Hate to intervene in this romanticised post, I believe Shanna is right. A tourist is a subset of traveler. A traveler is merely a person going on a trip for his reasons. eg. to visit a sick relative, for business( i.e. a travelling saleman), to find a job or move, to go to Bethlehem to be counted for the census.... Not particularly romantic. A tourist is a type of traveler who travels to places for pleasure or cultural reasons. So, which are you? Maybe we need to invent a new word? <BR>As for Bob's inappropriate remark: Where I live it's considered proper to call a person a Frenchman, German, Englishman, Irishman etc. But I assure you that if you refer to someone as a "Chinaman" you will be disiplined for using a racial slur. We must learn to respect people's sensitivities as you would want them to respect yours. Clearly most people recognize "Jap" as a racial slur in today's world. My advise to you Bob is to admit your error, appologize and go forth and sin no more. Stubborn defense of you position will only cause you to lose credibility. <BR> <BR>Gerry <BR> <BR>

Bob, I'm still waiting for an apology. So far, all you've done is admit ignorance and insult those who were offended. <BR> <BR>And to avoid problems in the future, it is safer to refrain from identifying people by race unless their race is pertinent to the point you are trying to make. Next time, try "throng of people."

A tourist visits all the usual, preditable sights, stalks out his own country's food and mingles with his countryman mainly, while the traveller goes serindipidy sees few of his fellow Americans, tries all the local wine, food, etc., gets to meet the locals as much as possible.

Cows do not care what you call them, people do. Why not just admit you made and error in judgement and apologize to those you offended.

Thanks to Shanna and Gerry for accurately articulating the distinction between traveler and tourist.

I’d like to get back on track with the premise stated in my initial posting. No matter how naive or experienced we are as tourists (or travelers) we will always be strangers in a strange land. How best to cope, then? Think of the times that you’ve moved from the security and familiar comfort of your home. Whether from home to a distant school, to the military, to married life, to a new job, to a corporate relocation, to a retirement community, you became a stranger in a strange land and were forced to plan for and adapt to a new environment. That planning and adapting included seeking out new friends and neighbors, community amenities, markets and local restaurants for example, transportation, sights to see and the ways in which the community and its customs function so that you could integrate into that “strange land” yourself for the benefits to be derived. Isn’t that, shouldn’t that be, the same approach we bring to our foreign travels? I doubt that many of us would undertake relocating to a new residence without doing some preliminary study of neighborhoods and communities, familiarizing ourselves with the history of a given place and a study of its citizenry and an examination of what appeals to us and why. Don’t we do the same when traveling? If not, shouldn’t we?