While traveling alone across Spain this summer, Susanna Shankar encountered tourists who refused to believe she was Canadian.
Mr. Shankar was at the hotel and ended up talking to an older gentleman with a British accent. As travelers often do, he asked her where she was traveling from. But when she mentioned she was from Vancouver, the conversation took an unexpected turn.
Immediately, the man looked at her with suspicion. He accused her of lying, but her daughter was appalled, as she urged Shankar to desist from awarding him the third class.
“He didn’t believe me when I told him I was traveling from Canada,” Shankar said. “So I said, ‘Do you want to see my passport? What do you want to do?'”
Shankar, 37, is a dual citizen of the United States and Canada and runs a website about renewable and sustainable tourism. Her father is Canadian and her mother is American. She grew up in Alaska, lived in the United States until she was 28, lived in Germany for six years, and then moved to Vancouver, where she has lived for the past four years. For political reasons, Shankar said he doesn’t really identify as American and has started introducing himself as Canadian. But sometimes her American West Coast accent lets her down.
“I think his suspicions stem in no small part from the fact that many Americans try to pass themselves off as Canadian,” she added.
Shankar is referring to a decades-old practice known as “flag jacking” in which some Americans pretend to be Canadian while traveling abroad to avoid anti-American sentiment. Flag-jacking Americans sew maple leaf flags onto their bags and lie about their nationality. It dates back to the 1960s and ’70s during the unpopular Vietnam War, surged again in the early 2000s during President George W. Bush’s Iraq war, and is now revived under the Trump administration.
Some Canadians, enraged by President Trump’s escalating trade war with a 10% tariff increase on Canada and threats to annex the country, are posting comments online accusing Americans of flouting pretending to be Canadian abroad, calling it a form of despicable and entitled cultural appropriation.
Additionally, one of the most common arguments against flagjacking online is that flagjacking isn’t fooling anyone. Many say Americans are easily distinguishable from Canadians, no matter how many maple leaf flags they wear.
But is it?
Aside from how temperature is measured (Celsius or Fahrenheit), strong regional accents (like French-Canadian or Southern US), and the answer to the flash quiz “What is Canada’s capital?” (Answer: Ottawa) and “How do you pronounce Toronto?” (Torontorians don’t pronounce the second “t”) — can the world really tell the difference between Americans and Canadians?
Several European tour guides who work with Americans and Canadians said a resounding “yes.”
“Stereotypes exist for a reason,” says Londoner Denisa Podlaska. She founded Let Me Show You London, which has been organizing private tours for wealthy tourists since 2014.
“We use these words because a lot of them are true. And it applies to everyone, not just Americans. Every country has its own little quirks, and that’s how we perceive each other.”
And when it comes to Americans, she says one of the easiest ways to identify Americans abroad is to listen to their voices before you meet them.
“I always hear Americans’ voices because they’re so loud. They’re really sweet and loud,” she says.
“Canadians don’t stand out as much as Americans. They’re more subdued in conversation, and you can’t hear them from two tables down.”
Canadians abroad often prefer to directly disclose their origins. As the joke goes, how do you know someone is from Canada? They’ll tell you.
“Canadians immediately identify themselves as Canadian,” notes Paris resident Bertrand Dalleman, founder of My Private Paris Tours. Other tour guides agreed, believing Canadians did this to avoid confusion with Americans.
Kim Dae-young, a hospitality management professor at the University of Missouri, said there has been little academic research examining the differences between American and Canadian travelers abroad.
However, his own research provides insight into how tourists’ nationality, sense of entitlement, and perceived social status influence their interactions with a destination.
“Study results consistently show that a traveler’s nationality can have a significant impact on their behavior abroad,” he told CNN. “When individuals visit destinations they perceive to be more developed than their home country, they are less likely to cheat. The same individuals are more likely to exhibit cheating when they travel to countries they perceive as less developed.”
For his research, Kim surveyed Americans who were asked to imagine traveling to France, which is perceived as a more developed destination, and Thailand, which is considered a less developed destination. His research revealed that Americans are more likely to litter, vandalize and dress inappropriately in Thailand than in France.
Another guide says Americans are more direct and forthright.
Although there is little scientific research, travel experts have made many other observations about the differences between travelers from the United States and Canada.
Canadians tend to be adventurous, free-spirited and open to new activities and spontaneity, while Americans tend to prefer organization and organization, says Australian Lee Burns, president of the Americas for travel company Intrepid Travel.
Similarly, Burns added that Canadians are less likely to complain openly and are more quiet in their thoughts when they are dissatisfied with something, whereas Americans are much more vocal when something doesn’t meet their standards.
“Americans are a little louder, ask more questions, and are more direct,” he says. “Canadians don’t speak up when they’re dissatisfied. And there are pros and cons to both.”
But as the conversation deepens, the real differences begin to emerge. Subtle clues in attitudes and behavior shed light on the cultural differences between the two countries.
In separate interviews, Podlaska and Daleman agreed that Canadians tend to have a broader understanding of European history and current events than American travelers because of their historical ties to Europe as a Commonwealth country and their French-Canadian heritage.
Another perk of being an American tourist? “U.S. travelers are obsessed with ‘skip the line,'” Podlaska says. She says this is one of the most common requests among wealthy American customers who are willing to pay more to get to the front of the line at tourist attractions.
“It’s Disney’s fault,” she says half-jokingly, referring to the theme park’s priority access passes (now called Lightning Lane passes), which create a tiered system of elite and general admission. But by and large, that concept doesn’t exist in London, she says, and American customers’ expectations need to be managed.
“Everyone has to go through the security line and do the same thing as everyone else. There’s no special treatment.”
Charlie Harrison, the British founder of London-based Totally Tailored Tours, also warns American tourists not to assume that American culture is the default standard by which the world is measured. This has been demonstrated in the past by some of her American clients’ belief that they can pay in US dollars abroad, and their claims that British people have accents and that they Americans do not.
“For me, the breakdown is that I’m speaking normally and other people aren’t speaking normally.”
Cindy Jaso, 64, a dual U.S.-Canadian citizen who moved to Texas from New Brunswick at the age of 21, didn’t hesitate to approach her friend and fellow American traveler while vacationing in Europe this summer. The friend complained about the narrow cobblestone streets, lack of air conditioning, and the fact that some of the locals don’t speak English well.
“You expect immigrants who come to the United States to speak English. You’re on their turf here,” Jaso remembers telling a friend.
Canadian content creator and author Stewart Reynolds, better known to his half-million online followers as Brittlestar, has carved out a niche for himself as a cultural commentator on all things Canadian. His catalog of TikTok videos includes cheeky tutorials like “Explaining Canada Day to Americans” (and why we celebrate universal health care, maternity leave, and Putin) and “How to Be Canadian: Knowing Sorry” (“I’m sorry, I bumped into you.” “I’m sorry, I bumped into you.” “I’m sorry, I’m actually sorry.”).
Reynolds begins with a disclaimer and then provides a broader overview of the differences between Canadian and American international travelers, using a weather analogy.
“There are assholes in Canada. We have a lot of assholes,” he told CNN. “But overall, I think Canadians generally try to find what’s best for the group, whereas Americans place a lot of emphasis on the individual.”
That might mean going to the back of the line and waiting your turn instead of looking for a shortcut. That’s because Canadians value order, he says.
And while it may sound like lip service at first, Reynolds proposes a simple hypothesis that reduces this cultural trait to one thing. It’s the weather.
“I think the collectivistic attitude comes from the environment,” says Reynolds, who lives in Stratford in southwestern Ontario. “Canadian winters can sometimes be the difference between life and death, and everyone needs to push their car out of a snowbank from time to time. Everyone needs to shovel someone else’s driveway.”
For Shankar, who has dual citizenship in the United States and Canada, the difference between Canadians and Americans lies in the way they talk and take up space in public.
“In America, we are raised to be confident, and we carry that confidence into our lives. So Americans tend to be a little more bold. And I think their most attractive quality is that they can be unique and authentically themselves… American culture supports being vocal, unique, and individualistic.”
Canadians, on the other hand, are more collectivistic and are able to integrate and adapt to different cultural spaces, she adds, and this idea resonates with her.
In addition to avoiding anti-American sentiment, Americans who engage in flagjacking claim they lie because they have been led to believe they will be treated better as Canadians abroad.
However, all tour operators we spoke to agreed that this idea is unfounded.
“It’s not where you come from, it’s the behavior you model that matters,” says Intrepid’s Burns. “If you respect local customs and culture, are curious and polite, you will have a great vacation.”
