What Happens In Vegas Stays in Vegas…Unless It’s on Facebook

Isn’t it wonderful to throw caution to the wind and have a little uninhibited fun on vacation?   To let your hair down, throw back a few drinks and release your inner break dancer?  After all you’re miles from home and you’ll never see these people again.  It’s great to let a crazier, more fun-loving you out of the bag when you’re travelling…until it shows up on Facebook.

Make sure only pictres of scenery follow you home

The days of anonymity are gone, thanks to our obsession with posting, Tweeting and blogging every moment of our lives.  Your new best friends abroad may not understand that your Facebook wall does not need a picture of you double fisting tequila bottles in a sombrero.  You know you’ve done worse than that, but let’s keep things PG for the moment.  The souvenirs you bring home should be postcards and stupid figurines, not You Tube videos of you slurring the words to the Dutch national anthem while wearing clogs.

What an Idiot

The guy falling definitely looks like an idiot

Right now you’re sitting responsibly at home wondering who could be so stupid to let someone document their vodka inspired dance-off in Moscow.  But just wait until you’re basking in the glow of foreign attention and telling yourself you only live once.  That’s when it’s good to avoid making a whole new batch of friends who will decorate your real life with reminders of your stupidity once you’re back home.  And believe me, it will be the one person you hoped to forget who will manage to track you done online and post things like, “Never knew anyone could eat so many cow eyeballs!  You’re disgusting!  LMFAO!” just as you sit down to a business lunch back at home.

So in order to help you avoid having the things you hoped would stay in Vegas follow you home, here’s a list of travel anti-tips.

Things NOT to do when you travel:

1. Lead a conga line anywhere, anytime
2. Sing a national anthem, yours, theirs, anyone’s
3. Try to pull off looking cool in any style of local hat
4. Attempt to out-drink the bartender
5. Demonstrate how brave you are by eating things that look like they’re from Fear Factor
6. Arm wrestle
7. Trash talk the opposing team before playing any local sport
8. Drive on the opposite side of the road
9. Wear a poncho
10. Tell the other travellers you meet that you speak Spanish when you only know how to order a burrito
11. Tell jokes that aren’t funny at home (they’re not funny overseas, either)
12. Convince yourself you don’t need sunscreen
13. Loudly tell the hilarious story you heard about the local drunk (he will inevitably be standing next to you)
14. Believe any salesperson who tells you it’s made of real human bone
15. Think that you are suddenly more skilled/witty/charming than you are at home

This was not supposed to end up on Facebook

These are things I may or may not have learned from experience; I’ll include some ambiguity for the sake of my most loyal (only) readers – my parents.    But they are definitely things you should not do when you travel to avoid looking like an idiot.  Or at home for that matter.  So have fun, live life… and remember it could all end up on Facebook one day.

What are some stupid things you’ve done on vacation?