Thomas Swick on the true meaning of travel.

"Today, I think of travel as anything that extends one's realm of experience or expands one's lexicon of acquired convictions -- and occurs beyond the backyard (thus distinguishing it from reading). It is a moment that comes when we are out of our element and allows us to see, or feel, or think, anew. I grow weary of people who declare that travel is dead, who complain about McDonald's in Paris and go off to …

…for the desire and need to feel oneself in a a strange and hard to reach place that few have been to is to miss the point, in my view, and to not understand the multifarious psychology of travel; or at best to understant only one aspect of travel motivation. But I think this consistent tendency in the travel literature to denigrate this desire for distinction in travel is misguided and quite missed the point.