The Case Against Travel

"Although people like to talk about their travels, few of us like to listen to them. Such talk resembles academic writing and reports of dreams: forms of communication driven more by the needs of the producer than the consumer." In The Case Against Travel the philosopher Agnes Callard launches a vigorous assault on the idea that there is something transformative or ennobling about recreational travel. Going well beyond commonplace complaints about the irksomeness of tourists, Callard's essay is a probing inquiry into what it really means to change one's life, and into the ways in which we try to disguise the fact that life will come to an end.

Agnes Callard is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago. Her book Aspiration was published in 2017.