“Tourist or traveler” introduction to Quaderno 14
There is a quote taken from a book that I love – The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles – saying:
“We’re probably the first tourists they’ve had since the war.
Tunner, we’re not tourists. We’re travelers.
Oh. What’s the difference?
A tourist is someone who thinks about going home the moment they arrive, Tunner.
Whereas a traveler might not come back at all.”
The novel is not a novel on tourism, for sure, but the point is: what do we want to be? A tourist or a traveller? What do we want to learn from our travelling?
