In Defence of the Backpacker

People are instinctively inclined to be contemptuous of the tourist.Tourists dawdle and get in the way; they get lost and don’t speak the language. When tourists come, we say they descend in a ‘horde’, as though they’re Genghis’ Khan’s Mongol army rather than congregations of pleasure-seekers dithering about in a state of naivety and conspicuous consumption.