Engaging Respectfully With Local People

Conversation is the part of travel people remember, and it is also where curiosity most easily becomes intrusion. The line is not complicated: a question you would be pleased to be asked by a visitor to your own town is fine, and a question you would find impertinent at home is impertinent there too. Distance does not make a question polite.

What You Need to Know

Curiosity has limits and they are the ordinary ones

Income, religion, politics, family arrangements, health and history that is still painful are subjects handled carefully at home, and travel does not suspend that. A traveler who would never ask a colleague what they earn will sometimes ask a guide, on the reasoning that it is interesting and far away. It is the same question.

Do not conscript people as spokespeople

One person is not their country, their religion, their ethnic group or their generation. Asking someone to explain what their people believe puts them in a position they did not ask for, and the answer you get will be a polite improvisation. Asking about their own experience is a different and much better question, and it is usually welcomed.

Learn to hear a no

Refusal is often expressed indirectly. A change of subject, a vague answer, a laugh, or a "maybe later" is frequently a decline, and pressing it converts a small awkwardness into a real one. Where a direct no would be rude in the local register, an indirect one is the polite form and should be read as final.

Talking about the country

Genuine questions about how something works are welcome nearly everywhere. Comparisons that rank are not, and neither is the compliment shaped like an insult: surprise that a place is developed, clean, safe or modern says more about the speaker’s expectations than about the country. Praise something specific instead.

Politics and hard history

These are real subjects and people do discuss them, but let the other person open the topic. In some countries there are also legal risks in the conversation: 10 of the 211 destinations the State Department publishes country information for address blasphemy, insulting the head of state, or criticism of the government in their local laws. A visitor’s remark can create trouble for the local person who was standing there.

What to Do Before Your Trip

• Learn a greeting and thank you. Conversation starts there.
• Read the local laws section for speech restrictions.
• Read something written from the country, so you arrive with better questions.
• Plan to ask about the person, not about the nation.
• Decide your photography rule before you are in the moment.

Important Considerations

Money changes a conversation. Where someone is being paid to spend the day with you, warmth is part of the work and a refusal is harder to give. Guides, drivers and hosts are entitled to a professional relationship rather than to friendship on demand, and reading a courteous manner as an invitation to something more personal is a common and uncomfortable error.

Language asymmetry does the same thing. Speaking to someone in your language rather than theirs means they are doing the labor of the conversation, and it usually means they are less able to set boundaries in it. Learning a few words shifts a small part of that back, and speaking slowly rather than loudly helps the rest.

Promises are a specific trap. Offering to send a photograph, to write, to help with a visa or to stay in touch is easy in the moment and often meant sincerely; not following through is remembered. Promise less than you intend to do.

Tips for Group Travelers

• Talk in ones and twos, not as a semicircle.
• Do not make one person answer for everyone.
• Let the guide set the pace of an interaction.
• Watch the group’s volume and its habit of interrupting.
• Say the photography rule: ask first, accept no.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Asking what someone earns.
• Treating a person as a spokesperson.
• Pressing past an indirect no.
• Complimenting a country on being unexpectedly modern.
• Promising to stay in touch and not doing it.

Frequently Asked Questions

What questions should I avoid asking?

The ones you would not welcome yourself: income, religion, politics, family arrangements, health and recent painful history. Distance does not make a question polite. Asking about someone’s own work, food or town is nearly always welcome instead.

Is it rude to ask about politics?

It can be, and in some places it carries a legal risk for the local person rather than for you: 10 of the 211 destinations the State Department covers address blasphemy, insulting the head of state or criticism of the government in their local laws. Let the other person open the subject.

How do I know if someone wants to stop talking?

A change of subject, a vague answer, a laugh or a deferral usually means yes. In many places a direct refusal would be rude, so the indirect form is the polite one, and it is final. Treat any of those as the end of the conversation.

Related Travel Tips

• Culture, customs and responsible travel, the section this guide belongs to.
• Language Basics for International Travel.
• Traveling Respectfully.
• Photography Etiquette.

Plan Your Trip With LABUSA Travel

The best conversations on a trip happen because someone made an introduction. LABUSA Travel works with local guides who do that, and builds itineraries with room in them for it to happen.

Talk with a LABUSA Travel advisor about a trip you are considering, or browse our destination guides for a specific country.

Verify Before You Travel

Local laws on speech, blasphemy and criticism of government are published per destination by the U.S. Department of State and independently by the U.K. FCDO.