A shop in Dublin. Taxi on the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean. A small airport in northern Norway.
These are just some of the places Florida-based content creator Lauren Gay was asked in no uncertain terms this year about her opinion on President Donald Trump. While sharing the same airspace as her interrogators, she is often faced with comments and questions about the current state of American politics.
“As soon as they realize I’m American and hear my accent, it’s an instant argument. They want to talk about the president,” says the 44-year-old, who goes by the handle Outdoor Diva on Instagram.
In September, on a rideshare ride in Ireland, as soon as a gay man started talking to an American friend in the car, the driver asked if they could talk politics.
“I said, ‘It depends.'” She always hesitates when people bring up the topic, never assuming that a stranger’s reaction will match her opinion. (Gay said she was part of the “92 percent,” referring to the percentage of black women who voted for Kamala Harris.)
“He asked how we could do this again,” he said, referring to President Trump’s second term. “He said he couldn’t believe this was happening again. Irish people don’t mince words,” she says.
A hot topic at home and abroad
American travelers have been hearing a lot of political criticism from strangers lately.
And while it’s not a very direct conversation, the topic often seems to lurk on the periphery as locals in other countries approach politics with more nuance and try to gauge how U.S. travelers feel about what’s happening at home.
After you tell someone where you’re from, it may come across as pregnant silence, as the questioner waits to see if you have anything else to add.
Or if you say you’re an American, someone might say something vague like, “There’s a lot going on in your country right now,” as an invitation to engage in a political discussion.
Tour operator Doni Belau has a strict policy of not discussing politics while traveling.
Belau is the founder of Girls Guide to the World, a travel company that arranges about 80 international group trips a year, primarily for Americans and travelers from other English-speaking countries. Our non-political policy is detailed among the “best practices” for group travel in the materials sent to participants before departure.
“We train all of our trip leaders to stop the tour if something goes wrong, because whatever it is for them, it makes someone in the group feel left out, and that’s the exact opposite of what we’re trying to achieve,” Belau explains.
Belau says that’s not to say things won’t be difficult on the ground, as people outside the group are clearly unaware of the policy against political conversation.
Angie Roach, a member of the Girls Guide to the World group that visited Switzerland and several other European countries earlier this year, said she and a friend who were traveling with her were talking in a Zurich hotel with a family from New Zealand who were traveling independently from the group when the topic turned to politics.
“We had a nice conversation at hotel breakfast. They were very easy to talk to. They were on vacation and traveled a lot,” says Roach, a retired dentist from Tennessee.
Suddenly, the man “groaned and said, ‘What about Trump?'” said Roach, a Trump supporter.
Roach and her friend’s reaction was, “They laughed back and said, ‘What, you don’t like Trump?'” she said. “A lot of times you don’t want to be involved in those conversations because people don’t know how to talk about politics in a polite and non-rude way.”
Roach said the man, who turned out to be a rancher in New Zealand, explained how recent tariffs were impacting the family business and a “very civil” discussion took place.
“So you start to get sympathy, because you can be a Trump supporter and still, you know, you don’t like the bad stuff that comes out of politics,” she says.
When asked if questions about U.S. politics overseas would prevent her from traveling right now, Roach said, “No.”
“Politics doesn’t deter me from traveling, and certainly neither do our politics,” she said, referring to U.S. politics.
For gays, the domestic political situation provokes spontaneous reactions from strangers abroad.
Gay said she was even asked for a sympathetic hug by a stranger at a British drugstore during Trump’s first term.
The woman who worked there heard the American accent and said, “Oh, Mr. President there, I’m really sorry. Can I give you a hug?” she remembers.
“Most of the reactions I’ve gotten, which I think have to do with me being a Black American, are sympathy and apologies,” she says.
Josh Geller, a luxury travel advisor at travel agency EMBARK Beyond, said he has seen a surge in bookings from American clients to Europe.
Geller said there have been several instances since the election where clients have wondered how they will be received abroad before traveling.
“When they come back, I’ll ask them, ‘How was it?’ And they’ll say, ‘Oh, it was still great.’ People are very interested in how we’re dealing with the current political climate in America,” he says.
But since the election, Geller says he’s heard a lot from hotel general managers around the world who want American customers to feel safe and welcome.
“They’ve gone above and beyond to make sure everyone understands that. Every time we talk to hoteliers and partners on the other side of the world, they want American business. They know Americans are good at tourism and tourism boosts the economy. So they always want us to come there,” he says.
Nicole Hernandez, a 30-year-old American tourist who lives in Las Vegas and is a physical therapist and health writer, said she sometimes deflects when asked about President Trump. That happened often during her six weeks in Europe earlier this year, walking along the Camino de Santiago with her British husband.
“I can count on two hands the number of times I met someone and they said, ‘What’s your name? Where are you from? Did you vote for Trump?'” she says.
Hernandez said the line of questioning made him uncomfortable from the beginning, but he managed to “dance around it.”
“When I had to say, ‘Yes, I’m from America,’ I would hold my breath a lot because I didn’t know what questions were going to come next or how they would react,” she says.
Hernandez said she had a particularly unkind encounter one morning while eating breakfast in a village on Spain’s Camino when a French man asked her where she and her husband were from.
“He said, ‘I’m American. I don’t like Americans.’ He turned his back on me and just started talking to my husband,” she says. Although she never saw him again, she found the experience unpleasant.
But overall, she calls the experience of walking the historic Camino a “10 out of 10.”
“It changes how you see the world and your priorities because you realize how little you can really live happily with. It just changes your perspective,” Hernandez says.
And for many U.S. travelers these days, being asked to share your perspective has become part of the journey.
Any American traveling abroad right now should be prepared to have confrontational conversations, Hernandez said.
“Be prepared for people to bombard you with questions,” she says. “And if you don’t feel comfortable talking about it, be prepared with a response.”
Hernandez said while he was open to talking about politics, he wished he had been better prepared for pointed questions and tended to avoid frank attempts to start a political discussion.
Daniel Kovacevic, founder of the Detroit Etiquette Academy, says if someone brings up politics and you don’t want to get involved, remember that etiquette is all about being kind and respectful, especially to people who are different from you.
She says anyone in that situation can “kindly change the subject without making it awkward” and perhaps say something like, “Politics has gotten pretty intense lately. Why don’t we talk about something lighter?” Or, try deflecting the conversation by saying, “I’m not sure about that, but did you hear…” and insert another topic, says Kovacevic.
Gay said he hopes the topic will be brought up and candidly summed up the reaction abroad to current U.S. politics, saying, “The world is watching and judging us for it.”
