Does this question ever burn in your mind: when should I keep my clothes on in public?
The simple answer to that is–always.
However, sometimes on vacation, the lines are slightly blurred. In beach towns, people seem to think nothing of the amount of skin showing when walking down the street. It’s almost a cultural norm in those towns to go shirtless. And with all the grandeur of being on vacation, people have taken that mindset a little too far.
“Who cares if I’m walking around in my bikini all over town? It’s not like I’ll see these people again.”
As if the whole town is your personal resort. Well, that mindset may be liberating, in more ways than one, but some cities around the world are cracking down on where you can be seen in a swimsuit. In Palma, Majorca, an up and coming tourist destination in Spain, the city passed a law that you must have a shirt on when not on the beach or you will face a 50 Euro fine. With the Good Citizen Plan in place, the city also expects you not to ride your bike in certain places and not to buy wares from illegal street vendors.
But Palma isn’t the only one to put regulations on their tourists, Barcelona led the way with similar clothing requirements as well as Qatar who wants visitors to respect the Islamic culture. They hope that their regulations will trickle to what other towns expect from their visitors.
What happens if you don’t have money to pay the fine? The police will take you with them to their lovely station and you will end up paying the fine before you are released.
So do us all a favor (especially for the citizens of Palma) and don’t walk around shirtless through a town. On the beach, it’s okay, but when you’re going into town, have some respect and cover up or else you’ll pay… literally.
