The End of Elsewhere: Travels Among the Tourists

This outstanding book by Canadian journalist Grescoe is an absolute must for anyone who, like me, likes to travel overseas or read a good travelogue. It combines a history of tourism (ranging from the Roman Empire to modern package tours) and participatory journalism (ranging from solo hiking pilgrimage to all-inclusive cruise ship) with a very personal examination of what compels the author's own wanderlust. This is all woven into a nine-month journey that takes Grescoe from the end of the Camino de Santiago on the West coast of Spain, to the Window to the World theme park in Shenzen, China. Grescoe is the perfect kind of writer for a book with this broad a scope: erudite, witty, adventurous, insightful, and most importantly, reflective and honest. Seasoned travelers will enjoy the mini-histories, such as how the Romans established the first resort towns to indulge in outrageous behavior, how the first international travel agency (Cook's) grew from the temperance movement, the rise and fall of the "Grand Tour", the emergence of guidebook-led tourism from Michelin to Lonely Planet, and much more. As compelling as these bits are, the book's real strength lies in its provocative examination of the act of tourism. Grescoe purposely sets himself an itinerary of "where the tourist ruts have been plowed the deepest" in order to play sociologist amongst the tourists. The book's main theme is how the tourist's quest for unspoiled terrain and/or a totally "authentic" experience leads to the exact opposite of these things. This is, of course, directly linked to themes of cultural imperialism, although Grescoe is careful not to become hectoring or pedantic about any of these matters. At the same time, Grescoe is interested in why people embark on tourism and the rather depressing answer is often merely the freedom to transgress the rules of their home culture, generally in relation to some combination of alcohol, sex, or drugs. He himself falls prey to this in a low moment in Thailand, when he belatedly realizes his actions are just as ethically wrong as those of several traveling companions he's been critiquing. And that's hopefully the effect of the book on the reader -- to provoke an examination of why we want to travel and what the effects of those desires are. Note: Grescoe's two other books, on Quebec, and on forbidden pleasures, are equally excellent.

The End of Elsewhere is a wonderful book that engages the reader on several levels. Firstly, it is an entertaining travelogue, much in the style of Paul Theroux's non-fiction, shrewdly observant and mordantly funny. Grescoe follows the well-trodden paths of modern tourism, from a mock-pilgrimage in Spain, along an escorted bus tour and a Mediterranean cruise, to the remnants of the hippie drug trail in India and the sex tourists of Thailand. The author interleaves his traveler's tales with just the right amount of historical and cultural context: the history of tourism from classical Greece to Cook's Tours, the perils of misleading travel guidebooks and the destructive capacity of eco-tourism, among other subjects. The thoughtful reader will be lead inevitably to re-evaluate his own travel plans - and that, more than entertainment or information, makes this book a very worthwhile read.

This unorthodox travelogue is almost as funny and informative as Bill Bryson's books. However, I have two gripes: first, Grescoe's understanding of history is sometimes unpardonably cliche (for example, when he writes about the Spanish Civil War); second, his use of very big words (examples from just one page, page 80: "lacustrian" and "rumbustious") is at first amusing but it quickly becomes pretentious. Four stars for sure but sorry, not five.