9 January

Chesterton pointed out that those who stay home and read about distant lands, will get closer to the reality of those places than those who go there to visit them. This is what travel culure can’t understand. You can see Chesterton’s point by thinking about a celebrity. If you stay home and read about that person, and look at pictures, you can get some sort of understanding of them as a person. If you go to see them, directly, you’re just like the paparazzi. You are physically close to them, but a million miles away from the real person. You won’t understand a single thing about them, even though you’re only centimetres away from the ‘real’ thing.