Airline staff and fellow fliers are secretly looking down on tourists whose pretentious airport and holiday habits make them look naff on trips.
Travel snobs are easily identified by a series of distinct behaviors, from ostentatious light packing to boasting about insider perks and bypassing immigration queues.
One primary sign of a travel snob is an insistence on carrying minimal luggage. These fliers look askance at anyone carrying a large suitcase, restricting their own belongings to no more than two and a half pairs of pants and a toothbrush. Their compact hand luggage is designed to slot into a plane seat cupholder, while extending into a bed and a dining table for six people.
Unlike average tourists who begin browsing holiday options when low-cost operator Jet2 launches its annual advertising campaign on Boxing Day, travel snobs rely on insider knowledge, accumulated air miles and industry contacts. They boast about friends at flag carrier British Airways who provide free upgrades to first class. They also refuse to travel during peak holiday periods, preferring trips to rural Cambodia in early May over visiting Majorca in August.
During flights, travel snobs shun standard comforts such as inflatable neck pillows or purchasing gin from the EasyJet trolley. Instead, they consume specialized melatonin sourced from the United States to ensure uninterrupted sleep, arriving at their destination completely refreshed. Regular fliers are left to arrive exhausted, with creased faces and handfuls of unsold charity scratch cards.
Passport shortcuts and foreign connections
Immigration lines present another venue for travel snobs to display superiority. Many apply for foreign citizenship, such as Irish or Liechtensteiner nationality through a distant grandmother whom they have not seen for 30 years and never held interest in, simply to bypass non-EU passport control lanes. Observers note they would willingly wear traditional Bavarian lederhosen and play an Irish bodhrán frame drum if it allowed them to avoid waiting alongside families with children riding Trunki luggage.
Once at a destination, travel snobs frequently claim intimate acquaintance with local residents. They point out balcony sweepers such as Dona Maria, foot-crushing vermouth makers Giuseppe and Laura, or Icelandic acquaintances Ingrid and Guðmundur, despite the locals having no knowledge of who the travel snob actually is.
Popular tourist hotspots are treated as anathema. A travel snob avoids holding an Aperol spritz in Santorini, preferring secluded white sand beaches reachable only by mule. They frequent traditional osterias dating back to medieval times that open exclusively on Ascension Day, while mocking visitors who purchase Eiffel Tower souvenirs.
Unwritten rules and holiday competitive rivalry
Language barrier interactions also showcase this behavior. Believing it lazy not to attempt local tongues, travel snobs engage in uncomfortable exchanges in Estonian or heated arguments in Albanian. They walk away satisfied despite failing to comprehend the responses, which would make the mascot of language learning platform Duolingo blush.
Experienced travellers enforce arbitrary and obscure guidelines while mocking uninitiated tourists. Common dictates include prohibiting Birkenstock sandals in New York after 7pm, banning fish orders in Guatemala, requiring the lower third of the neck to be covered in Italian churches before midday, and strictly forbidding requests for a glass of Rioja wine in the Rioja region of Spain.
The tendency reaches its peak in competitive storytelling, known informally as having visited Twentyerife if someone else mentions Tenerife. No personal story remains unmatched, whether a flier has paraglided through a rainforest alongside German filmmaker Werner Herzog, identified a new indigenous species in Patagonia, or journeyed to Antarctica.
