The Traveler vs. The Tourist

John Flinn explored the familiar tourist-traveler debate in Sunday’s San Francisco Chronicle. His take? “The problem, I think, is that it’s gotten so much harder for status-conscious travelers to feel superior,” he writes. “A generation or two ago, merely stepping onto an airplane or a train or a ship and going somewhere—anywhere—was all it took to give you the backyard-barbecue standing of a sophisticated man of the world. But these days everyone travels—on the trail to Everest I once ran into a vacationing San Francisco stripper—so what can be done to elevate yourself over your fellow travelers? Deride them as ‘tourists.’” On a side note: Hiking the trail to Everest with a San Francisco stripper sounds like a best-selling travel memoir just waiting to be written. It’s Into Thin Air meets The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer!

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