Product Description

When it comes to holidays, some talk about "seeing the world", others about "getting away from it all". These two basic philosophies of travel are elaborated in this investigation of "elsewhereness" as a human pursuit. Whether we set out in search of a mountainscape that will take our breath away, artifacts of the past to enrich our minds, the purest sand on the most unspoiled beach, or a summer place to know and cherish, we follow inner itineraries as time-honoured and various as the routes we take. Beginning his cultural journey among some 18th-century pioneers of tourism, Lofgren takes us on a tour of the Western holiday world and shows how two centuries of "learning to be a tourist" have shaped our own ways of vacationing. We see how fashions in destinations have changed through the years, with popular images (written, drawn, painted, and later photographed) teaching the tourist what to look for and how to experience it. The means of travel have bred their own expectations and rewards. Faster and more affordable tranportation, besides permitting more than a small elite to go "on holiday", has led to the package tour and the globalization of tourism.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3142274 in Books
• Published on: 1999-10-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 334 pages

Review
"Never a boring excursion."--Margaret Walsh, "Business History

Customer Reviews

An insightful history - and theory - of vacationing
Are you going on holiday soon and need something to read in order to fill empty hours of vacationing? Buy this book, as it will explain to you what you are doing and why. Are you not going on holiday anytime soon and feel sorry for yourself? Read this book and you will get a vicarious pleasure from it. "On Holiday" traces the history of modern vacationing from its beginning in the 19th century (mentioning its earlier roots) to its development, globalization and standardization in the 20th. Orvar Löfgren puts ethnology to its proper use: thanks to it, we can understand our habits and mores, we can put them in a historical and geographical perspective, we can reflect over what we tend to take for granted. Funny and instructive, local and global, cheerfully ironic but never bitingly sarcastic, "On Holiday" is a kind of literature that might, and should, be read by all kinds of readers.