The Titanic Awards

Name Dave Fox
Who? Tour guide in Europe for Rick Steves, author of Getting Lost: Mishaps of an Accidental Nomad, and Globejotting: How to Write Extraordinary Travel Journals (and still have time to enjoy your trip!). Dave  will soon be leading travel journaling and essay-writing tours in Africa and Asia. More at davethefox.com and traveljournaling.com.
Age 40
Countries Visited 42

Titanic Nominations
1. Worst Tourists People who keep bumping into me because they have video cameras glued to their eyeballs. Seriously, people, if you’d put down your cameras, your exotic vacations would look less like reality television shows and more like reality.
2. Worst Tourist Information Office Slogan “Stockholm: The Capital of Scandinavia.” Did they run this by Norway, Denmark, or Iceland? Wars have started over claims like this.
3. Worst Travel Writer Hate Mail From a guy named Dale, in response to my lighthearted article about attempting to swallow lutefisk: “Please don’t call yourself a Norwegian-American. I’d have a book burning (of yours) but that means I’d have to buy one.”
4. Worst Hospital The one in Ankara, Turkey, where I spent the night after an evil salad did nasty things to my intestines. Not that one needs toilet paper whilst afflicted with giardia, but watching a fist fight between a patient and a doctor from the blood-stained sheets (not my own blood) of my emergency room bed was kind of stressful.
5. Worst Military Uniforms The Swiss Guards at the Vatican. Really? In your red, blue, and yellow, poofy trousers and your floppy hats, you guys defend the Pope’s life? All you look qualified to do is juggle and play the lute.

Famous Travelers dave fox