[ValentineC]

> I’m skeptical of the term tourist trap (it’s mostly used as a term to place yourself as higher status/taste than other people, and is often used out of insecurity)

One thing I've read years ago about tourist traps is that one shouldn't be actively trying to avoid them, especially if they come from a country with higher purchasing power.

Some of these "tourist trap" activities are locals trying to make an honest living doing what they can. It should be fine to take a tuk tuk, or to buy paintings and souvenirs from people off the street.

Everyone should avoid getting ripped off, but what's 0.1% of a month's wages to a tourist could pay for an entire day's meals for a local.

[apelapan]

I don't think people should get ripped off just because they can afford it.

If you visit Sweden, don't buy ice cream in the historic area of Stockholm ("gamla stan").

As an American you might think "$10 for a single scoop of vanilla, that's nothing. A minimum wage worker packing groceries earn twice that in an hour back home". But you are not helping a starving ice cream labourer with your purchase, you are simply being taken for a ride. Walk a couple of blocks more and check the signs, and you can buy it at half price from a respectable establishment instead. Most likely the ice cream will be better at the next place as well.

[eloisant]

I don't think it's "ripping off" tourists to ask them to pay a price they can easily afford rather than the usual local price, ridiculously low for a tourist.

I cringe when I hear Europeans proud that they haggled to death on an African market to lower the price from "cheap" to "dirt cheap". Dude, that's pocket change for you, can't you help the local economy a bit, and help the guy feed his family?

[gwbas1c]

In Washington DC, don't buy ice cream from the trucks in the national mall.

[throwaway894345]

> As an American you might think "$10 for a single scoop of vanilla, that's nothing. A minimum wage worker packing groceries earn twice that in an hour back home".

Is this a joke? $10 for a single scoop of ice cream in the US is a lot of money and also the US minimum wage is only $7.25/hour. You can barely feed yourself with the US minimum wage and you definitely can't pay for shelter or healthcare or anything else you would need to survive here, but that's a story for another time.

[jhbadger]

The current US minimum wage is so way below market wages in most places to be meaningless, though. I'm sure McDonald's would like to hire people at $7.25/hr (or better yet have robots that they don't have to pay after acquiring). But currently, they have to advertise that their starting salary for workers near me is $14/hr because if they don't they won't get anyone. Politicians like to talk about raising the minimum wage to $15/hr or whatever as if that would suddenly give working class people a huge raise, but it would simply reflect the existing reality.

[apelapan]

Minimum wage is set by the states, 7.25 is just the national minimum. California has 16.90, Washington 17.13 etc.

If I'll update the icecone example to a single vanilla scoop costing $8.45 it still stands for a Californian.

By the way, USD 16.9/hr is on the low end of normal pay level for a IT technician or junior nurse in Sweden. Tax is highly progressive, so at that point they'd only be paying about ~18% total income tax though, perhaps that would be higher in most US states?

[exmadscientist]

By my definition "tourist traps" are both low quality and high price... and also fairly easy to avoid. If you can walk three blocks away from a major attraction and find restaurants that are both cheaper and better, then the other ones are tourist traps. If they're decent quality but merely expensive due to their location, then they're charging for convenience and there's nothing much wrong with that.

[mmarq]

> Some of these "tourist trap" activities are locals trying to make an honest living doing what they can.

The local working in hospitality is earning minimum wage, the premium you pay goes to the landlord.

[swiftcoder]

While this is often true for businesses with fixed premises, it's less true for the market stalls along the street, or the random tour guides.

Also, as a visitor with substantially more purchasing power, you can afford to tip the lad working for local minimum wage