airblogger, Lev, Keefy, did you guys read the same article I did? I think you're responding to something other than the article; I read it as talking about how "adventure travel", while not really the adventure its hucksters claim it to be, could actually be a significant early step in education about the planet and our place on it.

Coincidentally, in the book, Ship of Gold, there's a story about a young man in 19th Century Keokuk, Iowa who after reading a sea captain's account of the Amazon River decides to leave home on an adventure to see it. He travels down the Mississippi to New Orleans confident he'll find a ship to take him Brazil. No ship offers passage, so the young man, Samuel Clemens, has no adventure to write about other than his experiences on the Mississippi.

Recently read an account of the very first packaged tour: Twain's _Innocents Abroad_. Hilarious.

From A Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley:

Not so very long ago (a century or thereabouts), Gammas, Deltas, even Epsilons, had been conditioned to like flowers–flowers in particular and wild nature in general. The idea was to make them want to be going out into the country at every available opportunity, and so compel them to consume transport.

"And didn't they consume transport?" asked the student.

"Quite a lot," the D.H.C. replied. "But nothing else."

Primroses and landscapes, he pointed out, have one grave defect: they are gratuitous. A love of nature keeps no factories busy. It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes; to abolish the love of nature, but not the tendency to consume transport. For of course it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it. The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere affection for primroses and landscapes. It was duly found.

"We condition the masses to hate the country," concluded the Director. "But simultaneously we condition them to love all country sports. At the same time, we see to it that all country sports shall entail the use of elaborate apparatus. So that they consume manufactured articles as well as transport.

Edited by author 04-15-2003 12:41 PM
I keep wondering the same thing.

My girlfriend and I want to travel. The more I read about it, the more I stumble upon treatises decrying the Evil of Tourism, and the commodification of the process of seeing new things.

If learning is the ultimate goal of travel, then should it matter if the first few experiences are cushioned, or should a person only thrust themselves out on the world in the rawest way possible, so as not to offend the sensibilities of those that have to validate their sense of authenticity?

Fuck that noise. What's wrong with seeing the god damn world in one or two week bites? If everyone in this culture only travelled by throwing away their everyday jobs and lives, very few people would step foot out of this country, and that would be even worse for blurring the ragged lines of need and economy that some people seem to imply tourism clarifies.

This is not a situation of taking people who would otherwise do their 'adventure travel' on their own (in non-commodified fashion) - rather it is simply about bringing new people into the outdoor world, people who otherwise would have gone to Disneyland for their vacation.
As someone who has spent many years sailing and rock climbing, I can attest that there is a gulf between the folks who 'do it on their own' and those who require a professional, packaged tour. I find it highly unlikely that the sort of folks who would be willing to learn and experiment on their own will suddenly not do so just because a commodified experience is suddenly available to them. To the contrary.
So if commodification helps people experience the outdoors who normally wouldn't or couldn't (and perhaps turns them into environmentalists, or at least nature-lovers in the process) then why is that a bad thing?

I don't know if there's really a big huboo; travel's always been seen as 'adventurous' and there are buck-minded individuals everywhere and everywhen who have been willing to sell it. ..Only sometimes it's mis-adventurous, so beware!