Sorry, Minky Monkey...
: "Do you have any more Henges in England?"
: Yep, American.

Er, we do have a few, yes. Have a look on Google or Wiki for Seahenge, Woodhenge, Thornbury henges, or just "henge", although Avebury would have been a nice example to direct them to; it's only 20 miles from Stonehenge.

Clearly you don't have to be a tourist (or even an American) to make mistakes about British archaeological sites. Let's keep this to the stories that are actually funny, eh?
(user_requested_deletion, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 10:23, Reply)

In Chicago...
...at the tourist information office. I asked the woman behind the counter if they'd named the city after the film starring Richard Gere.

She politely explained that the film only came out in 2002.
(spastic_lequeer, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 9:50, Reply)

Canterbury
Whilst in Canterbury on Saturday, I had the misfortune of being stuck behind a shitload of German tourists in McDonalds. As each gave their order, most managed to order a Big Mac and Coke. Until the very last retard who some how managed to confuse "20 Chicken McNuggets" with "20 Chicken McNugget meals".
Oh, and then there was the Dutch tourists looking for a crappy fete thing. Despite walking right past the thing, I lost count of how many times I was asked in crap English if the fete was "here". I was standing (with girlfriend) in the emptiest park imaginable.
Thankfully, I didn't meet any Americans or Japanese. Yay.
(Karl avec un K I am an England fan, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 9:38, Reply)

One summer in Hong Kong
I worked in a bar in Wan Chai and one of the other barmen was a Chinese chap who was looking forward to going to England in a couple of months for a holiday.

He knew that the English had many phrases for drinking eg "cheers" or "bottoms up" and he wanted to learn more.

We told him that "happy wanking" was a very common salutaion when chinking glasses.

anybody ever have a drink with this guy?
(Baron Greenback Still in Sunny Singapore, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 9:03, Reply)

WWII
A friend of mine used to live in Cambridge and when taking a sunday stroll round the grounds of the uni overheard a conversation with an english tour guide and americian tourist.
Americian lady "So are these buildings pre-war then?"
Tour guide in upper class english gent voice "madam these buildings are pre-americias!"

Edit: well as this is sounding more and more like an urban legend here is another that I know is true as I was there at the time.
I have for a few years now been a medieval re-enactor attending shows up and down our wonderful land of Eng and was at an event when a dad reliably told his little one that of course medieval people just lived in huts because they couldn't build anything better. To my eternal shame it was a friend of mine with a faster wit they replied to the gentleman "so York minster, just clever weathering then sir?"
(Druss, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 9:03, Reply)

Valid question
Not stupid, but on a train the other day I overheard some lovely Americans (sorry sorry sorry).

I don't understand it, the lady said to her husband after passing a massive car lot full of hatchbacks, why do they make their cars so little here?
(Gert-Big-Robot-Gal, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 8:45, Reply)

I was collered
by a yank outside Westminster tube station. I was walking along going to the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, and this Yank grabbed me and asked if the Houses of Parliament was Buckingham Palace. I told him Buckingham Palace was actually in Milton Keynes and I think he believed me.
(_earwaxuk_, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 8:25, Reply)

While in Sydney ...
Lebanese taxi driver: So where you just come from mate?

Mudskipper: Auckland

LTD: How far away that?

Mudskipper: Oh, 3 hours flight, about 2000km.

LTD: You think maybe one day they build bridge?

Mudskipper: ...
(mudskipper, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 8:13, Reply)

the northern lights
my dad heard an american asking the tourist info office in edinburgh what time the northern lights would be on.
the tourist info person said "half past eight"

haha!
(whatsinaname, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 8:10, Reply)

4500 year old helicopters
Was enjoying a stroll around around stone henge a few years ago when I got talking to a nice but quite annoying American family. After the usual crap "I'm third generation Irish, this is my son John, he's fourth generation Irish" you mean your Americans you twunts, the conversation got a bit surreal.

Yanky twunt-These stone are a bit disappointing though, I thought they would be bigger.

Me-Yeah, but the mystery is how they got them the 240 miles from Wales to here.

Yanky twunt-Couldn't they've just used helicopters.

ffs
( The Awful Puppy Bakery is still bored, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 8:09, Reply)

Damn American Tourists
My sister works in Hampton Court Palace and she is quite interested in history. Which helps I'm sure. Anyhoo, she was mortally shocked to hear an American teacher, leading a waddling group of 10 year old obese septics through Clock Court at the Palace, pronounce to all that may have been listening that Henry VIII was a fictional character. I'm sure Anne Boleyn and Kathryn Howard wish he was.
(_earwaxuk_, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 7:55, Reply)

I guess everyone loves a bargain...
I live in Florida, and I live a few miles down the road from Sawgrass Mills, a very large discount shopping mall that inexplicably draws thousands of international tourists every year who make a special trip from Orlando or Miami. Yes, it's very large, and yes, the dollar is weak. But do dozens of tourists need to stop in the middle of the walkways to videotape their family members buying discounted Levi's and knockoff Burberry bags? One can hardly walk through the crowds without jostling a tourist from Europe, North or South America, or Asia with his camcorder, trying to make sure he gets a good shot of the missus buying a cheap GAP t-shirt.
(Shannon623, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 7:14, Reply)

Yanks cant say Aboriginal names...
It’s amazing how Americans cannot pronounce Aboriginal names of places.
Goornong - pronounced 'goor-nong', turning into 'jeernong' or something similar/worse. There is another name they usually batter with their pronunciation pretty badly, but I cannot remember it, because it is another little country town. Could be just me, but they say 'Melbourne’ a little... unusually as well.


That is all.
(MissieMissie, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 6:48, Reply)

Several years ago....
...I was the stupid tourist travelling round the states. Money had run out & we'd resorted to eating in the Golden Arches on a daily basis. Visited one such 'restaurant' in Chicago to be asked to order again because she loved the accent (I'm from Birmingham for god's sake). Which I did. Then she asked me where I was from. Birmingham. And was that near Nottingham? (a certain film with Kevin Costner had just come out). Well, sort of. It's in the Midlands. Next question floored me:
Do I know Robin Hood?

No, I don't.

Silence ensued. Order arrived. I turned to leave & was called back to be told that "when you get home you can tell your friends you were served by a black person."
(alexi, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 6:20, Reply)

Wait a sec...
If Americans pronounce Slough "Sluff" and Edinburgh "Edinboro" then surely it's "Luffboro".

This bandwagon's comfy.
(Captcheese, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 6:17, Reply)

Where do I start?
Working at a historical theme park for many years I have hundreds .. nay thousands of examples. The best been those (and yes there were more than one) that asked how we built our underground mine? When told that we dug it using mining equipment, they responded with "So you didn't build it first and then cover it with dirt?"

Best answer to that was one guide who said "Actually we did. It was delivered on the back of a truck, but some bits fell off which explains why there are so many potholes in the main street"
(Gordon Shumway, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 6:06, Reply)

tommyhaych,
what do you mean?

I was at Edinburgh Castle and saw a wild haggis running across the car park. Little round furry things about the size of a pineapple.
( Terry Oblong There's nobody here but us chickens on, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 5:05, Reply)

Jonny Foreigner
Reading these posts I've noticed a few attempts to redress the balance of opnion away from Jonny Foreigner by attacking the British abroad. However, such attempts are pointless as it is every Englishmans god born right to ridicule, belittle and patronise any foreign nation. The resons for this is simple. Being British we will undoubtly be either responsible for the birth of your nation, occupied it as a colony or beaten it in to submission in some war or another (apart from those wars we CHOSE to lose e.g. American revolution which in todays terms was like Britian fighting a war on the moon).

As a result you should be grateful to us for visting your crap hole of a country lest we give you another taste of British spunk.

If you don't like anything I've said address all complaints to mm123 care of the BNP.

Edit: Before a wave of hate posts are directed against me please look up parody in the dictionary.
(mm123, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 3:44, Reply)

Yanks go shopping
I was on a checkout one quiet afternoon, and a barrel of a man with a deep south drawl leads his wife and three mid-20s kids - who had one trolley EACH - through. Budweiser galore, unfathomable quantities of milk, almost a conveyor belt full of Diet Coke and probably every Dorito in the store were all on board.

Took an absolute age to scan everything through, and totalled well over £400. First the dad hands over an American Express card, which at the time the company didn't accept. Small argument about the logic of that starts and ends, and then he dips into a bum bag and hands over a huge wad of dollars. I state the obvious, a bigger argument breaks out, and suddenly I find myself sat on a stool in Hendon being told my words are "unconstitutional" and "treasonous".

Supervisors, managers, store owner and security all end up being called. Turns out that the five of them had spent over three days in London blissfully unaware that the US dollar is not legal tender over here.
(dandelionburdock, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 3:20, Reply)

Stupid Tourists, Indeed..
I once heard a rumor that over 60% of Americans think The Haggis is an actual animal and that 'Haggis Hunting' is a national Scottish pastime..
( stereo_world has decided not to eat your photograph., Mon 11 Jul 2005, 2:55, Reply)

Confused Japanese tourists
On a bus route which runs by the Millennium Dome, a group of tourists got off about 30 stops early after mistaking the "big" top of a travelling circus on a shitty little park in Lewisham for the spiky Dutch cap in Greenwich. I'd never seen so many Nikon cameras swing in action quite so quickly.

This, incidentally, was only the second time ever that I'd seen a bus driver laugh. The first time was when they'd first got on and asked for "ten bus chairs for Dome". He was laughing so hard that he nearly caused a pile up.
(dandelionburdock, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 2:41, Reply)

loughborough?
thats nothing, my dads auntie or some other tedious relation to me lives in Dún Laoghaire near Dublin (or maybe Belfast, ot was a long time ago) and was in histerics for literally minutes (and she's in her 60's) after hearing me pronounce it as (something like) dune la hair

its should be more like dun leary

also, having been born in australia i moved to sunny manchester in year 7 i have been asked:
(seriously)
"can you speak australian"
"did you have a pet kangaroo"

on my first day of school my teacher made me talk about myself and then take questions infront of the class. i thought pommies where a bunch of weirdos
(woo who?, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 2:03, Reply)

Not such a dumb question after all…
Local dive/snorkel tour companies selling trips to the Great Barrier Reef explain to tourists that you can swim amongst clownfish, butterflyfish, wrasse, reef sharks, etc.
A common question from tourists is "Will the sharks attack me?"
My diving instructor neighbour loves responding "Oh yes, the risk of death is all part of the Reef experience!" before pointing out that the reef sharks are placid and not the type seen in ‘Jaws’.

Unfortunately, someone did get a chunk bitten out of the thigh recently causing death due to blood lost through the femoral artery.
A rare, freak occurrence for sure and probably connected with the victims' spear-fishing activity, but it’s sure going to change what they say to tourists from now on…
(emadex thinks the world will end on, Mon 11 Jul 2005, 0:19, Reply)

Yanks
I live in Bath, and it being a bit of a tourist mecca you do overhear some classics. The other day I was walking along, and an american said to his wife - "Gee honey, these little towns are so much more managable than London".
( proteus, Sun 10 Jul 2005, 23:35, Reply)

My wife is staying away in a hotel near London.
Sounds like she's going to have plenty of stories about yankee fcuktards.

I just got off the phone to her and in her first hour in the hotel bar she's heard:

Yank A to Yank B.
"Whilst I was out taking a power walk I saw a dead rabbit! It didn't look like it had been run over. Do they have coyotes in this area?"

Yank B to Yank C.
"I've been here for nearly a week now. There was a slight blip with that bomb thing but my vacation has been really cool"
( Airman Gabber Living life like a 70's BBC presenter, Sun 10 Jul 2005, 22:54, Reply)

Mine is easy
I was in Great Yarmouth a few years ago, looking out to the wave break, made out of grey rocks. An elderly American couple come up to me, and the man asks: "Are they the White Cliffs of Dover?"

I am stunned, and managed to stammer out: "No, the White Cliffs of Dover are a few hundred miles south of here, and on this side of the sea."
( Loz I'm still here., Sun 10 Jul 2005, 22:52, Reply)

surely... (fiendish astro)
pikkadilly kirkus is within 20 miles of kamding towne? not billysmart's kirkus tho' ... anywhere near grope cunte street? (this just popped in my head and is no reflection on fiendish astro) ...

ah yeah, stupid holiday stuff ... asking a fellow customer for the bill in an istanbul cafe-bar because she was kinda mediterranean looking and dressed trendily in black but not actually the waitress (doh; la touriste stupide, c'est moi) ... "er, um" as my mate fell off a moped in mallorca and blacked out, miles from anywhere (not v helpful); and crucially "yes, we've been standing here for fucking hours and we'd love a lift" to two german god botherers who picked up two very young, very thick scottish hitchhikers and - once they were trapped in the back of the car - asked " ent do you know cheesus?" (ie stupid tourists again us) ... what's worse we accetpted "cabin accommodation" off them for the night which was happily herr lipp free but did entail singing hymns. in german. which was a hard shift for two teenage atheists. who couldn't speak german ...

(this was a long long time ago when new order were actually new)
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Sun 10 Jul 2005, 22:41, Reply)

Stupid Tourists to NZ
Anything said by Sir Clive Woodward about the British and Irish Lions Rugby Tour to New Zealand!!!

I really pity the Southhamption Football Club now.
(yatest, Sun 10 Jul 2005, 22:39, Reply)

Reading
an american tourist once told my girlfiend and her mate how good it was that they had trains just so that you could have a read while you wait.
Unfortunatly they told them what it realy meant before the trian left.
(Dr Worm, Sun 10 Jul 2005, 22:02, Reply)