The Case Against Travel

“Although people like to talk about their travels, few of us like to listen to them. Such talk resembles academic writing and reports of dreams: forms of communication driven more by the needs of the producer than the consumer.” In The Case Against Travel the philosopher Agnes Callard launches a vigorous assault on the idea that there is something transformative or ennobling about recreational travel. Going well beyond commonplace complaints about the irksomeness of tourists, Callard’s essay is a probing inquiry into what it really means to change one’s life, and into the ways in which we try to disguise the fact that life will come to an end.