Those who fought know a secret about themselves, and it is not very nice.

Exploration belongs to the Renaissance, travel to the bourgeois age, tourism to our proletarian moment.

If the guidebook used to be critical, today it seems largely a celebratory adjunct to the publicity operations of hotels, resorts, and even countries.

A more or less accurate measure of class in America is TV size: the bigger your TV, the lower your class.

Travelers learn not just foreign customs and curious cuisines and unfamiliar beliefs and novel forms of government. They learn, if they are lucky, humility.

What someone doesn't want you to publish is journalism; all else is publicity.

Anyone telling about his travels must be a liar, . . . for if a traveler doesn't visit his narrative with the spirit and techniques of fiction, no one will want to hear it.