Without travel, there would be no “us”

“We see frightful souvenirs for sale in the Valley of the Kings, or we blanch at the ruination of Bethlehem or the Austrian Alps — and we blame it on mass travel. We prophesy dire and culturally fatal consequences. We wish, often vehemently, that every ugly tourist would stay at home in his living room by his wretched fire, and leave such noble places to their emptiness — or at least, to us. Yet what we forget is that without travel — there would be no “us.” For what is modern man, other than the consequence of movement, of migration, of wandering?”
–Simon Winchester, intro to Martin Parr’s Small World (1995)