WHERE ARE ALL THE TOURISTS?

You're sitting in a restaurant in Italy. At the table next to you, the people are speaking English. You lean over and ask, "Where are you from?" and a conversation ensues.

You're walking down the street in Tanzania. You see another white person walking down the street. You stop and ask, "Where are you from?" and next thing you know, you are having dinner together.

You're sitting in the garden of a guesthouse in Thailand. People are white, some speaking English. You ask "Where are you from?" and you exchange travel itineraries to figure out where you might meet up next.

Our social life, outside of each other, (which, as you've heard before, gets a little boring) is meeting up with fellow travellers. We would meet tourists in restaurants, internet cafes, accomodations, on the street...pretty much anywhere. Throughout Europe, the identifiying factor was language - if you heard English, you most likely had a traveller on your hands. Throughout Africa, India, Thailand, Laos and China, we had two identifying factors: skin color/appearance and language. If you saw white - tourist (or expat) and if you heard English - tourist (or expat).

So, here we are in Australia and EVERYONE speaks English! And the majority of people are white! Our two previous identifying factors are null and void here. So how do we identify the tourists so we can have a conversation??? Answer, we CAN'T! We can talk to just about anyone who we meet, the thing is, natives really aren't in need of conversation - they have their friends, family and co-workers here. It's we tourists who are desperate for a chat.

Quick, send us emails, we are lonely here!!!!!!