How to deal with racism on group tours abroad
Travelers frequently encounter overt racism, microaggressions, and exclusionary dynamics both from locals and within predominantly white tour groups. This makes it difficult to enjoy vacations or find comfortable group agencies, often forcing travelers to constantly stomach offensive remarks or look for diverse alternatives.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Booking private tours instead of group tours
- 2Looking for tour companies based out of South Asia or niche operators (such as Black-owned travel companies)
- 3Upgrading to higher-tier or more expensive tours to avoid younger demographic crowds
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“on my first night in cambodia, a swiss girl in my group complained that the bar she went to had too many cambodians. in cambodia. on my second day a woman from new zealand yelled out the n-word. i spent 30 days with this group. i think it really depends on how well you can stomach micro-aggressions and covert racism.”source ↗
“I'm so happy I ran across your post, because I've also considered signing up with tour groups, but this is my exact fear. as a Black American woman, I worry about the diversity of each of these groups and traveling with a majority all one demographic doesn't seem particularly enticing.”source ↗
“My mom and I are going to Italy for the first time next month but I’m seeing a lot of people experiencing racism there. I’m the type that WILL cause a scene if that happens… what do/did you guys do when you experienced it??”source ↗
“Where I did have issue is with the demographic make up of the tour groups. My groups were made up of wholly European or Australian whites. They were also mostly younger as well (18-24). Does anyone know of any group tour agencies that gear towards more diverse groups? Traveling to brown countries as a brown person with a bunch of white people can be very weird at times. No offense to anyone here, but I would see and hear very off putting things while I was with them.”source ↗
Where this came up
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