What is the dark side of Italy as a tourist

These issues don’t always come up, but they are things I’ve seen repeatedly:

1. Sexual harassment. Women traveling without men, either alone or in groups, are likely to get whistled at, heckled, maybe even groped or followed. I doubt most of the guys who do this are rapists. Mostly they’re just clueless. There’s a popular myth that female tourists are looking for sex. I knew an Italian who would ride the #64 bus in Rome just for kicks (it runs from the train station to the Vatican, so most of the passengers are tourists). He would always start up a very forward conversation with a woman (“you have a nice body, where are you going”), cop a feel if he could, and sometimes follow her off the bus. He honestly couldn’t see anything wrong with this behavior. When I was leading group tours in Italy, the women would always get shouts, whistles, and hisses. I once talked to a British woman who had spent years traveling in different parts of Italy. She said it happens everywhere, and the best response is either to scream and try to embarrass them, or just ignore it completely.
2. Tourist scams. Most restaurants, shops, etc. will give tour guides a commission when they bring in a group that spends money. This is just how things are done. Most guides will only take their groups to businesses that provide good quality and value. But sometimes tour guides will lead travelers to less-than-scrupulous establishments that simply offer a higher commission. Some of these places may even inflate their prices when tourists arrive, in order to give the guide a bigger cut.
3. Short-changing. Some shops will try to squeeze an extra half euro out of anyone who is obviously a tourist. They might charge you for an item that’s priced slightly higher, or give you less change than you’re entitled to. Sadly, mostly older Italians tend to do this. This happens most often in bars and other places where the transactions are small and paid in cash. It’s such a small amount of money that I usually don’t worry about it unless it’s blatant.
4. Pickpockets. This happens in crowded areas such as the Colosseum, and public transit where people are packed together. The thieves work in teams, usually one or two of them creating a distraction while another one goes for your bag or wallet. They are very good, and you will NOT notice them. Your safest bet is to secure everything valuable with a strap or a belt, and keep it underneath at least one layer of clothing. Keep your wallet and phone in your front pockets. Look around before you take anything out. I know someone who had his phone snatched out of his hand while he was using it. The thief blended in immediately. He never saw who did it.

Don’t let these warnings ruin your vacation. When it comes to safety, I would pick Rome over Los Angeles any day. 99% of the people you encounter in Italy are going to be kind, generous, honest, and wonderful. It’s why I stayed there for almost 4 years. It’s why I keep going back.

There’s one more dark side of Italy as a tourist: Overwhelm.

Your brain can only absorb so many works of art before it gets saturated. No matter how well you plan, you’re not going to see everything, and if you try to hard you’ll ruin your vacation.

Try to deeply enjoy a few things, and give yourself plenty of time to relax. Your greatest memory won’t be craning your neck in the Sistine Chapel while 139 people are pushing you.

Your best memory will be the evening you spent wandering around with no specific plan, the beer you drank in a piazza while you gazed at the fountain, or the unexpected conversation you had with an interesting stranger who you’ll never see again.

The dark side of Italy is that too many tourists come with a checklist of things they must see, they rush through it all with barely enough time to appreciate where they are, and return home with nothing but a few pictures that nobody will remember in 6 months and a bit of extra credit card debt.

That’s the biggest rip-off of all.

After seeing some of the comments, I realize that most of my time in Italy was in Rome, and these problems may not be as bad in other parts of Italy.

Still, the question was about the dark side of Italy, and I’ve seen a lot of Italy besides just Rome.

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