how far does a person need to travel to be considered a "Tourist" ?

[green papaya]

if a person lived 20 - 50 miles away from a city, would that person be considered a "tourist" if they regularly go there for shopping, etc?

I would consider it more like being a "day tripper" since you can do something that morning and be back in a few hours or the same day.

no luggage, just the clothes your wearing and the car your driving

 

[Bushman]

I'd say anywhere that you stick out as obviously not from there. Generally, I try to avoid looking too much like a tourist, though I'm sure I still stick out in some places, either because of my accent, or lack thereof, or because I'm walking around with a camera around my neck (even though I do that in my own backyard).

 

[Nobert]

Probably varies from region to region. Here, you basically have to be from across the New Hampshire border.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A lot also depends on your purpose in visiting. If I go to New York for some work related thing, I'm not a tourist, I'm there to do a job. If I go so I can take a tour of Radio City or go to the top of the Empire State Building, I'm a tourist.

In my town, one definition is "if you use your blinkers and never go the wrong way on a one way street, you're a visitor, not a tourist."

 

[Tiki Tom]

Ah. The age old debate: can I call myself “a traveller” instead of “a tourist” ? As Lizzie said, if you are there for work or some other non-sight-seeing reason, you might call yourself the former. I would add the following loop-hole: if you are really a student of the place you are visiting, ie — have studied the history and (to at least a basic level) the language and have some really quirky specialized interest in the place, even without being there for work or a dying relative, you might get away with not being a “tourist”. Not that being a tourist is, Ipso facto, a bad thing. Anything that expands a persons view of the world is “not bad”. That said, I basically hate this whole business of putting people into neat little cubby holes. Travel! Meet people with different histories and points of views! Learn from them. Who cares what others say or think?

 

[green papaya]

If you stay inside your state like northern or southern, I wouldnt call them a "tourist" like a if you live in a place like San Jose and took a day trip down to Monterey for a day at the beach, your only an hour away and your still in Northern CA.

 

[Zombie_61]

...I basically hate this whole business of putting people into neat little cubby holes. Travel! Meet people with different histories and points of views! Learn from them. Who cares what others say or think?

Quoted because I agree. Wherever my wife and I have traveled regardless of the time/distance involved, it's been the people that made and left the lasting impressions more so than the places. I don't particularly care if any of them considered us to be nothing more than "tourists", but I do hope we made a positive impression.

Veering back towards the main topic, I don't think distance determines whether or not you're a tourist as much as behavior. It doesn't matter where you are, if you behave as if you don't belong there you're a tourist.

 

[belfastboy]

From time to time my wife and I will schedule a "tourist for the day" outing to the downtown of our hometown. We spend the day wandering about, attempting to see the city through fresh eyes, pick a restaurant with a view of the water and marvel at the view. We don't bother with the fanny packs and camera but we are tourists nonetheless.
The question reminds me of the quip that an "expert" is anyone who is more than 50 miles away from home.....son one could be a tourist and an expert simultaneously

 

[GHT]

if you are really a student of the place you are visiting, ie — have studied the history and (to at least a basic level) the language.

You have just prompted a long forgotten reminisce. Many years ago, whilst attending a largish management meeting, at the company's London headquarters, we all broke for lunch. Of all days to have a kitchen drama in the canteen, that day was it. However rescue came when some quick thinking chef in the kitchen had a word with the head honcho. It turned out that the rather smart, eat-in or take-away opposite our building was where this chef started out after college. One phone call later and we were all ordering a take-away which we took back to the staff canteen to eat at our leisure.

There must have been about thirty of us waiting patiently to be served, your's truly was second in the queue. Up front was a young lady, not one of our company, she was most probably a French national, and chances are, here to study English. She was having difficulty reading the English menu on the large board behind the counter. After one or two stabs at broken English, and with the counter staff unable to understand her, I asked her, in French, could I help. The look on her face was unforgettable, a knight when I needed one most. She told me what she wanted, more to the point, she asked me what this, that or the other was on the menu board. After explaining what was what, she made a choice and asked me what it was in English. I translated it, slowly and deliberately, so that she could make her choice, on her own, in English. She received her order, we exchanged pleasantries, and she went on her way. I turned to speak to a colleague and faced thirty jaw drops. What?

No one knew that I spoke French, why should they? I learned more from three months of grape picking, whilst following the harvest as the grapes ripened, in those three months, than I did in five years at school. But the expressions on those faces that day was a priceless moment to savour forever.

 

[Bushman]

Ah. The age old debate: can I call myself “a traveller” instead of “a tourist” ? As Lizzie said, if you are there for work or some other non-sight-seeing reason, you might call yourself the former. I would add the following loop-hole: if you are really a student of the place you are visiting, ie — have studied the history and (to at least a basic level) the language and have some really quirky specialized interest in the place, even without being there for work or a dying relative, you might get away with not being a “tourist”. Not that being a tourist is, Ipso facto, a bad thing. Anything that expands a persons view of the world is “not bad”. That said, I basically hate this whole business of putting people into neat little cubby holes. Travel! Meet people with different histories and points of views! Learn from them. Who cares what others say or think?

That's a very good point. I did a study abroad in Dublin when I was in college, and although I surely looked and sounded like some tourist from Chicago, I really was there to study.

 

[belfastboy]

If you stay inside your state like northern or southern, I wouldnt call them a "tourist" like a if you live in a place like San Jose and took a day trip down to Monterey for a day at the beach, your only an hour away and your still in Northern CA.

View attachment 234082

We travel the western USA extensively each year 2-4 months...well except this year. It always amazes me the differences not just between states but within them. Northern Idahoans consider the southern ones latte sipping effetes and I suspect the southern ones think the northern ones all preppers. Northern CA want to separate from SoCal and form their own state of Jefferson, they see themselves as that different. So I would suspect that you don't have to travel too far to be considered if not a tourist then certainly "ifferent"

 

[KILO NOVEMBER]

I... either because of my accent, or lack thereof, ...

Accents are like, uh, something else, everyone's got one. When I first left my native western Pennsylvania many decades ago, I had never considered that I had an accent. It was just these other people from other places who had them. Silly, isn't it?
Even now that I have a different accent (I notice the "Pittsburgh Pocket" accents when I visit my home town, or when listening to more recent emigres of the Western Pennsylvania Diaspora, and the fact that I notice it tells me that my accent is now different), I realize that I have an accent.

 

[belfastboy]

Accents are like, uh, something else, everyone's got one. When I first left my native western Pennsylvania many decades ago, I had never considered that I had an accent. It was just these other people from other places who had them. Silly, isn't it?
Even now that I have a different accent (I notice the "Pittsburgh Pocket" accents when I visit my home town, or when listening to more recent emigres of the Western Pennsylvania Diaspora, and the fact that I notice it tells me that my accent is now different), I realize that I have an accent.

As a Canadian with what is considered a 'neutral' accent....hence the popularity for a while of Canadians as news anchors.(Peter Jennings et al) I tend when I travel and am in a place for an extended period to pick up the accent and bring it home. It is especially true when I travel in the southern US or Ireland and Scotland....land of the broad accents. I come home with the drawl, the lilt, the slang and it sticks for a few weeks after I arrive home.

 

[Edward]

Accents are like, uh, something else, everyone's got one. When I first left my native western Pennsylvania many decades ago, I had never considered that I had an accent. It was just these other people from other places who had them. Silly, isn't it?
Even now that I have a different accent (I notice the "Pittsburgh Pocket" accents when I visit my home town, or when listening to more recent emigres of the Western Pennsylvania Diaspora, and the fact that I notice it tells me that my accent is now different), I realize that I have an accent.

I don't have an accent, I'm middle class.

I often say this to students. Confuses the hell out of those who arrive in London expecting everyone to sound like either Tim Curry or Mick Jagger, and then they get my best "Liam Neeson".

 

[Zombie_61]

As a Canadian with what is considered a 'neutral' accent....hence the popularity for a while of Canadians as news anchors.(Peter Jennings et al) I tend when I travel and am in a place for an extended period to pick up the accent and bring it home. It is especially true when I travel in the southern US or Ireland and Scotland....land of the broad accents. I come home with the drawl, the lilt, the slang and it sticks for a few weeks after I arrive home.

I don't know why, because no one in my family has ever lived in the American "south", but put me with anyone who has a "southern" (American) accent and suddenly I'm as redneck as they come, y'all. It isn't intentional or even voluntary, I just begin speaking with that accent and usually don't even realize I'm doing it until someone brings it to my attention. And for whatever reason I do the same thing when I'm really tired--this "southern" drawl just sort of invades my normal speech patterns. I have no idea why.

 

[belfastboy]

I don't know why, because no one in my family has ever lived in the American "south", but put me with anyone who has a "southern" (American) accent and suddenly I'm as redneck as they come, y'all. It isn't intentional or even voluntary, I just begin speaking with that accent and usually don't even realize I'm doing it until someone brings it to my attention. And for whatever reason I do the same thing when I'm really tired--this "southern" drawl just sort of invades my normal speech patterns. I have no idea why.

"Georgia on my Mind!"

 

[Edward]

I don't know why, because no one in my family has ever lived in the American "south", but put me with anyone who has a "southern" (American) accent and suddenly I'm as redneck as they come, y'all. It isn't intentional or even voluntary, I just begin speaking with that accent and usually don't even realize I'm doing it until someone brings it to my attention. And for whatever reason I do the same thing when I'm really tired--this "southern" drawl just sort of invades my normal speech patterns. I have no idea why.

Psychology, I guess. Maybe you're usunig the same part of the brain that is affected by what they call "foreign accent syndrome". I've seen documented medical cases where someone has had a knock on the head and thereafter gone from their own accent to speaking with a German or even Chinese accent. The human brain is a fascinating and wodnerful thing we still don't understand the half of!

 

[LizzieMaine]

This has been a thing with me all my life, to the point where I have to consciously fight the tendency to echo back the dialect of whoever's talking to me. It was actually a handy skill to have in radio, but it can otherwise be embarrassing when you're doing it and you don't realize. I can usually control the variations in pronunciation, but it's very very difficult not to pick up the other speaker's rhythm -- which is a very big part of any type of accent.

I grew up with a natural Maine accent, but as a consequence of this accent-echo trait it's gotten munged into kind of an amalgam of all the other non-rhotic Northeastern accents that are common around here, with elements of Boston and New York blending in with the Maine stuff, and coming out with rising and falling emphasis depending on who I'm around at the moment.

We had a workman in here last week installing a new door, and he had a rich Irish brogue. Which I then had for the rest of the day. One of our customers is first-generation Polish, and there've been a couple of times after talking with her in the lobby where I've noticed myself sounding like Lyda Roberti.

 

[Bamaboots]

I don't know why, because no one in my family has ever lived in the American "south", but put me with anyone who has a "southern" (American) accent and suddenly I'm as redneck as they come, y'all.

Al, never one never one to generalize are you? Southern” and “redneck” don’t always go hand in hand, though I generally fit that description.

 

[Edward]

Al, never one never one to generalize are you? Southern” and “redneck” don’t always go hand in hand, though I generally fit that description.

It's interesting too that 'redneck' is often seen as a perjorative, whereas some would argue it has a very much more interesting and nuanced origin - https://slate.com/culture/2019/12/redneck-origin-definition-union-uprising-south.html It's always interesting how language evolves over time - whether that's people choosing to self-label as something previously considered a perjorative as an act of reclamation or perceived disempowerment of the insult, while other labels once seen as empowering or at least a mode of self-identification become terms of abuse generations later (the latter I've certainly seen happen in my own native Northern Ireland). Funny things, words.