6 January

I’ve often suggested here that the motivation for most recreational travel isn’t to ‘see’ places, or even to ‘experience’ them. It’s to tell *others* that you’ve been there. It’s a pissing contest, about status. The location is just a backdrop for social comparison, for imitative rivalry. People try to go to places ‘off the beaten track’, to go one-up in this status game, ‘oh of course *we* don’t go to the touristy places’. Everything is about status. You can see it here happening now with Antarctica, where a huge surge of tourists there isn’t driven by anything about Antarctica itself. It’s being driven by TikTok.