Pack your bags. Today is something called National Tourist Appreciation Day, and there’s a lot to appreciate about the world’s nations that depend on tourism for economic stability — including Macau, Madagascar, the Maldives, Malta, and Mexico (and that’s just ones that start with the letter M). Tourism within the U.S. is a $200 billion market and, although COVID spoiled everyone’s party in one way or another, analysts see it growing to $222 billion over the next four years. Lots of bands have had something to say about the topic, too. There was St. Germain’s lo-fi 2000 album, “Tourist,” and then there was the 1979 album “The Tourist” by the post-punk band of the same name (who is now long, long forgotten). Sometimes being a tourist means being a passenger (and if Iggy Pop’s 1977 single “The Passenger” comes to mind, you’re not alone), but being one of those invariably means being a traveler, too. In one of his uncharitable moods, Ralph Waldo Emerson once called travel “a fool’s paradise,” and the cranky critic and novelist G.K. Chesterton famously tut-tutted, “travel narrows the mind.” But never mind them. Today is a national day of appreciation, so let’s flip the script on Chesterton and Emerson and invoke the tourist-friendly guidebook author Rick Steves who once wrote, “Travel is rich with learning opportunities, and the ultimate souvenir is a broader perspective.” Photo courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, public domain.
NCPA
