. I love it!!!
People are so programmed to notice things that don’t fit normal patterns that it’s almost impossible to really hide the fact that you don’t quite fit in. The best I can hope for is to at least be mistaken for someone who visits regularly!
What a great way to do it…laughing here.