There seems to be an entire industry out there devoted to providing tourists with tacky photo opportunities – you know the ones that a real “traveler” would never dream of taking. Tacky or not, those photo ops are popular because they result in a fun souvenir and I’m not too proud to admit that our family has taken our fair share of these pics while traveling.
Here are a few of our family’s favourite tacky tourist photographs. The first was taken in New York City after visiting the real Statue of Liberty.
We met a very nice Viking in Copenhagen who posed quite happily with our younger daughter – for a few kroner.
Read Things To Do in Copenhagen with Kids
Outside The Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Russia our family met Peter the Great and his wife Catherine who were busy taking photos with the crowds of summer tourists.
Read Visiting St. Petersburg, Russia on a Cruise
While visiting Rome, Italy this summer we saw several sketchy gladiators outside the Colosseum hamming it up for the benefit of visitors. Our younger daughter insisted on having photos taken, however, the older refused to have anything to do with them. It seems that she has temporarily lost her willingness to embrace the tacky.
Read Exploring Rome with Kids in 2.5 Days
They may be posed and they may not represent the best of the places that we were visiting but these photos do make us laugh – and that’s important too!
Steve
I LOVE the tacky tourist photos. My older daughter won’t pose for them either, but the youngest one still will. Not that it’s needed because my wife is more than willing to pose with anything, the tackier the better.
Great memories!
Tracy Burns
Tacky tourist photos are great. Love the viking one. Neither of my kids will pose for these types of photos. They run screaming from anyone in a Mickey Mouse suit … but they will happily let Chinese tourists snap 3000 photos of them! Go figure!
Lisa Goodmurphy
Emma will happily pose with or for anyone – she loves to have her picture taken!
walkingon travels
Awesome!!! I love tacky tourist photos. Oddly enough I’m too chicken to do them half the time, but I have a feeling I’ll be talking Dek and Mike into doing it one day soon. I certainly want a pic with Catherine the great whenever we make it to St. Petersburg. Think she will let me where the dress though?
Lisa Goodmurphy
It’s quite the fab dress, isn’t it? 🙂
Vera Marie Badertscher
And then there’s the role-players that spray themselves with gold paint. Or cut outs you stick your head through (particularly prevalent in D.C.)
Lisa Goodmurphy
Yes, my daughter loves those too!!
alyson at world travel family
I love them, we’ve got heaps, they make brilliant family travel memories. Mum does sometimes have to bribe the boys to pose for them though. It’s just not cool Mum!
Lisa Goodmurphy
Definitely much more memorable than a simple pose! My younger daughter will still happily pose for anything but my teenager won’t have any part of it anymore because it’s just not cool. I expect that at some point she’ll decide that it’s fun again!