Comment by zer8k | Hacker News Reader

Comment by zer8k | Hacker News Reader

The first rule of being an American overseas is you are not an American overseas.

You are a high priority target for robbery, kidnapping, extortion, scamming, murder, and a host of other things from the lovely locals you're mingling amongst. Stay to well lit areas, don't stay out late, don't follow anyone around, dress in a way that does not draw attention to yourself (better if you can get into local garb), and assume every single person is there to kill you. Limit your drinking, and if you do drink do so amongst expatriates and travel friends, and guard your drink at all times.

People do not like Americans. Many times their ill will has at least a logical foundation. While I certainly appreciate the state department attempting to manage image this isn't enough. Americans must be on the defense at all times. You must especially be defensive in non-western countries (where you are probably better off simply not going). While many people are easy going the mixture of zealous propaganda about Americans, and America's own negative image, will have you perceived as a target more often than a friend.

This reads as an absurdist take on travel, or one assuming the average American is blithely walking back and forth across the Afghanistan/Pakistan border. After extensive travel in many “non-Western” countries, I have essentially never felt like a target, or that I was in danger (except of perhaps being charged more than a local), and suggesting Americans avoid those countries reads, to me, as an absolutely mad-with-fear take on the world.

Colombia or Iraq, sure, but in most countries, this isn't the case.

Although the tourist is a universally-reviled species, the best tip when traveling is don't become the clueless, reckless, *sshole cliché American tourist. You can go to a hidden neighborhood brasserie in Paris, have a good time with the locals, and not be outed as an American tourist if you don't look or act the part.

Universal rule of life: be cool. (Many) problems solved.

How much traveling have you done overseas? I've been to a handful of countries and have never had reason to be afraid. No one I know who's travelled overseas has has been hurt or robbed or anything like that either. To my knowledge none of them hid their Americanness.

People told me I needed to wrap my luggage in seran wrap when I went to the Philippines so that corrupt customs officials wouldn't put contraband in my bag. The airline workers had to hold back a laugh at my naivete when they checked my wrapped luggage.

To be fair I did see political graffiti from communist rebels who occasionally kidnap people for ransom, but it was obvious on sight that I was American - which prompted people in the street to try and sell me beautiful craft work, not to kidnap me.

Whoa. That escalated quickly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com