People watching...

Amsterdam... just about anywhere.

Airports are good, too.

Definitely airports.

Cafes - sitting outside, sipping a cup of coffee, eating a delicious cake
and watching people saunter by is quite entertaining, mostly in Europe though.

Beach - perfect for people watching, especially in Venice, CA.

Park - where else but in Central Park in Manhattan

I don't like airports, too hectic nowadays. Malls are too crowded for my
taste, and people watching at fast food joints is too repulsive.

That was going to be my answer.

The food court in the middle of O'Hare -- primo.

Agree re airports.

Also, train stations, e.g., Termini in Rome.

The bus, any bus. But especially in a place like west Los Angeles, where people of means do not take the bus over decades. Usually I've walked or driven, but have also taken the bus. The dynamic of not-bus-taking is arguably a killer for buses, which is why there aren't more, and so on.

Class and fear rule, or do they? (See Jane Jacobs, and so on.)

In my present abode, oh, man, to get more buses.




I love outdoor cafes - and wondered for a long time why LA didn't have them. Apparently they are more popular now, by a bit.

The key to my personality is...
woman in outdoor cafe.

City Hall parks always work well for me.

Here, in my hometown, in other towns and cities I've visited.

Most especially City Hall Square Park in NYC. That people in that park can entertain me for hours and hours and hours.

That's half the fun though, watching people being repulsive, and realizing we're only one step away from climbing back up into the trees and flinging feces at each other.

Kinda puts us back on a level playing field.

I'll tell ya where you can really see repulsive people en masse....Someplace like a Golden Corral or some other cheap, all you can eat place.

Entire families, from hunch backed grandmas to snot dripping babies all shoving deep fried onion rings dipped in ranch dressing into they're gaping maws.

That's superb people watching, they don't care if you're watching them, at least 2 of the kids get into an orange soda spewing fight, mom's alternating between feeding the baby and giving the evil eye the kids, dad's going back for thirds on the cream cheese stuffed jalepenos, and grannies sitting quietly, oblivious, slowly eating a dish of brussel sprouts and okra.

Good times.

Gak. That reminds me, the State Fair starts tomorrow.

Nothing can beat the fair for masses of repulsive people. Nothing, I tell you.

SonofEva will want to go as always, I'm sure. I'm feeling nauseous, just thinking about it.

I hear you, Eva. I hate Vancouver in tourist seasons, of which we have two... summer (for you name it) and winter (for skiing).

Good luck at the Fair Happy People-Watching.

Elementary schools have got to be one of the best places to (little) people watch! Kids are a hoot. And they are also uninhibited about it.

I would not spend a minute longer than I absolutely have to at any airport... And even when I do, I look for some corner where I can have some privacy,read, or immerse myself into anything that would let me forget I'm at the airport. Fast food places are also out of the question, as people chewing with their mouths open, spewing grossness around while yakking loud on the phone make me crawl out of my skin. Plus it's, as a rule, unclean, busy, people bump into you.... nothing desirable to a sensory defensive person.
Cafe is the best place for me. Outdoors cafe preferably, with a stream of people going by. Not too many of those here, but it's one of the best things to do at home. I miss it so.

Well, hey, I just like to walk. Harder now thst I'm in a weird microcosm, and the temperature tends to soar, but, generally speaking, I like to walk in cities. Too bad there is no place to get a latte or, oh, water, for miles. One has to drive...

Echo that.


That too..

I've loved airports since I was a kid. Viva la difference...

My first airplane ride was in something like 1951. Cool to me.

I remember Midway in Chicago as being some kind of long aisle with vending machines, with a big room or two past the doors.

A friend craved to be a stewardess, and we checked out the airport, LAX...
while she dreamed.

Guys and sometimes me wanted to neck at whatever boulevard it was where the planes flew over.

A friend of a friend played in a jazz band with runway view...

Whatever airports have become now, I'm still interested.

I think of airports as opportunity.

Going on a plane has always been serious money to me, and that has apt to have kept me from being jaded. Not that I can't understand being jaded.

There's a specific people-watching effort around Christmas, where suburbanites come into a city for a day's gift shopping. The women may be speaking to whoever will listen. The husband is likely trying to look dignified, even though I'd guess he'd rather be elsewhere. Everyone might seem sort of rushed. There's a similar frenzy all around with other families on the same gift getting effort. It's sort of a study in this annual fever that doesn't break until after the gifts are opened.

It's like a 180 degree different people-watching effort from watching the summer family outings at beach/lake/park, etc.

Similar to bird watchers, shouldn't people-watchers have a people list (as opposed to the bird watcher's bird list of birds sighted) that would allow a people-watcher to note the type of person observed, plus time of day, and activity engaged in? It would add a little professionalism to this activity? Or, possibly a plain little notebook?

People list, nice concept...

I always have a plain little notebook when I travel.

Too bad I don't keep it up day to day.