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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle
Emine Saner

The ultimate guide to travel etiquette: how to handle 36 tricky situations, from manspreaders to smelly armpits

A colourful illustration of a man painting his toenails while sitting on a train surrounded by other commuters.
‘It’s not an extension of your sitting room. It’s just inappropriate behaviour in a public place.’ Illustration: Viki Mladenovski/The Guardian

Public transport can be a hot, noisy, cramped and stressful environment – and that’s before you add in people with pungent food, questionable hygiene and giant backpacks. Most of us know the general rules – though we don’t all follow them – about letting people off first, not putting bags on seats, where to stand on escalators and offering your seat to others. But what about the vaguer conventions? How can you avoid chatty passengers? Or manspreaders? Is it sometimes OK to put your feet on the seats? (Spoiler: it’s not.) Here, three etiquette experts show us the way to public transport propriety.

How to use a seat

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