Taras Grescoe on the implicit phoniness in seeking out unspoiled places

“Strolling through the Karen village [in Thailand], feeling voyeuristic as I glimpsed scenes of family intimacy, part of me hoped to experience something I didn’t possess. My mobility was a form of decadence, and in traveling the world, something in me was seeking its antithesis. I’d come halfway around the globe to sit in a bamboo hut, searching for groundedness, tradition and community — all the things I’d abandoned for the endless novelty of travel. And by fooling myself into thinking I’d bought something real, I’d become a chump, a despoiler. In a word, a tourist: somebody who travels abroad to purchase a simulated antidote to an existential lack and then tries to deny the transaction has taken place.”
–Taras Grescoe, End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists (2003)