Whether it’s the booze, a sense of entitlement, ignorance or just because they are prats, going on holiday seems to bring out the worst in some tourists.
The latest is the continuing fallout of one UK-based traveller who carved names into the wall at the ancient Colosseum amphitheatre in Rome.
Ivan Dimitrov faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to €15,000 (NZ$26,700), but he is hardly alone in paying the price for going rogue abroad.
Here are five other examples of unruly tourists getting caught red-handed.
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The image which got the tourist deported.
Getting your kit off in Bali
For some reason, tourists can’t help stripping off in all the wrong places on the Indonesian holiday island. It would appear some see the word ‘sacred’ and read it as ‘stark naked’.
Earlier this year a Russian tourist was deported and banned from re-entering Bali for six months after he posted an image of himself with his trousers down while at the top of a sacred volcano. Identified only as Yuri, the picture on Mount Agung has seen him blacklisted from the Indonesian tourist island.
He wasn’t the only example. Shortly afterwards a woman was arrested after photos showing her naked by a sacred tree, and last year, a wellness guru and actor from Canada had to make a tearful apology after a video of his naked haka on top of a sacred mountain fell foul of authorities.
Climbing Pyramids in Egypt
Vitaly Zdorovetskiy suddenly found himself in an Egyptian jail in 2020 for what he believed was highlighting a good cause, something that others disagreed with.
The YouTube and Instagram personality had climbed one of the Pyramids of Giza near Cairo because he wanted to raise awareness about the Australia bushfires.
It’s illegal to climb “any antiquity without obtaining a licence”, reported Ahram Online, an Egyptian newspaper.
While he believed he was promoting raising funds for the devastating fires, other commentators claimed he was using the tragedy to promote his own social media profile.
Whatever the intentions, it landed him in prison for five days and “the most horrible experience of my life”. Zdorovetskiy has since become infamous for streaking at football games leading him to be “banned from every stadium in the world”.
Esteban Felix/AP
Some of the statues on Easter Island are up to 1000 years old.
Breaking an earlobe off an Easter Island statue
Back in 2008, a Finnish tourist got into hot water when he wanted a keepsake of his trip to Easter Island. Marko Kulju snapped off an earlobe from one of the famous moai, but it smashed into pieces onto the ground.
His attempt at a souvenir proved costly. He was placed under house arrest at his hotel for 13 days and had to cough up 8.6 million Chilean peso (NZ$17,500).
Stealing penguins in Australia
In a scene reminiscent of the film The Hangover, two Welsh buddies woke up in a dazed state at their apartment in Brisbane in 2012 to find they had somehow acquired a new mate, a seven-year-old fairy penguin called Dirk.
It transpired that Rhys Owen Jones and Keri Mules had been on a rager the night before and had broken into Sea World, where they swam with dolphins and decided to let off a fire extinguisher in a shark enclosure. Then they took Dirk home with them.
They were seen trying to shoo the penguin into a canal and were eventually fined A$1000 each.
Martin Mejia/AP
Machu Picchu is an Inca-era stone citadel nestled in the southeastern jungle of Peru.
Taking a poo at Machu Picchu
In 2020, a group of tourists who found themselves caught short were arrested at Peru’s Machu Picchu for defecating inside a sacred temple.
Police found them in the 600-year-old Temple of the Sun, an area which is off-limits to visitors, Agence France-Press reported.
There had been some damage to the temple, while faeces was also discovered.
Five of the group were deported, while a sixth, who was accused of being the ring leader, was fined US$360 and ordered to pay $1500 to the cultural ministry for repairs.
