Letters to the Travel Editor

The inconspicuous tourist

Your writer David Hill [‘Took the money and ran’, Travel, February 5] rightly draws attention to the dangers of being robbed as a tourist. Your readers might also benefit from some tips passed on by the tour director during my coach tour of Europe in 2017.

In places like Venice, Rome and Paris, tourists are confronted by hundreds of beggars, hawkers, pickpockets and other scammers. The hawkers try to sell you such things as large prints of paintings, windmills, and flying gadgets. You can’t fold and stow them in your bag or backpack, but have to carry them.

You might as well carry a sign saying “gullible tourist”, as you risk being stung twice — firstly by buying their rubbish, and secondly by sending a message to their mates that your are ripe for plucking. And another one, don’t get your photo taken with the fake centurions at the Colosseum. It could prove very expensive as their mates surround you and demand a lot more money than you thought the photo would cost. I’ve seen it happen.

Happy travelling, Chris Bullen, Whakatane

See the whole of Hawaii

Adding to Andrew Louis’ “Ship Check” [Travel, January 29], we considered Pride of America to be the most ideal way of seeing the main islands of Hawaii, from zip-lining on Kaua’i; cycling Haleakala on Maui, and snorkelling at Kona on the Big Island. It was value for money and enabled us to decide where we’d like to return: for us, that was Maui. Last year was our fifth visit there.

Sheryl Meijer