Paul Fussell on why “tourism” is not travel
“Tourism simulates travel, sometimes quite closely. You do pack a suitcase or two and proceed abroad with passport and travelers checks. But it is different in crucial ways. It is not self-directed but externally directed. You go not where you want to go but where the industry has decreed you shall go. Tourism soothes you by comfort and familiarity and shields you from the shocks of novelty and oddity. It confirms your prior view of the world instead of shaking it up. Tourism required that you see conventional things, and that you see them in a conventional way. Tourism can operate profitably only as a device of mass merchandizing, fulfilling the great modern rule of mediocrity and uniformity.”
–Paul Fussell, The Norton Book of Travel (1987)
January 5th, 2004 at 5:26 pm
As someone who started his life-long journey by being born in Mexico and lived in different places. Travel is the best and more enjoyable way of comfronting our internal life with the exterior. This quote is so true that I can’t wait to print it and have it in front of my computer. Thanks
January 9th, 2004 at 11:50 am
I am very much enjoying the travel tales….I travelled three years in Europe, Middle East, and India in the 60s….I am Gabriel’s mum. When he was two, our family of three set off in a VW bus headed for Cuzco but ended up for a year in Mexico and Guatemala instead. Gabe finally saw Macchu Pichu but I look forward to it still. Good luck, Rolf, on this benevolent adventure!