"NealR2000" wrote in message
ups.com...
On May 29, 9:54 pm, "k" wrote:


I think you are the one who is being snotty. Mr. R's response was
fine and not in the least bit offensive. Yours was. He came across
to me as someone who wants to encourage people to travel having done
their own research. Why do you assume that he, and travelers like
him, would somehow miss good hotels and food? Travel books have all
that stuff.

Sorry, but Mr. R describes a tourist, then claims travelers are somehow
better and would never do what a tourist does. It makes no sense, and it's
a phrase that's been banned from all the good travel magazines. Travel is
the part where you waste time in airports, sit in cramped planes and buses
and trains, and go from point A to point B, where you become a tourist if
you do anything else at all. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being a
tourist, and there is nothing at all wrong with the people who choose to go
on group tours. Nothing.

We prefer solo travel, but will often take a tour to somewhere new,
especially somewhere with a language we can't decipher, which describes most
of Asia. If we go back to a place, it's on our own. A lot of the fun of
going places is meeting people, and you will never do that if you're already
viewing them with disdain because they're 'tourists' and you're somehow
better than that.

Mr R advised against being a tourist, and offered nothing useful. I made
several suggestions and comments about my favorite country. I guess I'm
just not accustomed to being talked down to by elitists like Mr. R, but if
that's your thing, go for it.