Just because you’ve left home doesn’t mean you’ve left home

“Sun, sea and snow have each become a commodity. This turns travelers by default into consumers of climates and landscapes where they can disport themselves on tame terrain, chattering the while with their mates back home on mobile phones. Horace famously put his finger on the hidden dynamic here: Coelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt. Different landscape but the same dreary habits of thought.”
–James Hamilton-Paterson, “The End of Travel,” Granta #94 (2006)