Way off the Beaten Path Or How I Became a Tourism Researcher

Pour juger d’un homme, il faut suivre longuement et curieusement sa trace[‘to judge a man one must follow his tracks for a long time and with curiosity’] Michael de Montaigne, Essais V. 1Juliet Flower MacCannell, trans. The locution “Off the Beaten Track” It is as old as writing by and about tourists. It signals an intent to experience more than, or other than, the herds of tourists who came before and who will come after. The metaphor of a track or a path always implies a morality. Fundament...