Reclaiming Travel

Based on a controversial opinion piece originally published in the New York Times, Reclaiming Travel is a provocative meditation on the meaning of travel from ancient times to the twenty-first century. Ilan Stavans and Joshua Ellison seek to understand why we travel and what has come to be missing from our contemporary understanding of travel. Engaging with canonical and contemporary texts, they explore the differences between travel and tourism, the relationship between travel and memory, the genre of travel writing, and the power of mapmaking, Stavans and Ellison call for a rethinking of the art of travel, which they define as a transformative quest that gives us deeper access to ourselves. Tourism, Stavans and Ellison argue, is inauthentic, choreographed, sterile, shallow, and rooted in colonialism. They critique theme parks and kitsch tourism, such as the shantytown hotels in South Africa where guests stay in shacks made of corrugated metal and cardboard yet have plenty of food, water and space. Tourists, they assert, are merely content with escapism, thrill seeking, or obsessively snapping photographs. Resisting simple moralizing, the authors also remind us that people don’t divide neatly into crude categories like travelers and tourists. They provoke us to reflect on the opportunities and perils in our own habits. In this powerful manifesto, Stavans and Ellison argue that travel should be an art through which our restlessness finds expression—a search for meaning not only in our own lives but also in the lives of others. It is not about the destination; rather, travel is about loss, disorientation, and discovering our place in the universe.

Leisure activities account for much of our time - and money. But are contemporary forms of leisure good for us? Are they really leisure? And how much does (and should) leisure matter? Classical philosophers paid attention to these questions. Increasingly, modern philosophers too are realizing the importance of leisure, and of a good leisure/work balance. Hayden Ramsay looks at the meaning of leisure, and the links between recreation, relaxation, virtue, and happiness. By focussing on leisure activities such as sport, travel, music and reading, Ramsay explores the need for good play in a good life.

When you travel, you have a choice: You can be a tourist and have a nice time, or you can be a traveler and change your life. Why Travel Matters is for those who want to change their lives. Why Travel Matters explores the profound life lessons that await anyone who wishes to learn what travel has to teach. With engaging prose, delightful wit and a distinctive style, Craig Storti infuses his own experiences traveling the world for 30-plus years with quotations, insights, reflections and commentary from famous travelers, great travel writers, historians and literary masters. Storti's vast knowledge of the literature makes him an expert curator of astute gems from the likes of St. Augustine, Mark Twain, Somerset Maugham, D. H. Lawrence, Bruce Chatwin, Aldous Huxley and more.

V. S. Naipaul is a major and controversial figure in postcolonial and world literature. This book provides a challenging and uncompromisingly honest study that engages with history, genre theory, aesthetics, and global literary culture, with close reference to Naipaul's published and archival material. In his fiction and creative histories, the definition of the modern idea of world literature is informed by the importance of an artistic ordering of perception. Although often expressing ideas that are prejudicial and morally repugnant, there is an honesty in his writings where one finds extraordinary insights into how life is experienced within colonial structures of power. These colonial structures provided no abstract unity to the field of literary expression and ignored vernacular cultures. The book argues that a universal ideology of the aesthetic, transcending time, regions, and languages, provides world literature with a unity which is possible only within a critical universal humanism attuned to heroic readings of texts and cultures.

Understanding how places, particularly cities and towns, are marketed to and consumed by tourists, is vital to anyone working in the tourism industry. By creating and promoting a unique branded destination, the successful marketer can attract new visitors to their city or tourism attraction. With the rise of social media, there is even more scope to explore how tourism marketers can use their own and other social media sites to communicate with today’s tech connected traveler. In a new updated volume, Tourism Marketing for Cities and Towns provides thorough and succinct coverage of place marketing theory specific to the tourism industry. It focuses on clearly explaining how to develop the branded destination with special emphasis on product analysis, promoting authenticity and, new to this edition, the use of social media to create the personalized experiences desired by visitors. In addition, it contains a wide range of international examples and perspectives from a large variety of different stakeholders, alongside discussion questions and strategic planning worksheets. This book provides both practical advice with real-world application and a theoretical background to the field as a whole. Written in an engaging style, this book will be valuable reading for upper level students and business practitioners of Tourism, Marketing, Urban Studies, Business Management and Leisure Studies.

* Fully updated new edition from columnist Roger Collis