Grand tours and Cooks' tours

the long version

This history of leisure travel from the middle of the eighteenth century to the start of World War I is a record of remarkable changes - in technology, the size of the traveling public, choices of destination, even beliefs about what was worth seeing. What begins as a description of the Grand Tour of the European continent for sons of wealthy British families - the tour itself was often an education in carnal as much as classical knowledge - becomes the story of how the masses came to enjoy the pleasures once reserved for a special few. In their efforts to be exclusive, the well-to-do turned to ever more exotic landscapes. Switzerland, Egypt, Japan, and the American West were among the places they sought out, as enterprising businessmen built lavish hotels to insulate rich travelers from the inconveniences of everyday life in remote locations (and from their more proletarian counterparts). But, as Lynne Withey delightfully and informatively shows, no matter where the wealthy led, mass tourism followed, with package tours, budget train tickets, and ingenious advertising providing the incentives. Among the more famous travelers who appear on these pages are James Boswell, William and Dorothy Wordsworth, James Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, Florence Nightingale, Charles Dickens, Edith Wharton, and even Emily Post (a pioneer auto traveler whose adventures included camping out in the New Mexico desert). But equal attention is paid to lesser-known men and women, among them Amelia Edwards, a pulp novelist whose journey up the Nile launched her on a career as an Egyptologist, and Ida Pfeiffer, who made a career of traveling around the world on a budget. And, of course, here are the stories of the entrepreneurs whose innovations have made their names synonymous with their products - among them Karl Baedecker, George Pullman, Cesar Ritz, and, above all, Thomas Cook.