Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

Can anyone please explain to me how much I am supposed to tip where? Restaurants are pretty straight forward. 15 – 20 % I hope. How about the taxi driver or the hair dresser? The same? And the maid in the hotel? Do you tip the garbage man or the paper boy? I read that you are supposed to leave him 10 to 20 dollars preferably around Christmas time?

Wouldn’t it make more sense to pay people appropriate wages that make tips unnecessary? That way you can still tip to show appreciation for good service and don’t need a calculator the figure out what 5, 10, 15 or 20% are when the total bill is $45.86.

I started thinking about this issue when I spoke to the German hotel owner in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. We talked about how expensive traveling is getting in Central America and his response was: “It’s all the Americans’ fault with their stupid tipping”. He told us about an all inclusive 1 week sailboat trip he was invited to. When the trip was over he was ready to head home, but then was asked to first tip the captain $300 and the staff on the boat another few hundred bucks. There where a few more hidden tips, so you couldn’t really call it “All Inclusive.” I guess if you are American this doesn’t shock you as much, because it’s normal and accepted to tip large amounts no matter how good the service is.  It is not normal in most other countries. What excessive tipping does in poorer countries is it makes things more expensive for everyone else, locals and tourists alike.

On our trip we constantly run into situations when we don’t know how much to tip. The guidebook says 10% and the locals say you shouldn’t tip at all! It feels so strange to leave tips that are only 25 cents or less, but if you consider, that a workers wage is only 8 dollars a day that amount is not inappropriate at all.  Couldn’t it also look somewhat arrogant if you keep tipping much more than what’s expected everywhere you go? But it also feels cheap at times to only leave a few cents.

At the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica we felt that we had to tip on 2 occasions and it’s confusing. When we got there, there was a huge line. It could have taken between 2 and 3 hours to cross the border, but some guy approached me and told me that for 5 bucks a person he could get me to the front of the line. I declined, because it seemed like one of the many rip-offs.  A few minutes later he told me that if a woman travels with kids, she doesn’t have to wait. I still didn’t really believe him, but Allison went up with William and Julian and it worked. The policeman let us right through. The guy just saved us 3 hours of standing in line in hot weather. How much is that worth to you? I decided that I would change our leftover Costa Rica money with him and I had 4 dollars left in small bills. It seemed appropriate to give it to him, because border crossing are a pain and he saved us 3 hours.  

Later on, on the Nicaragua side there was a young child, who offered all kinds of services to me while Allison was doing all of the paperwork. He offered to wash the car, bring us food, sell us water etc. For me he was just another annoying person who doesn’t leave you alone at the borders. He later on pointed Allison in the direction of the next office she had to go to and Allison felt she had to give him something, too. But how much? It only was 1 finger point. She wanted to give him 50 cents I responded: “Are you crazy? 50 cents!! His dad has to probably work half an hour to make that. That’s excessive. And besides he was annoying me for the last 45 minutes!” So for the 1 guy 4 dollars seemed fine and for the other kid 50 cents seemed way too much.

In El Salvador we met up with a Peace Corp volunteer who showed us around the town where she is stationed.  She said that tipping is not expected at all, and if you do tip, it will be quite a surprise and very much appreciated.  When we went to eat breakfast the next morning it was quite a relief.  There was no pressure and no expectations. 

So I think the right way to do it is to listen to the locals who say: “Don’t tip at all!” and if that just doesn’t feel right to you, leave an appropriate tip, because it’s really not expected of you and people are really grateful of even a small appreciation of their service. Unfortunately I am still not able to tell you exactly what is “appropriate”, but I do know that it’s not the same amounts than back in the states and an 8 cent tip can be really appreciated in many areas of the world.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 10th, 2007 at 3:12 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.