Holiday personalities: The people you never plan to meet

Throughout my travels I have met a host of interesting and bizarre people. When initially writing this, dozens of brilliant people that I have met on my travels that deserved a mention came to mind, but I tried to limit myself to talking about two people. I am sure we all have met personalities during our travels that have stuck in our minds and have just added something special to our holiday, so here are a few of the ones that I have encountered.

My most recent memory of a personality on holiday was during the Warwick Darts Society Tour to Blackpool. We entered a pub on the Friday evening and were greeted by a bubbly (if not slightly tipsy), pensioner-aged man with a thick Glaswegian accent. We went to the dartboard in the pub to play darts and the man came to watch us play, making amusing comments whenever we messed up, such as by missing the 20-score segment and hitting a 1. We found it so amusing being heckled whilst playing darts in a pub on tour. When we later asked him if he wanted to throw some darts, he borrowed one of our sets and threw them at the board without aiming, claiming that the darts are too light for him as he throws 34-gram darts! For context, most pro players favour 22-gram darts.

So, one of our only whole group tour photos is with a man we called Glaswegian George on a random Friday night in a random pub in Blackpool

Later on in the evening, me and a darts soc member, in the same pub, sang karaoke (rather badly) to ‘Billie Jean’ by Michael Jackson. During our rendition, we noticed the Glaswegian exiting the toilets and doing a little dance for us whilst we were singing. This was captured by our tour cameraman, and re-watching the video now fills me with so many fond memories.

We later discovered that the man’s name was George and felt that it was impossible for us to not leave without taking a photo with him. So, one of our only whole group tour photos is with a man we called Glaswegian George on a random Friday night in a random pub in Blackpool. We left the pub with fond memories of George and the £1.80 pints of Murphy’s, which our President and Guinness Connoisseur argues is better than the real deal.

I will always remember his exuberant personality and the Eastern European hospitality he offered us

Another character I met on holiday was in Split, Croatia. After a day out wine-tasting with my friend and exploring the Krka National Park, we decided to get an Uber back from the drop-off location of the tour to a local restaurant. We had set our hearts on going to an authentic Croatian restaurant I had found on TripAdvisor. But once we got in the Uber and started chatting away to our driver, we discovered that despite him being a local, he had never heard of this restaurant, and he named a bunch of other restaurants that we should go to instead. We took him up on his advice and ended up going to one of his recommendations.

It did not disappoint. We tried pasticada, a braised beef dish cooked in a sweet and sour sauce. It was delicious! But if it was not for our Uber driver, we would have never discovered this place. We even ended up exchanging phone numbers after our Uber trip, in case we ever wanted more info an anything. Our driver, who we later discovered was called Filip, gave us so much advice on what to do in Split, what sites to visit, where to eat, that without him, it may have been impossible to for us to maximise our week stay in Split. I will always remember his exuberant personality and the Eastern European hospitality he offered us. Despite him doing some things that would seem bizarre to us such as taking my phone to put his phone number in or for him to put into Google the places he recommended, we were more than happy with him doing this and helping us make the most of our trip.

Across my holidays, I have met a host of brilliant and unique people. Too many to list in this article. But when you go on holiday, try and talk to people, you never know who you may end up speaking too. And who knows, you may strike up an unlikely friendship!