Vegan couple cries about the local cuisine in San Sebastián

10 days in España? That’s more than enough, how you say, time(?) to develop a life long Spanish accent.

That piece is gold. These two are clueless assholes for sure.

"We didn't get a refund for the unused days of our Airbnb, which cost us thousands of dollars" - But I'll bet you did ask the host for one because entitled people like you almost always do! And I'll bet you even appealed the host's denial to AirBnB! Your type almost always does! Glad you didn't get a refund.

I take it he loves French fries and PB&Js. Who says you can’t go vegan and still be a fat whore….

The other thing is how they went during the busy season and were shocked how crowded it was and why did they think they had to constantly be out sightseeing? Can't they hang out in their bnb and relax a few days? Bus/train trips to nearby towns?

They couldn’t find a grocery store to make their own fucking food?

And even if I were rich, I don’t envision myself casually writing off thousands of dollars and heading to Paris as a consolation.

[quote]We loved learning a few phrases in Euskara (the Basque language) and seeing how it made people smile

I bet it did!

[quote]The city was beautiful, and we hit the ground running during our trip

[quote]With so much action outside our door, we wasted no time in exploring the city.

[quote] But after about 4 days, we felt like we were running out of things to do

[quote]After spending several days exploring the area, we'd already checked off most of what we wanted to see and do during our trip.

[quote]We couldn't shake the feeling that we'd made a mistake renting an apartment for the entire month.

Why do Americans describe their holiday plans like military campaigns: describing their planning as if it were a WWII major campaign with giant maps and ranks of soldiers and tanks and artillery that can be moved around with a Major General with a croupier giant croupier's rake to turn on a dime into Alternate Operational Schemes B through K? Everything has to be preplanned and ticked off the list, too bad they didn't notice that they had barely a week's work of points to tick off -- buut apparently they thought exploring the outskirts of San Sebastian's historic center would be a delight. Clearly they don't know much about Spanish cities and the demarcation between old and new.

Would 31 days be long enough in a city of fewer than 200,000 residents that is considered one of the (non-vegan) food capitals of the world? For a couple of fat American vegans in their fifties or so, indeed it would be time enough "though seeing Jeff Koons' enormous flower "Puppy" at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao was a highlight of our trip." That Jeff Koons' 'Floral Puppy' outside the Guggenheim Bilbao more than 100 km from San Sebastian was a highlight tells me all I need to know. What shit for brains people. The Guggenheim is actually very good and the permanent installation of Richard Serra's work is fantastic. Bilbao (pop. 350,000) also has at least 10 strictly vegan or vegan and vegetarian restaurants, twice as many as San Sebastian where no one sane would go expecting a spate of vegan chow. A block from the Guggenheim is the Museo de Bellas Artes in Biblao which is is an altogether ther sort of museum and excellent. The Playa de la Concha is 1 km long, but the promenade they mention is 5 km long.

Marinara sauce and dry pasta? Oatmeal? Bread? Salad? Nuts? Soup? Come on.

These aren't normal Americans R7. She's probably a travel vlogger or writer or trying to be and stirring up drama. She needs to take a cue from Rick Steves.

r9 I wonder how Rick Steves is doing with his prostate cancer diagnosis. I hope he's headed towards remission.

[quote]I wonder how Rick Steves is doing with his prostate cancer diagnosis. I hope he's headed towards remission.

Let's just say my ass can only tolerate short, regional flights right now.

If you’re vegan, you really need to write off the culinary experience in all but the biggest European cities. Even in those, you’d probably end up repeating a lot during a 31-day stay.

If they primarily want to do site seeing, how could they have planned to stat even a week in a city if that size? It’s possibly fine if you just want to relax, hang out, and live a local.

[quote]We also didn't end up riding the funicular up to Monte Igueldo to see the incredible views from the summit because the lines were too long.

They didn't have time to wait in the line with the hoi polloi? What stopped them renting a car and exploring all of Northern Spain? It's a half-hour drive to the French border.

Eejits.

He look homosexual.

Must be nice to have enough money that you book a month long trip in a city you have done no research on....

NEXT MONTH: "Why we reluctantly cut short our month-long trip to Stonehenge"

Can't blame the Spaniards for shooting tourists with water guns.

Re-reading, they follow a "mostly vegan diet". That would seem to leave some wiggle room. And perhaps explain why the vegan husband is so heavy.

I like the way she repeatedly demonstrates how valiantly she tried to make the trip not suck.

"My husband even logged on to Grindr to alleviate the ennui, but to no avail."

Only straight people could figure out how to be bored in coastal Spain for 10 measly days. Jesus.

^^Whoops, it was a whole month (not sure why I ever thought 10 days." Still, it's Spain and my point stands. I'd be Vicky Christina Barcelona-ing the fuck out of that trip.

Actually R22/R23 - there are plenty of DLers that for find it too boring, too much work, too hard, too uncomfortable, too hot, too cold, too crowded....you get my drift. Read some of the threads about traveling.

Business Insider is paywalled.

They're much older than what I imagined when I read this headline.

“Oh, this trip? It was nothing….”

"For our next trip, we'll probably do more research before choosing the length of our stay in a new place."

No fucking shit, dimwits.

1. "mostly vegan" probably means they include a vegetable with every meal.

2. Why do American tourists go to these places and then complain about all the tourist there? Um, you're a tourist too, dumb-ass. Complain about yourself.

Maybe do some research before you visit another country? I’m just a vegetarian but if I’m going somewhere different I look into vegetarian food options

I have to laugh at how the word research is used.

Whether a casual or experienced traveler, booking 31 days in one place is way too much. Didn't that occur to them? Sheesh.

Booking 31 days is like you're living there there for an extended stay. How did they not realize this?

In the story, they kept saying "they should have planned their trip better." It sounds like they didn't plan it hardly at all.

Thank you, r29. I love it when people come back from a vacation and say, "There were so many tourists!" Yeah, and you were fucking one of them.

I too hate that snobbishness , i travel with a friend who is just like that complaining about the tourists. I keep telling, we are fucking tourists!

I love how they left because ran out of things to do but couldn’t be bothered to go up the hill because the funicular lines were too long.

Imagine going to Italy and not trying the sausage. Well, when it’s attached to you, it’s still vegan.

When I was young I often stayed for many weeks in one place. This couple just needed some structure. A cooking course. A language course. Learning a sport. Or a guide. There is a huge natural wonder and national park just over the border in France in Landes de Gascogne. If they are swingers 4 weeks is good for sampling the local horny old hetero crowd. I would often have a love affair - 4-6 weeks was enough time to really cook something up.

The article archived (not paywalled.)

The idea of spending a month in one city is a great one. I've done it many times and it gives you a balance of routine and discovery. Had the city been Madrid or Barcelona or even Seville, they could have seen one important site a day and had the rest of the time to wander and take nice meals and, at the end of a month, they would have things unseen for want of more time. But a city with only 190,000 population? Any sensible person would consider that perhaps a month is too long and do some better "research" on how to fill their days. And not fucking least, it's a mistake to assume that every city famous for its food is equally rich for its range of vegan options. For my vegan friends, researching places to eat is understandably an essential aspect of planning their travels. A half hour with Google search would have served them well.

You know this is a stock photo? Also, those kind of articles are pure rage bait, probably AI generated. None of these people exist. It's just slop to make us feel less shitty reading that other people are dumber.

Businessinsider is pure shit. Lots of dataloungers LURV shovelware content aggregators. New threads daily!

Wrong, r39. As you can see at this link, the same woman has other articles on the site along with other pictures of her husband and family. She also has her own travel blog site at marpop dot com. She obviously sells these articles to various publications.

Dumb cunt.

And here is her travel site if typing in the address is too much for you.

She's real. The article is real. So please, shut the fuck up

R39 It's not a stock photo.

Pals with Chrissy.

It´s her style: blow into some hyped city and then write an article saying it's not all that. See the list of articles at R42's link, including these titles with a running theme of "we fucked up so you can learn from out mistakes that any normal person would not have made" with a dash of NYT style "Here are our top 6 takeaways on..."

[quote]I spent 48 hours in the 'top city to visit' in 2025. It was nice, but it definitely didn't live up to that title.

[quote]My husband and I spent nearly 3 months traveling in Europe. Avoiding these 8 mistakes would've saved us time and money.

I love the internet. It searches the world and finds me new people to hate, like these clowns.

These are people who watch movies where people take whimsical vacations and become enmeshed in the local community and culture with moments that are interspersed with musical interludes and random dancing. That doesn’t happen, and these aren’t those type of people. They’re projecting their idealism and want people to feel sorry for the fact that the community didn’t give them the experience they paid for. Fuck em.

Why are travel articles consistently so obnoxious?

I would have done 4 different homes, and changed locations once a week.

The truth is, the food in Spain is really boring in general. I don’t understand how Barcelona chefs keep getting prizes.

R41 okay she exists. There is nothing real about this ragebait though, it's not a random story. Its mass produced bs. (See the links you graciously provided about her selling this non-story to various publications.)

Another of her stories is about Toulouse, "I spent 48 hours in the 'top city to visit' in 2025. It was nice, but...overall, I wasn't blown away by Toulouse."

[quote] I spent two days in Toulouse, which Lonely Planet dubbed the top city to visit in 2025.

[quote] It was a bit too much for me, especially since this meant we heard many loud people heading out of the bars late at night near our hotel.

[quote] We stayed in the middle of the city, so I wasn't expecting silence. In fact, I enjoy hearing the sounds of a city in the evening. However, at a certain point — say, after 11 p.m. — I appreciate some quiet.

[quote] My husband and I wanted to keep our hotel window open to get some fresh air as we slept, but the late-night revelers made that a less-appealing option.

[quote]In many ways, Toulouse felt like a college town, probably because it kind of is one, with its multiple universities and sizable student population (tens of thousands!).

[quote]I wished it had felt more expansive, sophisticated, and buzzing with excitement — though preferably not loudly and late into the night.

Goddamn, woman, she wants excitement and buzz, but she wants all the noise to have died down by 23.00 (in a country where most people take dinner between 21.00 and 22.00) and in a college town.

Every travel publication makes an annual list of top hotels, top city destinations, top whatever. If they don't have a list of top something every month, what is the point, really? And after a while all the obvious spots have been covered too recently in their own or someone else's lists of Top Whatevers.

Clearly she's trying to succeed by failing, so that we can learn from her mistakes and avoid them. It's a very American woman of a certain age and class view, the sort who actually believed it when someone said "there is no such thing as a stupid question!" (Indeed there is.)

R41 I doubt she even was there or any of this happened. If she was, I hope she managed to fit her daily graveyard excursions into her busy schedule she talks about on another article. Thia crap is produced by agencies for money. This is rage bait.

R50, fully agree that generally food in spain sucks, it is the worse Mediterranean cuisine. That said, high cuisine of barcelona chefs is a different matter altogether.

One thing I thought about, reading this article. If you knew you were going to be there for a month,. Yet, "With so much action outside our door, we wasted no time in exploring the city." They walked the promenade, visited shops. "After about four days" they were running out of "things to do."

I don't know where to begin, with this. I've never been to San Sebastian, but if I were going to stay anywhere for 31 days, I'd be very leisurely about it. The beach was crowded, but I'd still probably spend quite a bit of time there, relaxing, swimming, reading. The city must have churches, museums. There must be boat tours, you can rent a car and explore the countryside. I could fill up a few weeks. The city has movie theaters. They have places to see music in small settings, or concerts. There must be guidebooks?

As for the food, I don't know what to say except if I were vegan I'd make sure before I went anywhere to find out where I could eat.

If you have a restrictive diet - and vegan is a restrictive diet by choice, not necessity - then you always need to plan your food ahead of time and look up restaurants and places to eat.

Lack of planning. I don't trust overweight vegans anyway - they're pretentious and performative.

learning more of the language would beca plus for me but I'm weird