"This emphasis upon travel as a test, as a loss that brings a gain of stature and certainty of self, suggests that the changes of character effected by travel are not so much the introduction of something new into the personality of the traveler as a revelation of something ineradicably present -- perhaps courage, perdurance,...

"There are definitive stories about nearly every place on Earth now. And with so many other ways to get information -- if you want to know about Albania, for example, you can now much more easily ask the Albanians -- the point of travel writing has fallen out. There's an increased pressure on travel writers...