A quote...

Right now I am reading the book V. (complete thoughts forthcoming when I finish all 533 bloated pages) and found a quote on tourism that is frighteningly accurate and something I am hoping to avoid in my travels.

This is a courious country, populated only by a breeed called
"tourists." Its landscape is one of inanimate monuments and buildings;
near-inanimate barmen, taxi-drivers, bellhops, guides: there to do any bidding,
to various degrees of efficiency, on receipt of the recommended baksheesh,
pourboire, mancia, tip. More than this it is two-dimensional, as is the Street,
as are the pages and maps of those little red handbooks. As long as the Cook's,
Travellers' Clubs and banks are open, the Distribution of Time section followed
scrupulously, the plumbing at the hotel in order..., the tourist may wander
anywhere in this coordinate system without fear. War never becomes more serious
than a scuffle with a pickpocket...; depression and prosperity are reflected
only in the rate of exchange; politics are of course never discussed with the
native population. Tourism thus is supranational, like the Catholic Church, and
perhaps the most absolute communion we know on earth: for be its members
American, German, Italian, whatever, the Tour Eiffel, Pyramids, and Campanile
all evoke identical responses from them; their Bible is clearly written and does
not admit of private interpretation; they share the same landscapes, suffer the
same inconveniences, live by the same pellucid time-scale.