29 August

Every man and woman and their dog will tell you the joy of travel is to ‘experience’ other places and other cultures. Experience is a tautology. Everything in your life is an experience. The travel guide book shows the lie. People need a guide to tell them what to experience. The place and the culture are not just ‘there’, waiting to be absorbed. You’ll be closer to the real Paris by reading Victor Hugo, than you will be visiting the city. You being there changes the city too, in destructive ways, while reading Hugo doesn’t. Because we confuse place with space, we think ‘being there’ brings us closer to the essence of something. But place is a verb, not a noun. It’s a relationship, built up over generations.