I am born and raised in Spain now living in London for a few years. The Spanish economy relies on tourism heavily. I would regularly see many nationalities in Spain but among these, British men in specific were wild beyond understanding drinking wise and everything really. To a point where it was problematic for everyone else. Especially the locals.
Mind you, I know it is a generalisation but I’ve seen it happen for over a decade back to back to back. We had germans, french, dutch and British visit (mainly). Among these 4 nationalities, British men did things you would not believe if I told you, and it was usually related to heavy drinking.
Why? (Asking those who have either done it or know people who act like that on holidays)
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Because it is relatively cheap to go to certain places in Spain. The booze is cheap, which causes excessive drinking, and people are dickheads when drunk. Simple as that really
It was said that people will do on holiday what they cannot get away with at home.
But having seen people here in pubs I don’t know how true that is? Maybe its from a different age.
I am a brit and I’ve been traveled all over the world. I was one of the people you are describing 10 years ago, in my teens.
Brits drink excessively, most nationalities stop when they feel drunk, or atleast slow down. English generally speed up when drunk. If you can drink more, you’re generally more appealing to people.
Brits also think it’s amusing to be ‘black out drunk’ and when we are that drunk, the more we can make someone laugh the better.
Spain is one of the close countries where drinks are cheap, music is good, sun is hot and bars literally promote getting wasted. Greece and eastern Europe are also popular.
It’s literally a tradition/right of passage for a group of lads/girls to go to a Spanish destination and drink as much as you can every day for 1 – 2 weeks when they are 17-21. Anything goes. Literally.
Bonkers really! Sad but true.
Certain regions of Spain attract certain types of Brits, laddy lads and hooligan types and they love to get drunk. You also get a lot of pricks going to Amsterdam.
You advertise cheap booze, cheap holidays you get cheap people. I’m going to Spain myself on Sat (salou) but I have got a hotel on the outskirts so hopefully will avoid my fellow country men as much as I can.
Some of us can use the cheap booze and cheap holiday to just have a nice time others use it as an excuse to get shitfaced and generally just be dickheads.
Certain parts of Spain attract certain types of people after a certain type of holiday. Not saying there isnt a drinking culture in this country, you only have to go out around town to see there is.
But some parts of Spain are destinations for chavs, sorry. Cheap flights, cheap drink and chavs.
Spain is hot, nearby and a cheap holiday. Truth be told – it attracts our very worst people.
Why do these worst Brits get *particularly* drunk? Lots of reasons. I suspect it’s a release from what is a particularly miserable British life. Remember, we have the greatest rich-poor gap in the EU. We have the smallest houses/flats. We have the most expensive higher education and limited social mobility. All of this leads to unhappy, uneducated, frustrated people who don’t know how to behave in public.
I got back from Tenerife a month ago and the loudest and most problematic nationalities I saw were the Irish and Scandinavians. There were a lot of Brits there but the demographic was a bit older and mainly families which probably explains it.
I’ve also been on various stag parties and lads holidays around Europe and other countries aren’t really much different. Personal favourite was watching a 30 man brawl between Germans and Polish in Krakow.
There are also multiple resorts in Europe where Brits don’t frequent such as Budva which I’ve heard is like Benidorm for Slavs, fuck knows what that must be like on a night out.
We have more dickheads than the other nations you mentioned. Many, many more.
Other nationalities tend to do more inter generational drinking which can act as a brake on excessive behaviour and drinking.
Additionally, Mediterranean cultures introduce alcohol to their children at an early age so it becomes less of a novelty as they get to drinking age.
Also, the culture of drinking in the UK is having to get drunk as a coping mechanism and or binge drinking.
Because they’re selfish entitled dickheads who drink more than they can handle.
We have a drinking problem and excessive drinking culture in this country, starting from the age of around 16 for most people.
People won’t like it but the reality is, the majority of dickheads in the U.K. are low income earners (not all
I know and nothing against low income households I am from one) and unfortunately for the Spanish, it’s the cheapest holiday destination.
Therefore every summer, an influx of British knobheads holiday in spain
Go into any British city centre on a Friday or Saturday night and you’ll see the same things. We have a problem with alcohol culturally. It’s called binge drinking.
British people have a very poor relationship with alcohol in general. They binge drink and then behave poorly in the UK as well all the time. Couple that with cheaper alcohol, the sun, and being on a holiday and you see why that happens even more in places like Spain.
Drinking culture in Britain is very different from other parts of Europe and this is probably worsened by cheap alcohol and (I’ve heard) lax enforcement of measures.
Alcohol. Britain has a serious binge drinking problem that no-one wants to acknowledge or address. It’s so normalized that people will go out, get blackout drunk every weekend and not even see an issue with it. It’s tied up with our entire culture.
Granted not all of us are like that, but unfortunately there’s a sizable portion who can’t behave themselves and give the rest of us a bad name
British drinking culture is to bang back as much as possible as quickly as possible and to continue drinking until out of money/senses.
These holidays are basically advertised as wild drinking shag fests so bad behaviour isn’t frowned on its expected.
I can’t imagine there’s anything you can say that people wouldn’t believe.
We’re a nation of binge drinkers and it gets even more extreme when we go away on holiday.
Honestly the worst thing about Spain, Italy etc is the British tourists.
its become the place that that sort of person goes to, im sure there are places that other countries consider a party destination and thats where their drunk idiots go. sadly, for us, thats spain
I generally think this is just more of a stereotype tbh.
British people aren’t some weird unique race – getting shit-faced is not exclusive to the UK, people all across Europe do it and act like twats.
Its just reported more because a high amount of people in every country understand English, where as nobody in Spain or England really speaks German/Dutch to a significant degree so it doesn’t get reported as much.
Tbh certain places are almost advertised for it we have had all sorts of tv programs showing young 18-22 year olds going to Spain getting laid and getting drunk being idiots so it appeals even more to that crowd.
We have a drinking culture, Spain is hot, cheap, close and some areas are advertised as shag fests so will attract that culture.
People get drunk and act like idiots in every city centre in the uk every weekend, introduce heat, shots that are hand poured and cheap cheap drinks it’s only going one way
“Wild out”
Fucks sake.
Consider a London nightclub
200 men in it, 5 of them are wankers
Now consider London has 10 nightclubs, so 50 wankers
Then add Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Cardiff, Belfast
Suddenly you’ve got 300 wankers
All of these wankers want to go to Ibiza
So you’ve got 300 wankers in one place
They’re doing exactly the same as they’re doing in their home city, just in a concentrated place
The rest of us, are enjoying the sun elsewhere, thank you for taking them for a bit
Spain is a cheap holiday destination so you’re going to get some of the lower budget holiday makers there, who happen to partake in heavy drinking and stuff. Go to the algarve in Portugal where it’s £1600 a week for accommodation in a half decent apartment and you’ll see a different type of Brit, a bit more civilised.
It attracts a certain sort
Cheap flights, cheap booze, poor relationship with alcohol.
Essentially you’re seeing the lower class of the UK on their cheap pissup holidays.
It’s not representative of the whole nation but it does correlate with the lack of restraint, respect for other cultures, and violent thuggish attitudes of a certain class of brit.
I’ve done it but it was on the Island of Zante in Greece.
Me and 11 friends went there when we were 18 to get drunk and try to find girls. We just went out there to have fun, and we did, we didn’t really think about if we were being too loud or boisterous, to us that was the place to go to be drunk and rowdy and enjoy ourselves.
You only really get this behaviour in party destinations, you won’t get Brits acting wild in Cape Verde or the Maldives. You obviously get some idiots who take it too far but is getting drunk and being loud really that bad?
British men are (many though not all) emotionally repressed and being drunk gives them both an excuse and the lowered inhibition to get what they secretly crave, attention.
The UK seems to suffer from a quite severe case of the ‘cycle of twattiness’. There are certain subcultures in the UK where it is looked down upon to try and better yourself – you will have the piss taken out of you for doing well at school, for obeying rules and essentially just being a decent human being. The people who ridicule others for this have grown up in families and in areas where others have done it to them and so they do it to others because it was done to them. It breeds a whole section of society who don’t give two shits about ANYONE but themselves… These are the types of British people who tend to go on holiday to get shitfaced – especially in southern Spain.
The well behaved and civil British people actively avoid going to the typical booze cruise destinations precisely because they know all the twats from the uk are going there and so you get a very concentrated select few types of British people going over there and further perpetuating the stereotype.
Because the good british tourists also hate those people and will go anywhere else to avoid them, from personal experience anyway.
There’s probably a high amount of “It’s not my country, it’s not my problem” mentality. These are probably the same people who would come over to your house and make a mess and not give a crap that you have to clean it all up.