I'm an American tourist. Here's what I disliked about Europe after my 3-week vacation.

02.11.2023 - 10:09 / insider.com

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Anna Shepherd, a 24-year-old from Knoxville, Tennessee. It has been edited for length and clarity.

During my most recent trip to Europe, I went to Spain, France, and Italy with my fiancé. While I've been to Europe in the past, both with my school and with a travel company, this was the first time I did all of the planning. 

Although I love Europe for its foods, drinks, history, and strong military presence, there were a few things I noticed on my trip that I didn't like. 

Every time I ordered fries, a sandwich or a burger, it didn't come with sauce. Sure, some tables would have mayo or ketchup on them, but that was it — none of the fun, flavorful things like garlic parmesan or chipotle mayo.

I used to work in the restaurant industry back home, and we'd always offer a selection of things like honey mustard or barbecue sauce with meals. I didn't see much of that in Europe — and I missed it.

Every hotel I stayed in offered breakfast of some sort, but it was an additional charge. A lot of times I'd hear something like, "I see you didn't add breakfast to your hotel bill, would you like to add it now?" From there the extra charge of breakfast would range from eight euros ($8.48 USD) to fifteen euros ($15.89), so I'd just say "no thanks" and head to a bakery instead.

To be fair, I know some hotels in the US also charge you an extra bill for breakfast, but in my experience usually the continental breakfast is free. With the exception of water fountains for drinking, there wasn't really anything free where I stayed in Europe.

In the US, in my experience, many hotels have a vending machine on each floor, and if not, they have them in the lobby. In Europe, I could not find a single vending machine anywhere.

There were times I'd want to eat late at night and since many restaurants were closed, I'd have to stay hungry. Sometimes I'd opt to get McDonald's, as those were usually open, but that meant figuring out public transportation — and that was difficult, too.

During this trip I took planes, trains, and buses — any form of transportation that I saw offered.

It all seemed to take forever. Sometimes I'd wait a good 20 minutes for a bus, then I'd get off the bus and hop on a train and have to wait all over again.

It felt like a lot of connections and made me miss the convenience of driving, something I didn't do while in Europe. But I also understand that public transportation is better for the environment, and Europe seems to be really good at that.

Occasionally in America you might walk into a sketchy gas station bathroom, but when I was in Europe, I seemed to step into a lot of sketchy bathrooms.

For example, in Spain there were a lot of toilets that didn't