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Welcome to The Travellers Club

The Travellers Club was founded in 1819 by a cohort led by Lord Castlereagh and in 1832 moved to its present purpose-built clubhouse designed by Charles Barry. The Club's founding ethos was to establish a meeting place for like-minded gentlemen who had travelled abroad, and where they could also entertain foreign visitors and diplomats posted to London.

Members of the Diplomatic Service, the Home Civil Service and the Armed Forces have traditionally formed the backbone of the Travellers Club and we continue to have many among our members.

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Commercial Traveller's Association

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Martin Place

Sydney New South Wales 2000

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You should never judge a book by its cover (unless that books cover has, like, dancing unicorns and rainbows and such, or a swooning woman looking earnestly out a large bay window at a handsome, sweating gardener. Then by all means, judge away). The CTA has been around for donkeys, and yet only the tiniest clutch of people are privy to its stunning secret . . . . Built for the traveling businessmen of yesteryear, for all intents and purposes the CTA is a really dated, underground RSL - bistro, bar, etc. But sign in with the woman at the tiny front desk in the even tinier front room, then get the James Bond-like elevator down below terra firma and you'll find the prize: the red velvet porno lounge. Awash with crimson leather lounges. Resplendent with plush carmine walls. It's like hanging out at Dirk Diggler's living room, the kind of place where pants aren't optional but should be. What's the porno lounge doing there? Search me. It makes no sense at all. But this is prime date territory. Your partner won't know what hit them - feel free to use this information any way you see fit.

This really is Secret Sydney at its best. So desperate was I to try CTA that I had to come back twice. The first time we arrived around 8.30pm on a Friday night. My friends and I decided it was necessary to invent back stories as to why we were frequenting the Commercial Travellers Association. I was George McMasterson and I was up from Melbourne selling sewing machines to housewives door-to-door. My friend was selling vacuum cleaners. We walked in the secret front door, down the secret elevator, walked into the secret red carpet walled bar and were told they were closing! But we're up from Melbourne! I'm selling sewing machines and he's selling vacuum cleaners *strange look*. Take two I went back at 5.30pm, again on a Friday. We were the second group there and had our pick of the red velour booths. The selection of drinks isn't extensive but the circa year 2000 prices are marvellous. We had to start a tab because we couldn't meet the $20 minimum eftpos limit in one round. The one bar tender and one glassie are friendly and look like they have been there since the place opened in the 70s. It isn't table service but they still brought us our drinks. The other patrons seem to be mostly finance types judging by the conversations on which I definitely eavesdropped. Much ernest discussion of FX and other financial instruments. Possibly, I don't know, Bonds? Despite the "vintage" decor this place is immaculately clean. A perfect place to go if you want to have a quiet drink and mind your own business. CTA would be a great place for city working types to carry out an affair. Not me though. King of Secret Sydney Bill had been coming here for years.

See all photos from Joanne P. for Commercial Traveller's Association

This eyesore of a building harkens back to a time where architects had a glistening vision of a future where buildings were shaped like mushrooms and sprawled across the sky, forever blocking the sun and creating a city full of mushroom people. Well they must have envisioned that because why else would you make a building out of concrete and perch it on a stem with no windows inside. Obviously some genius thought designing a city like this would create more room on the ground, but thankfully the idea never took off and this is one of the few of such towers remaining. I have no idea what the "Commercial Traveller's Club" that resides here is or does, but every time I pass this building my eyes begin to burn and I want to scrub myself with chlorine and a steel brush.

When your first drink is the call for last drinks and it's just after 6pm you know you are in bizzaro world. Looking like something out of a 70s swingers party, and draped in red velvet, all that is missing at the CTA is the fishbowl full of keys, the platfoorm heels, and pervy porn stash pool guy looking for kool and the gang... if ya get my drift? I like this place, it has potential. It's the kinda place I could see myself sitting sipping Louis Tres from a gigantic brandy balloon whilst I puff on a ginuwine Cohiba cuban ceegar and laugh heartily at the other fat cats at my table as we talk bidness! I'd love it if they retained the old world charm, whilst ushering in the new worlds opening hours... Cmon! No one's in bed at 9!

This is a perfect place for single women no one bothers you and you feel safe the staff are very friendly and helpful you are close to transport and all the theaters plus the shops my friend and I always stop at the club and we have never had a bad moment.

Want something different in the middle of town? The CTA has been in Martin Place for years and is a tightly held secret venue . . . . But sign in at the front desk, take the Maxwell Smart elevator down to level 2 and find yourself transported into... Country RSL club meets porn movie set! The red velvet porn set lounge bar has comfortable lounges, low tables, red carpet on the walls and schooners for under $5! The bistro is the best value in the centre of town with HUGE 1970's meals at 70's prices. Perfectly matched with the minimal but excessively cheap wine list. I love this place for the value and for the privacy!

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Welcome to the Business Club

Where our Single and Double Rooms offer exclusive benefits for our NSW members.

All rates are quoted per room, per night and are inclusive of GST

Please note that reservations must be confirmed within 48 hours to avoid a cancellation fee, and the management reserves the right to alter prices without prior notice.

Our rooms are equipped with private facilities, television, telephone, and free WiFi. Check-out time is 10am, unless otherwise arranged with reception. After-hours and weekend keys can be collected from MLC security.

Reservation

To make a reservation for a Single or Double Room, contact us. Our friendly staff will be happy to assist you with your booking and answer any questions you may have.

Experience the comfort and convenience of our Single and Double Rooms, exclusively for NSW members, during your stay at the Business Club. Book your stay today!

Twin  or double room

NSW Members: $176.00* per night Guests & Reciprocal Members: $192.50* per night

Experience comfort and elegance in our Double rooms at CTA Accommodation.

NSW Members: $176.00* per night

Single room

NSW Members: $159.50* per night Guests & Reciprocal Members: $170.50* per night

Indulge in comfort and privacy with our single rooms at C.T.A.

NSW Members: $159.50* per night

Our twin rooms: a cozy retreat for two with modern amenities.

Postal address.

The Manager

Sydney NSW 2001

We’re located at:

25 Martin Place Sydney NSW 2000

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THE C.T.A. BUSINESS CLUB LIMITED

ABN 90 001 039 345

COMMERCIAL TRAVELLERS’ ASSOCIATION

OF NSW LIMITED

ABN 30 000 001 838

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Literary Review

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History , London

Thomas Blaikie

Bed linen & briefs, hair & spare, how deep is your basement, gold, frankincense & mozzarella, petal power, no catholics or californians, before the elbow bump, gravy with everything, peace maker & flower arranger, does she wear one to bed, wtf is grammar, members only, the travellers club: a bicentennial history 1819–2019, by john martin robinson, libanus press for the travellers club 367pp £35.

Who would write, let alone read, a weighty history (literally so: my elderly mother complained she couldn’t lift it), published in a luxury edition priced at £35, of the parish hall or Women’s Institute hut to be found in one of our lesser-known villages? But this is a history of the Travellers Club, 106 Pall Mall, London: patron, His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh; premises, a superb Italianate palace designed by Charles Barry and completed in 1832; members, a blinding cascade of distinction over two centuries. ‘In the 1920s and 1930s’, John Martin Robinson writes, ‘diplomat members of the Club included Sir Horace Rumbold, 9th Bt … Eric Drummond, the 16th Earl of Perth, Ambassador to Italy, Esme Howard, 1st Lord Howard of Penrith … the Hon Ronald Lindsay … Sir Frank Lascelles … and Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen.’ An appendix lists members who were or are Knights of the Garter.

The Travellers Club was founded in 1819 with a distinctly anti-Brexit agenda of welcoming foreign visitors and bringing together those who had travelled principally to Europe, not necessarily on the traditional grand tour but as soldiers and diplomats too. You could only join if you’d journeyed five hundred miles outside the British Isles. In the time of social change after the Napoleonic Wars, the club was a howling success, always bursting out of one building into another, until finally settling into the Barry mansion in 1832, where it has been ever since. Members were not exclusively prime ministers or aristocracy, although it is noted that really hardcore travellers, such as David Livingstone, John Speke and Samuel Baker, were not members. After the Second World War, rather more wacky figures, such as Patrick Leigh Fermor, Nigel Nicolson and Alan Pryce-Jones, got in. Today, the club appears to be in the hands of QCs and that species of immensely important person nobody has ever heard of.

A London gentlemen’s club is a London gentlemen’s club when all is said and done: a stately home in the middle of London, but with no bedrooms (originally at least) and, of course, no women, a place where one goes to meet people like oneself over ‘luncheon’ or dinner. These institutions have their own funny customs of which they tend to be immensely proud, so what appears to be the dining room at the Travellers is called the Coffee Room. Those of us who are not members might be inclined to peer in and find it all rather preposterous, but that would be sour grapes.

So what has actually been happening at the Travellers Club over the last two hundred years? The installation of a Turkish bath in the club’s second premises was quite an event, as was the serving of dinner at 7pm instead of 6.30pm, and later the provision of luncheon. There were spats with the Athenaeum, next door to the Barry building, regarding a light well which objectionable windows overlooked. That went on for fifteen years or more. Come 1867 and the committee was trying to replace Barry’s stone balustrade with iron railings to let in more light. Frightful outcry, stone reinstated at once.

Meanwhile, an errant laundry mistress was found to have placed a large number of the club’s tablecloths in various pawnshops in the neighbourhood. In the second half of the 19th century, a member said the tea was ‘nauseous’. The committee was appalled: they held a tea tasting and declared the tea ‘delicious’. This followed on from the terrible coffee incident, when the steward had to be told not to offer the previous day’s brew. But oh the joy of the Otis lift, installed in 1904, and the glory when Barry’s iron flambeaux outside the club were lit to mark great events, such as the wedding of the Prince of Wales. The kitchen chimney at 106 Pall Mall ‘in particular was prone to regular conflagrations’, Robinson writes, but rest assured that ‘Barry’s new building was always maintained in exemplary condition’. We also learn that ‘an unexpected off-shoot of the Crimean War was an increase in the number of members smoking … in the Club’.

Intermittently, Robinson is aware of the bathos of all this. The club’s members, he says at one stage, ‘were often up to their necks in public affairs as individuals in Britain and the empire. Generally, however, the Club concerned itself largely with its own business.’ Well, it’s a club, isn’t it? That’s the whole point: to be a little sealed-off world of its own and to have a book like this written about it which is really a catalogue or roll call rather than what is commonly understood to be a book. Everybody and everything must be included.

Robinson refers to ‘luncheon’ without irony and calls a recipe a ‘receipt’, but really is to be congratulated (and no doubt will be at some formal event in the club with speeches) for maintaining over 367 large pages a steady, dignified and perfectly smooth flow, punctuated by the occasional tiny little quip – just like the club itself, one imagines.

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The story of The Travellers Club, the oldest club on Pall Mall and a home-from-home for globetrotters for 200 years

To mark the bicentenary of The Travellers Club – the oldest club in Pall Mall – John Martin Robinson tells the story of an institution and its home, a purpose-built Renaissance palace. Photographs by Paul Highnam.

The Travellers Club was founded in May 1819, brainchild of Viscount Castlereagh, Foreign Secretary and British Minister Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Vienna. He spoke of establishing a club in which men could meet socially with other travellers, visiting ‘foreigners of distinction’ and diplomats.

Throughout its history, these elements have been a strong part of the club’s character. To qualify, members had to travel 500 miles in a straight line outside England. A member quipped it had to be on land, otherwise ‘convicts from Botany Bay might have qualified’.

Photograph by Paul Highnam/Country Life Picture Library

The club emerged after the Napoleonic Wars, when war and trade had carried mariners, soldiers and officials across the world. For cultural travellers, conflict had deflected visits from the usual Grand Tour destinations to Greece, the Levant and Egypt.

Early members included five future Prime Ministers – Aberdeen, Palmerston, Canning, Lord John Russell and the Earl of Derby – as well as several Greek Revival architects/designers: Smirke, Wilkins, Westmacott, Thomas Hope and C. R. Cockerell, the latter the club’s architectural conscience.

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There were diplomats, such as the Earl of Elgin, who gave a plaster cast of the Parthenon Marbles, and his associates Lt-Col William Leake, who brought the Marbles to London, and William Richard Hamilton, Elgin’s secretary, who prevented the French from removing the Rosetta Stone from Egypt.

They were all trustees of the British Museum and several founders of the National Gallery joined them, including Sir George Beaumont, George Vernon and the Rev Holwell Carr, who all gave their collections to the gallery.

The founder chairman was the 2nd Lord Auckland, later Governor General of India and responsible for the unsuccessful First Afghan War. Other committee members included John Sawrey Morritt, friend of Walter Scott, who had surveyed the scene of the Iliad and bought Velásquez’s ‘Rokeby Venus’, and Sir Gore Ouseley, the earliest British ambassador to Persia. Military figures in the early membership included the Duke of Wellington, the Marquess of Anglesey and Lords Raglan and Cardigan.

‘This house, in turn, proved inadequate as the membership grew’

The first foreign visitors were Russian: Count Simon Woronzow, ambassador to George III, and his son, Prince Michael Woronzow, commander of the Russian cavalry at Moscow in 1812 and governor of the Caucasus, who employed Edmund Blore to design a Moorish-Jacobethan palace at Alupka in the Crimea.

Most famous of the early diplomat members was Talleyrand during his four years as ambassador in London, playing whist most nights and for whom an extra handrail was added to the stair bannisters.

The early visitors also included writers, such as the American Nathaniel Parker Willis and the Frenchman Louis de Vignet. A less welcome guest, who caused trouble by taking books from the library and criticising the card accountant, was Prince Pückler-Muskau. He left a description of the club in his Tour of a German Prince in England (1832).

He was complimentary about the club as an institution, but less so about the members: ‘The English nobility haughty as it is, can scarcely measure itself against the French in antiquity and purity of blood.’ He described them as ‘new families, often of very mean and even discreditable extraction’ and commented that it was easy to muddle the servants for the masters, as the former had more ‘natural dignity’ and better manners.

In 1819, the club took temporary premises in Waterloo Place, which were adapted by Cockerell. These proved too small and rickety and it soon moved to a larger house at 49, Pall Mall. This was also converted for the club by Cockerell, who presented his plastercast of the Phigaleian Marbles from the Temple of Apollo Epikourios, which he had excavated at Bassae and secured for the British Museum. This was installed in the Coffee Room (now transferred to the library of the Barry building) and Lord Elgin’s plaster Parthenon Marbles in the Drawing Room. They gave the building a strongly Grecian character during its 10-year existence.

This house, in turn, proved inadequate as the membership grew. A perfect new site presented itself on the other side of Pall Mall when George IV moved to Buckingham Palace and Carlton House was redeveloped.

The Office of Woods and Forest (Crown Estate) were keen to spread the architectural grandeur of the Metropolitan Improvements along Pall Mall by encouraging new club buildings, which were more impressive than private houses. On either side of Waterloo Place were the United Service Club, designed by Nash, the Athenaeum by Decimus Burton and, opposite the former, the United University Club by William Wilkins.

In 1828, The Travellers secured the site of three houses immediately adjoining the Athenaeum for its permanent base. This was not without hitches, as George IV, with characteristic insouciance, kyboshed the original site deal by insisting on retaining a house on it for a member of his Household; the club accepted a slightly more constricted site, with a condition that the land behind was not built on, and so the setting of trees and grass in Carlton Gardens survives.

Under the chairmanship of Lord Granville Somerset, The Travellers chose its architect by competition. No other St James’s club has selected an architect by such a process.

In May 1828, it was resolved to ‘procure plans from no less than five eminent architects’ and to obtain cost estimates from an ‘experienced surveyor’. For the latter, they chose Joseph Henry Good, Surveyor to the Com-missioners for Building New Churches.

In fact, seven architects were approached initially and 11 in total. Many had already designed clubs. Two members of The Travellers were included: Robert Smirke and William Wilkins. John Peter Deering (a classical archaeologist and, with Wilkins, joint architect of the United University Club), William Atkinson (a pupil of James Wyatt), Decimus Burton, Benjamin Dean Wyatt (architect of Crockford’s and the Oriental, son of James) and Lewis Wyatt (James’s nephew).

The following week, four more architects were approached: Henry Harrison, Jeffry Wyatville, Charles Barry and Thomas Hopper (architect of Arthur’s Club). A couple more were subsequently asked: Ambrose Poynter and Edward Blore. Of these, Smirke, Burton, Lewis Wyatt and Jeffry Wyatville declined, but eight submitted designs.

As the drawings of unsuccessful entries were returned with thanks, all are now lost.

Cockerell was not on the sub-committee, but was on the general committee, and his fastidious criticism elsewhere of his colleagues’ work may explain why some were turned down; nearly everybody thought Blore uninspired and Poynter lacked distinction.

The palm was offered to the outsider, Charles Barry. At 33, he was the youngest to enter and had designed little except the Greek Revival Royal Institution of Fine Arts (now Art Gallery) in Manchester and some cheap Commissioners’ churches in Man-chester and London. The former may have been familiar to northern members, such as Edward Legh of Lyme or Edward Bootle-Wilbraham, but he cannot otherwise have been known to the committee.

His adventurous travels as a student to France, Italy, Greece and Turkey would have appealed to the club, but it was probably his track record with the Commissioners of New Churches that won him the job. Joseph Good was able to advise the club that Barry was experienced in keeping within approved building budgets and that advice may have been decisive. There was also the originality and excellence of the design, with its clever planning for the deep site and the novel deployment of Italian Renaissance palazzo architecture.

The competition design of 1828 was revised to meet the present, narrower site in March 1829 and then revised again to meet criticisms from the Crown and Athenaeum about the likely impact on the cornice of the latter.

Barry’s ingenious solution was to create recesses on both elevations adjoining the Athenaeum. This allowed slightly more interesting shapes for the main rooms and enabled the cornice of The Travellers to be returned at the sides rather than cut off, something that has always been admired.

Externally, Barry drew on Florentine and Venetian sources for the two elevations, Raphael’s Palazzo Pandolfini for Pall Mall and the Grand Canal for Carlton Gardens (where the lawns substituted for Venetian water).

Inside, the vocabulary stretched to include Grecian and English Palladian details, in the library chimneypieces or the carved-oak Grand Staircase. Enthusiasm for the latter may have come from the chairman of the building committee Gen the Hon Sir Edward Cust, with memories of his ancestral home at Belton in Lincolnshire.

Barry’s most novel stroke was the internal cortile in the centre of the plan, with the halls and landings arranged like arcades round it. This enabled light to reach the depths of the interior, including the kitchen, scullery and Still Room in the basement.

The building was constructed by Stokes (Paxton’s son-in-law); it was roofed in 1831 and first used to watch William IV’s Coronation procession. It was completed in 1832.

Barry’s architecture has always been cherished by The Travellers, which, over the decades, has allowed art and architecture students to visit and make measured drawings. There was only one blip in the record: Barry remained the club architect throughout his life, but after him, Hungerford Pollen advised. He was Cockerell’s nephew.

In order to allow in more light, Pollen removed Barry’s balconies from the library windows in 1867 and replaced them with ‘Baker Street’ iron balustrades. Following furious protests, not least from Barry’s younger son and biographer Edward, the club reinstated the balconies to the original design. Suitably chastened, it never attempted to alter the elevations again.

Over the years, several changes have been made to the interior. A fire in 1850 destroyed Barry’s billiard room and the Elgin plaster frieze. In 1910, the Coffee Room was moved up to the first-floor drawing room (Fig 3) to create a ground-floor Smoking Room.

The entrance hall was also tactfully extended, reusing Barry’s windows and chimneypiece into the cortile by the then club architect Macvicar Anderson. Few realise this not part of the original Barry design.

Anderson added upper storeys of bedrooms after the First World War. In the early 20th century, the club benefitted from the care and knowledge of a member, Hal Goodhart-Rendal, who, for a time, also acted as the club architect. He recommended Fred Rowntree as his successor and Rowntree designed the handsome First and Second World War Memorials and restored the club after it suffered bomb damage in 1940.

Goodhart-Rendal had restored and replicated the Colza chandeliers and other light fittings and produced a design for roofing over the main floor of the cortile to make a ‘saloon’. This was not proceeded with, nor was its revival in 1970 by Ian Grant, chairman of the Victorian Society, although he was responsible for re-graining the library in its original oak with a grant from the Greater London Council Historic Buildings Division.

This was one of several late-20th-century restorations of original decorative schemes, including the repainting of the Coffee Room in Barry’s yellows and greys in 1988. The library remains the heart of the club and, as well as being one of the most beautiful rooms in London, it contains the finest collection of travel books in private hands, donated by members over two centuries. Its present flourishing condition with lectures and exhibitions attests to the continuing vigour of The Travellers after 200 years.

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The Weary Traveller

New gigs, retro digs

Deep in the roots of Martin Place’s iconic Seidler mushroom building, there is a hidden gem of Sydney nightlife, a buried bastion of 1970s bar culture, and your new favourite haunt after dark this summer. Unpretentious and unrenovated, history lines the walls and so does the original red carpet at The Weary Traveller, Sydney Festival’s live music takeover in a rare retro find. Enjoy 16 nights of eclectic, cutting-edge music programming across January, from punk to pop, jazz to metal, indie, ambient and plenty of opportunities for a dance. Come for the music, stay for the characters.  Image by Jacquie Manning

The Weary Traveller 5 - 29 January CTA Business Club basement  Martin Place, Sydney NSW 2000

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The weary traveller.

Sydney Festival is turning the CTA Business Club in Martin Place into a vibrant pop-up concert venue.

Sydney is no stranger to a pop-up concert venue. Just this year, gig-goers have been blessed with the introduction of Pleasure Playhouse in Haymarket and Speakers Corner on William Street. These two limited-time spaces brought together rosters of genre-spanning talent for a series of gigs, and this summer, another like-minded venue is springing forth — this time in a nostalgic Martin Place building.

The Weary Traveller is taking over the basement of the iconic Harry Seidler mushroom building — also known as the CTA Business Club — between Thursday, January 5 and Sunday, January 29 as part of Sydney Festival . This late-night haunt will bring a 70s lounge bar energy to the longstanding building and play host to 16 shows, each presenting a different boundary-pushing artist spanning the genres of pop, punk, jazz, hip hop, dance and more.

On the lineup: always relatable Wergaia and Wemba Wemba singer-songwriter Alice Skye, pop trailblazer June Jones, sax-heavy Sydney punk duo Party Dozen, experimental electronic producer and dance floor favourite Moktar, and rock-reggae icons Coloured Stone.

And that's just the start. There will also be two big dance parties curated by Astral People, a performance from Australian voice Tom Snowden, a collaboration between Melbourne hip hop trio Two Birds and Sydney's Bayang (Tha Bushranger), two shows from British grime star Lil Silva, and appearances from Automatic, HTRK and Potion.

Adding to the throwback energy of the venue, Sydney Festival has enlisted the help of nostalgic Australiana expert Hawke's Brewery as the official beer of the festival and The Weary Traveller.

Tickets range between $29–59 and can be purchased in a multipack. Head to the Sydney Festival website to view the program and nab tickets.

Jacquie Manning

Top image: Jacquie Manning

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Thu, Jan 5, 2023 - Sun, Jan 29, 2023

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Commercial Travellers' Business Club Ltd

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(02) 9232 7344

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Commercial Travellers Association Of WA (Inc)

The Commercial Travellers Association of WA has an alliance of friendship with the Western Australian Club.

Contact the Commercial Travellers Association Of WA (Inc)

101 ST GEORGE’S TERRACE PERTH WA 6000

Phone: 0061 8 9481 7000

Fax: 0061 8 9481 7022

Web: www.waclub.com.au

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Connecticut news | family of man killed by west hartford police officer files wrongful death lawsuit seeking over $75m, connecticut news, connecticut news | ct town mourns death of child who was known as ‘an amazing little girl’.

Regan Leigh Martins, 12, of Newington died August 9, unexpectedly, according  to her obituary.

The child of of Rui and Theresa (Domingo) Martins, Regan also leaves her three sisters, Morgan, Peyton, Brooklyn, and brother, Declan,” according to her obituary.

Regan was “known for her kindness, love for her family, and left an everlasting impact on every person that she met,” it says.

“She enjoyed spending time with her sisters, brother and her loving dog, Roxy. Moreover, she loved singing her heart out and performing in school plays and through the Newington Children’s Theatre Company,” the obituary says.

“She sang in both the school choir and the children’s choir at St. Patrick-St. Anthony Church in Hartford. Regan loved being a girl scout and was a member of Troop 10522, volunteering in the community and always finding ways to help others. If Regan was not out in the community enjoying life, she was spending time with her family, swimming in their backyard, and swinging on her favorite swing.”

“No words can express how deeply she will be missed.”

As pink lights grow in numbers across Newington, the Community Theater Company plans a scholarship fund and the Newington Swim Club plans a swim scholarship.

And grief poured out across social media.

“My condolences to the family on this heartbreaking loss. There is nothing that can be said to make you feel better,” one person wrote.

Such condolences for the family were numerous, as were comments praising the tribute to the child.

“I am absolutely heartbroken for her family and friends. This is such a wonderful tribute to show them that the whole community is mourning with them,” one person wrote.

“A beautiful girl whom will be surrounded by angels and fly high on God’s shoulders. Rest in peace,” another person wrote.

Other shared memories of the child.

“She was an amazing little girl, one of the sweetest, most caring, kind people you will ever meet,” was one tribute.

“Rest in peace Regan,” another tribute said. “Our family remembers you so happy running on that soccer field with your whole team. You put your whole heart into everything you did.”

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How not to be a terrible tourist: What Europeans want travelers to know

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Travel can be exhilarating or awful, and like it or not, we all leave footprints. Of course, some tourists tread more heavily than others, leaving residents swearing, slack-jawed or just shaking their heads.

In this busy European travel season , here are some things tourism professionals and local people would like you to know, so you won’t be that tourist:

Buy locally made items

“Don’t just purchase cheap souvenirs,” said Lony Scharenborg, who manages a merchants’ association for Amsterdam’s Nine Little Streets , a picturesque shopping area in the canal district.

• Read the companion piece: Why some residents of European hot spots want tourists to stay away

“Remember that the people who live here need their bakeries and their grocery stores. Pick up something from there.”

You’re a guest, so act like it

“A city is not only monuments and marbles; it is people,” said Giovanni Andrea Martini, a City Council member in Venice .

“Show respect and coexist.”

In another overburdened destination, Emma Martin of Spain’s Turisme de Barcelona also said a little consideration goes a long way. She urged visitors to think of themselves as “temporary but integral” citizens.

World & Nation

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Venice on Sunday wraps up a pilot program charging day-trippers a 5-euro entrance fee. Opponents say it failed to deter visitors to the crowded Italian city.

July 14, 2024

During big events, consider an alternative locale

In Paris this summer, plenty of locals fled the Olympics influx, while some travelers deferred their visits or found last-minute bargains.

Another example: Scotland’s historic capital of Edinburgh is even more jam-packed than usual during the Festival Fringe in August, but Malcolm Roughead, chief executive of VisitScotland, points out that lesser-known parts of the country are “filled with hidden gems.” The moral: Whenever possible, get off the beaten track.

Think sustainability, especially with transportation

“Choose sustainable options if you can — come by train, use an electric vehicle, use public transport when in the city, use a bicycle,” said Charel van Dam, marketing director for the Netherlands Board of Tourism and Conventions. “Stay longer in the same place — less movement is always better.”

In every big European city, and in many smaller ones, there are travel apps to help you avoid bottlenecks.

Why some residents of European hot spots just want tourists to stay away

Over-tourism backlash: In Instragram-favorite cities and towns across Europe, some residents have reached their limit with massive crowds of tourists.

Aug. 11, 2024

Be curious — and friendly

“I’m happy when people ask me about cheese — but very happy when they ask me about other things, about life here!” said Spyros Chalikias, 39, who works in a tourism-focused cheese shop in central Amsterdam.

When you can see you’re part of the problem ...

“If you see that huge line at that TikTok place, think of the impact in a tiny street, and maybe take your business elsewhere,” said Scharenborg.

Why Ukraine — and much of Europe — is alarmed over Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his running mate

Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, once said: ‘I don’t really care what happens to Ukraine one way or the other.’

July 18, 2024

Try to help local causes

German tourist Manuela Pietsch, 52, from Heidelberg, attended a recital in Amsterdam’s Westerkerk , a 17th century church, with her voluntary donation earmarked to help with restoration of its historic Duyschot organ. “It makes me feel good to be part of this,” she said. “And it was a wonderful recital!”

In many European destinations, history is painful

“Yes, you can mention the war,” said Jan Katzmarczyk, who has been conducting walking tours in Berlin for 13 years, including of many notorious Nazi sites . He urges visitors to be direct in their queries, but not accusatory toward the current generation. “We’ll take the blame, but not the shame,” said Katzmarczyk, pointing out that virtually all of Germany’s wartime leaders are long dead.

No, it’s not like home

That’s why you’re traveling! So bear in mind: There won’t be air conditioning everywhere, especially in smaller and older European hotels. Carry small coins for public restrooms (although many will let you use a credit card for the tiny charge).

Many restaurants may expect you to order bottled water instead of providing a free glass of tap water. Ice may be hard to come by. Brush up on tipping etiquette, which varies from one European country to another — although tips are almost always less than is expected in the U.S.

Adapt! As in: Bring a plug adapter to charge your devices

USB sockets are a relative rarity, especially in older accommodations, and chances are slim the hotel will have an adapter to lend you.

“I can’t tell you how often Americans ask,” said the receptionist at one moderately priced Paris hotel, who did not want her name used because her employer wouldn’t approve. “Sometimes I want to say, ‘Oh, yes — let me just go out back and pluck one off the tree where they grow.’”

Don’t take things out on service workers

They’re trying to do their jobs and help you. Try to work with them and find solutions for that canceled flight or overbooked hotel. Document what happened — save texts, emails and proof of payment. When it’s all over, write a calm note, and chances are pretty good that the airline or cruise line or tour operator will try to make it up to you.

Leave the obvious jokes alone

If a particular place name sounds hilarious to English speakers, you can bet local people are tired of having that pointed out by giggling visitors.

And don’t do pretend German accents, said Katzmarczyk — “It sounds mostly terrible.”

More to Read

Commentary: Tourists have made Europe a nightmare. I was part of the problem but won’t be again

July 26, 2024

‘It’s hell outside’: European heat wave prompts alerts in southern, central areas

July 12, 2024

Venice tests 5-euro entry fee for day-trippers as the city grapples with over-tourism

April 25, 2024

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Laura King is a Berlin-based reporter for the Los Angeles Times. A member of the Foreign/National staff, she primarily covers foreign affairs. She previously served as bureau chief in Jerusalem, Kabul and Cairo.

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