One of the most confusing things about traveling to the U.S. is having to figure out when and how much to tip. As Winston Churchill (might have) said it’s a riddle wrapped in an enigma, inside a mystery. Sometimes it seems like everyone has a tip jar just waiting for you to drop a gratuity in, so where is the definitive list of workers that one should tip? Is it ever appropriate not to tip? If it’s such a big deal why isn’t the gratuity included in the bill? Why, for that matter, aren’t workers in the U.S. hospitality industry not paid enough, so they don’t need tips? Tipping in the U.S. is a social minefield. An ethical dilemma from which there’s no escape while you’re here. Bars, restaurants, hotels, taxis – at any moment it can strike. Is this waiter really expecting me to leave 25%? What if I leave 15%? Will they jeer me out of the restaurant? Or will they just look at me with cold disdain? Even Americans can find it confusing.

Intimidated? There’s no need to be! We at Real San Francisco Tours have written this handy guide to tipping etiquette, that will help you find your way through the minefield and resolve the existential paradox that will hit you when you get back to your hotel room and find some nice chocolates sitting on top of your freshly made bed. To tip the chambermaid or not to tip the chambermaid? That is the question. To find the answer read on.

A SHORT HISOTRY OF TIPPING IN THE U.S.

To address the whole issue of tipping in the U.S. we have to first understand where this custom came from and why it is so prevalent in the U.S. (because it’s without question more common to tip here than anywhere else). Funnily enough Americans got the habit from Europeans, and particularly the British. If you watched the TV series Victoria you would have noticed Queen Victoria tipping her servants – that’s where tipping in the U.S. comes from.

Wealthy Americans who traveled to Europe in the nineteenth century would observe the British aristocracy doing it and when they returned, to show how sophisticated they were, began tipping in the U.S. Gradually it became commonplace to do it here – even as it became much less common in the U.K. and Europe. Why is that?

The U.S. has an overwhelmingly immigrant culture, people from all over the world moved here, some willingly and some not. These people had different languages, cultures and customs. Something was needed to unite them. Of course students of American history will tell you that this is where the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Pledge of Allegiance all come in. Devices that Americans are taught to revere and which have the effect of binding the people together as one.

Of course this is true – to a point. You do need all of these ceremonial, governmental and even mystical elements to make a country such as the U.S. function. But you also need a language that everyone, no matter what their background, religion or culture can understand. As we all know English is America’s lingua franca (although Spanish is now making significant inroads), but a language comes with it’s own cultural background, embedded in its DNA. You need something more neutral, more a-cultural if you like. And that something is money.

Money really is the universal language. It’s math. One and one equals two, two and two equals four. Everyone can understand that. So really money became the U.S.’s official language – which is the main reason why it’s the most capitalist country on earth. In other countries people’s place in society is based on complicated factors to do with class, profession, education and, of course, money too. But in the U.S. that’s the major factor.

Why? Because it’s the only element on which everyone can agree. There are other countries, which have immigrant cultures to one extent or another, Australia for example, but in those countries there was always a dominant culture – in Australia’s case it is Anglo/British. For the U.S., after the Revolution, that wasn’t the case anymore. That doesn’t mean Americans are interested only in money and lacking any other cultural expression. Americans are typically friendly and polite and usually generous to a fault. It’s just that they use money as a way of communicating. U.S. culture is very deep, rich and varied.