Mount Kinabalu naked tourists: Why travellers always do stupid things overseas

There are four travellers who must still be feeling pretty sheepish right about now. Almost two months ago a Briton, two Canadians and a Dutchman were fined and sentenced to a couple of days in prison in Malaysia after flashing their bits on the top of Mount Kinabalu.

While the four of them were being paraded in front of a Malaysian court in June, the rest of the world was tut-tutting at their flagrant disregard for local customs – this was, after all, a mountain that's sacred to the people of Sabah, not a place for getting your kit off and snapping photos – and telling everyone that young people are ruining the world and they would never have done anything like that when they travelled.

The four tourists have now been released from prison and allowed to go home, where they'll probably forevermore regret the fact that googling their names brings up stories of misjudged clothing removal on an Asian mountain. That's not something that's easy to erase. They'll also regret that they're now poster children for misbehaving travellers the world over.

Of course there are also plenty of Australians who are front-runners for that position. Like the couple that was arrested in Florence recently after allegedly having sex on a park bench. Or the two Australians who were filmed streaking through Machu Picchu​ last year. Or the thousands upon thousands of backpackers who drink and yell their way around Asia and Europe every year.

Travellers misbehave. They always have and they probably always will. This misbehaviour ranges from the innocent and the minor – like pointing the soles of your feet at someone in Asia – to the willful and the destructive, like those great pioneering travellers, the British explorers, who would arrive at their destination and steal all of the marbles (sorry, Greece). Compared to that, a quick flash on a mountaintop doesn't seem so bad after all.

I feel the pain of all of these misbehaving travellers, however, because any traveller should know that it's very difficult to be perfect. Especially when you're overseas. Especially when you're young.

For starters, you might set out wanting to respect and obey local customs and rules, but sometimes those local customs and rules seem pretty stupid. (It was a little harder, for instance, to take Malaysia seriously once people started blaming the naked travellers for a subsequent earthquake in the region.)

And even if the local laws do make sense, it's still not always easy for visitors to stick to them. This is, after all, your big trip away from home. There's a feeling of freedom that comes with travelling, a sense of anonymity when you're in a foreign land – it's something that unsaddles you of the sense of responsibility that would stop you from doing anything stupid at home.