Evelyn Waugh on budget travel, misadventure, and travel writers

“There is a new type of traveler which is represented by nearly all the young men and women who managed to get paid to write travel books. One comes into frequent and agreeable contact with him in all parts of the world; his book, if finished, is nearly always worth reading. It is his duty, he feels, to the publisher who has advanced him his expense, to have as many outrageous experiences as he can. He holds the indefensible, but not incontrovertible, opinion that poor and rather disreputable people are more amusing and representative of national spirit than rich people. Partly for this reason and partly because publishers are, by nature, unwilling to become purely charitable, he travels and lives cheaply and invariably runs out of money. But he finds a peculiar relish in discomfort. Bed bugs, frightful food, inefficient ships and trains, hostile customs, police and passport officers, consuls who will not cash cheques, excesses of heat and cold, night club champagne, and even imprisonment are his peculiar delights. I have done a certain amount of this kind of traveling, and the memory it is wholly agreeable. With the real travel snobs I have shuddered at the mention of pleasure cruises or circular tours or personally conducted parties, of professional guides and hotels under English management. Every Englishmen abroad, until it is proved to the contrary, likes to consider himself a traveler and not a tourist.”
–Evelyn Waugh, Labels (1930)