There's overlap between all 3 categories, and one can jump from category to category at will. A strict definition is impossible, because you can probably be all 3 at the same time.

Traveller is on a journey somewhere, looking to experience various things along the way, preferably off the beaten path.

Visitor is just that: visiting something or someone, and not usually interested in sightseeing or other typical tourist-type activities.

Tourist is visiting a place or places more to see things, rather than experience them (i.e. driving to the rim of the Grand Canyon, looking at it, and then leaving). They generally don't go off the beaten path, and tend to visit well-known places.

It always amuses me when people want to disassociate themselves with being the "dreaded tourist"!

For me, if I had to define these terms, a visitor is some one who, well, visits. (Don't need to really go very far from home to do that) I'm traveling when I'm going to someplace, and I'm a tourist when I get there. After all, a tourist is simply one who tours, however one chooses to do so.

It's a shame that "tackiness" has become equated to "tourist" in our language. Big difference, that.

GoTravel, when I answered to your post and mentioned the restaurant, I too was just using it as an example. I was rerenceing any restaurant (or any attraction for that matter) that gets business by word of mouth, etc. as opposed to being placed in an area that is filled with tourists and thus markets them. So if you were replying to my post regarding the restaurant being used as an example, it wasn't necessary. I should have clarified that in my post and I'm sorry.

Tracy

I don't hear the term "travler" often, but I would say it could refer to someone who enjoys traveling as a hobby. Kind of like a stamp collector enjoys stamp collecting.

I consider myself a tourist any time I travel to a destination and I'm not visiting someone (in which case I would be a visitor). Even though I grew up in New Orleans and have been there several times, I still think of myself as a tourist when I go.

That's "traveler" - sorry.

GoTravel - Here's my definition:
Tourist - Someone who visits a place to see the "main sights" of the area and not diverge from the common path.
Traveler - Someone who visits a place with a thirst to see it from a "local's" point of view.
Visitor - Someone who has visited someplace often enough to have the same knowledge base as a local.

So, in any given trip, you could go through all 3 classifications.

BeachBoi-
From your post above:
"GoT...To me, the word "trap" has a totally "loser" connotation....If the tourists were happy and the locals were happy, then it was a win-win and IMHO, not a "trap".Las Vegas is a trap....most people don't "win"."

It seems that most people leave Vegas happy (and return many times), regardless of whether they win or lose. In that sense, it seems like a "win-win" scenario to me. Vegas gets your money - you get a great memory... :)

A "Tourist Trap" is a place (restaurant/store/"site") that is a "must see" so it charges more than the locals would pay for (food/drink/activity/etc.) The tourists are there because it is a "must see" -- hence the pay the inflated price because they are, essentially, "trapped" IF the tour bus stops at a specific place because of the view and the driver's cousin operates the souvenir stand...it's a "trap."

If the prices remain the same all year long for everyone, locals and tourists (who may only be there from June-August) it really isn't a trap.

I always assume that a traveller is doing more than just checking off the "must sees" -- however you certainly wouldn't want to miss seeing Times Square in NYC, so that alone wouldn't change your status. (of course a traveller wouldn't pick up all his souvenirs at the shops in Times Square, most of which can be termed "tourist traps!" ) And frankly, I'm not so sure that tourist and traveller isn't an interchangeable description. Lot's of people start out as "tourists" and discover within a few days they've become "travellers." Does anyone really ONLY check out the "must sees?"

I don;t think I agree with a lot of the tourist vs traveler defiitions. I think part of the difference is the place - traveler to me refers at least partly to destination - something less explored (Mongolia, the midst of the Sahara the backwoods of the Amazon). I don;t think you can be a traveler to NYC or Paris - or any common destination - it doesn;t have the required element of exploring. (Yes - you can do some exploring - but so have millions before you - rather than just a few).

I also think it implies in-depth exploraitn and understanding (not the 3 day cruise up the Amazon on AC riverboats set up for tourists - but the 6 or 8 week canoe trip - staying in tents or local camps in hte jungle).

And if "tourist" attractions are legitimate (Notre Dame, the Colloseum) they're not "touristy" - they are an inrinsic part of the culture - so the tourist is (we hope) actually learning something.

As for restaurants - in a lot of cities they need busines from tourists to survive. The issue is if they serve real local cuisine - or if they focus on tourists with the 14-language menus and a couple of fake versions of local food interspersed with international fast food standards.

There's nothing in the dictionary definitions of these words to support the distinctions canvassed here. What I'm hearing is an attempt to redefine them in such a way that the redefiner can in his/her own mind occupy a position of touristic superiority - more learned, astute, sensitive and adventurous than the uncouth masses who traipse around the world en masse wearing tacky clothes, making loud noises and showing their profound ignorance of other cultures at every turn. In particular, the uncouth cringeworthy masses who happen to share our own nationality, of course.

Well, this is entirely natural, even if it smacks of a garbageman defining himself as a Field Sanitary Operative, or a salesperson as a Client Relationship Manager.

On our last "visit", to China, barely a day went by when I didn't find myself sneering (in a sensitive, world-weary, traveller sort of way) at the sight of gaggles of bemused tourists being herded around in airconditioned buses, looking lost, while we actually did get lost in malodorous back alleys and practiced ordering a cold beer in Chinese.

Did I feel superior? You bet I did. Even though, mysteriously, I always got two warm beers instead. "Did you know," I later inform my awe-struck tourist-type friends "that the Mandarin words for 'two' and 'cold' sound very similar?", omitting to add that I didn't know this at the time, and so drank a lot of warm beer. Properly abashed, they don't mention that they never had the problem, because they stayed in places where you could order a beer in English. But it's half the fun, isn't it?

In the mid and late 1980s I lived in D.C. Lots of tourists are obvious there, the lost look, camera around shoulders, looking at subway map, bermuda shorts, shocked at homeless. Went back a few times since then and people actually asked me questions about the place after leaving there over a decade or so ago. When visiting I never look lost or bewildered (since I've lived there before) so that is the key - self confidence.

I think there is a very definite difference in the way people travel, whether or not "tourist" and "traveler" are the best terms to describe the difference. On most trips, I think I mix the two. It does make a lot of sense as someone else said to think of a traveler as someone to whom it is a hobby like stamp collecting, but I think it goes far beyond that. A "traveler" doesn't just collect places. To me a traveler is someone who goes on vacation at least partly to learn about a different place, whether that place is another town an hour away or half way around the world. I don't think someone has to spend a month in the jungle or desert to be a traveler - people with kids or not enough vacation time can still be travelers. It is all about the attitude - appreciating the differences and similarities in peoples and places and trying to experience and learn as much as possible.

It also bugs me when people talk about a tourist as someone with a camera around the neck. I think love of travel and love of photography are perfectly complimentary hobbies as long as the photography does not keep you from experiencing the place. I have also been known to walk around with a camera around my neck near home. Now, there may be a difference between tourist and traveler in the approach to photography. That is another discussion topic.