Survey: Americans are world's worst tourists

Who are the world's worst tourists? The answer might surprise you. In fact, it might be you.

A survey conducted by Living Social and Mandala Research released Friday indicated that Americans are the world's worst tourist. And don't blame someone else for the name calling: 4,000 out of 5,600 respondents were Americans themselves.

Americans, Canadians and Australians all gave U.S. tourists the worst ranking on the survey, while Irish respondents indicated their British neighbors were the worst, and the British called out the Germans for bad travel behavior, according to a Living Social news release .

Other survey findings included:

• Thirty-nine percent of U.S. travelers admitted to having helped themselves to items from hotels. The most pilfered loot, according to the survey, includes: Towels (28 percent), bathrobes (8 percent), batteries (5 percent), pillows (4 percent), remote controls (3 percent), sheets (3 percent), bibles (3 percent) and umbrellas (3 percent).

• American's took far fewer vacation days than travelers of other nationalities. On average, Americans took 16 days off; Australians took 27 days off; Canadians took 21 vacation days; the Irish took 28 vacation days; and the British took 23 vacation days.

Thankfully, the survey did include some good news about Americans: we're a lot worldlier than one might believe. Results indicated that 78 percent of Americans have visited at least one foreign country; 61 percent have visited multiple countries; and 36 percent have traveled to four or more foreign destinations.

Living Social started as a "daily deal" website, but has recently expanded to include discounted travel options in nearly two dozen markets.