Yeah. Don't be these guys. Old article, but so outrageous you can still find it in a Google search.

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/26/b...t-at-meal.html

Agreed on the foreign colleagues- both getting intel AND not needing so much babysitting that they don't get any family time. Very good for restaurant and shopping (on your own time!) recommendations.

If it's a foreign destination, for heaven's sake, learn something about the history and the culture. Two VERY bad examples: I was talking with a London-based colleague from India about how astrology was taken so seriously in the Indian community that astrologers sometimes came to the hospital after a baby was born to do its charts. An American colleague said, "You're too smart to believe that, aren't you (Indian colleague's name)?" The guy was too stunned to respond. Same colleague (honest, he was a decent guy but must have slept through history) asked our German colleagues, during a lovely, relaxed dinner at an outdoor beer hall in Munich, "So... how did there get to be an East Germany and a West Germany, anyway?"

I wanted to sink under the table.