What’s the best looking Bond film…

[MrKiddWint]

@Dustin

You went to these places and discovered a different side of the world, foreign customs and foreign lives.

It is the difference between the traveler and the tourist.

[secretagentfan]

@Dustin

I suspect it’s also the general mindset that has changed, not merely the availability. In my youth, any voyage was an adventure, whether by car across the Alps, by train across (western) Europe powered by InterRail or by plane to Israel, Turkey and Greece.

You went to these places and discovered a different side of the world, foreign customs and foreign lives. Travel then was by no means cheap, I must have slept in half a dozen ‘Hotel Californias’ before the song became a cult classic, almost all of them nasty dosshouses just so I could go on for a day - or a week! - longer. I worked at a Paris bookstore for a sandwich and a place to sleep and the year after I had to do it again.

The difference seems to be, today people try to escape their lives for a week or two of boozing and full board, not really caring about where they are going as long as it looks impressive on their Insta stories. They let themselves be herded into Venice, into Barcelona or simply one of the tourist ghettos floating on the seas or hermetically sealed off on some tropical beach. The hotspots are notoriously overcrowded. By us. The people living there are gradually out-priced of their homes and cities.

And back home a zillion burned out tourists plan their next vacation in six months, more booze, more junk food, more selfies of their shiny, happy nightmare lives. How can anybody mistake this for fun? And yet, people aren’t forced onto overcrowded charter flights, aren’t forced to spend their precious lifetime with an industry designed to make them even more stressed and miserable. They do it willingly.

So true. And so sad.