Reservations (The Pleasures and Perils of Travel)

Steve Burgess takes readers around the world as he ponders our right to roam.

In this smart and sharply funny exploration of tourism, Steve Burgess poses the questions that all travelers should pause to consider: why do we travel and should we? In his quest for answers, he reviews studies and interviews experts from many facets of the tourism industry, all the while sharing observations from some of his most personally significant travels, from Rome to Kathmandu.

So, is satisfying our own wanderlust worth the trouble it causes? Is the tourist guilty of the charges—from voyeurism to desecration—levelled against them by everyone from environmentalists to exhausted locals to superior-feeling fellow tourists who have traded in the tour bus for “authentic experiences”? While posing these ethical questions, Burgess recounts his own travel blunders and epiphanies. Readers will examine ecotourism in Antarctica, cultural voyeurism in Tana Toraja, the tourist versus the traveler in Palermo. Interspersed between chapters like “Guilt Trip” and “Err Bnb” is the story of a month Burgess spent in Japan—his first trip outside North America—and the whirlwind cross-cultural romance that brought him there; taking him on a journey around the country in search of wonder and maybe even love.

Whether navigating love in Kanazawa or seeking belonging in Siena, Burgess’s passion for travel shines through in these stories. Anyone with itchy feet will enjoy this humorous and contemplative book about one of the greatest joys in life—travel.