Scholars Mind

Travel Off the Beaten Path

Although nothing beats a Jet2 Holiday, tourists are increasingly avoiding tours that shuffle everyone through the same overcrowded museums and restaurants in favor of more “authentic” travel experiences. Explore the following niche forms of travel and consider what role social media may have had in promoting them. How realistic is it to engage in deep exchange and learning while on holiday?

  • heritage tourism | ecotourism | gastrotourism | agritourism | monastic retreats
  • voluntourism | edutourism | wellness retreats | dark tourism

A traveller hunts Xiaohongshu for somewhere unspoiled and finds a tiny Korean village bookshop. So does everyone else who read the post: outside, the visitors outnumber the locals.

Key concepts

Daka Tourism
Going somewhere mainly to be photographed there, because you saw the photograph. *Daka* means to clock in, as at a job — and the destination becomes a backdrop that proves attendance rather than a place you spend time in.

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Every work — at a glance

  • Heritage Tourism (travel form)

    Travel to historic sites and living traditions — castles, old towns, festivals.

+ 13 more works explained inside

What to know

  1. 01
    How deep can exchange really go on a holiday? As deep as what the trip asks of you. A monastery or a memorial site demands discomfort and attention; a wellness retreat asks for money and nothing else. Depth tracks what the traveller has to give up, not what the brochure promises.

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Across subjects

Art got here first. Eighteenth-century tourists judged a valley by how closely it resembled a Claude Lorrain painting, and carried tinted "Claude glasses" to

Theme connection

"Are We There Yet?"

Can a fortnight teach you anything? Immersion is real education — you cook, farm, sit in silence, and come back changed. Or you build a wall you are not qualified to build and fly home with a souvenir bought out of someone else's poverty. The forms differ; the sales pitch doesn't.

Practice — a sample

ARTDix etched the Somme's dead while Germany was busy romanticising the war. The STRONGEST objection to an Auschwitz selfie is its real subject —

  • A The journey
  • B The camp
  • C The crowd
  • D The visitor
  • E The memorial

Sign in to answer and see why each option is right or wrong.

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