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Comment by thatfrenchguy | Hacker News Reader

To me it always felt like "white americans who can't walk being lazy on a tour to a city in Europe".

I don't think that's fair. I did 73km of walking on the 3 days I spent in Paris. I'm a relatively fit guy and by the end of it I had some pretty severe pain in my feet. I would've been grateful for some way of seeing everything and taking the load off at the same time.

A friendly suggestion: do as the locals do.

Walk, take the public bus, take the metro.

Skip tuktuks, Segways, quads, organized tours, "sightseeing" private double decker buses.

Gentrification is killing the beauty of Europe and other places, tired feet or not.

The locals aren't trying to maximize the value of their limited vacation time.

Yes, do as the locals do is a great way to go about actually knowing a place. But if you want to spend one day of your multi-day trip ticking off things to see in a more efficient fashion-- on a "hop-on, hop-off" bus or Segway or whatever-- go for it. I've been on several trips with my kids (youngest, now 6) where a day of easy sightseeing in the middle has been a lifesaver.

Correct, the locals aren't trying to maximize value. That's the job of the companies that provide the "efficient" services you mentioned.

Locals just have to pick up the trash, see the prices skyrocket and remember how unique the place uses to be.

I'm sorry-- if I visit for a week, whether I take a bus tour one day or continue to travel like a local doesn't affect these things. You'll have to find different boogeymen to blame instead of a symptom.

Check how Lisbon has changed in the last 7 years.

Have a nice day.

I've seen a lot of places I periodically visit change a lot.

It's not the occasional use of a bus tour that does it.

You'll have to find a different boogeyman to blame instead of a symptom.

While those are good options for going from point A to point B, you lose a lot of the qualities of just wandering around a new city and exploring new things.

Indeed, FC mentioned sore feet.

Another issue with walking as a tourist is you need to balance walking comfort (say, sneakers) with shoes that don't feel too casual for visiting a restaurant or bar. I inevitably wear street shoes, which means you can feel the impact of a full day walking. Yes, I know there are often dorky shoes people wear that straddle the line.

But you coulda done 73km on a bike, and you wouldn't have even thought about the distance.

I've personally seen more asian tourists riding them than white tourists. But why are we bringing race into this in the first place?

The grandparent poster is reporting their subjective feeling about something they've observed, so presumably race is being mentioned, along with assumed nationality, and inferred attitude because those are part of the subjective impression the poster was left with from their experiences.

what the hell is wrong with you. get your racism stuff off of HN.

Agreed.

Here are some of his recent comments:

Americans systematically avoid hard discussions, to preserve that "everyone is happy" feeling

Just look at a typical city council video in the United States. Everyone who is there is old (because they have nothing better to do than spending 4 hours in a city council meeting), 60+, and they're against anything new.

You may want to look a little bit more in the dictionary or wikipedia for the definition of racism :-)

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