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This book examines the nexus between exploring and tourism and argues that exploration travel – based heavily on explorer narratives and the promises of personal challenges and change – is a major trend in future tourism. In particular, it analyses how romanticised myths of explorers form a foundation for how modern day tourists view travel and themselves. Its scope ranges from the 'Golden Age' of imperial explorers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, through the growth of adventure and extreme tourism, to possible future trends including space travel. The volume should appeal to researchers and students across a variety of disciplines, including tourism studies, sociology, geography and history.
Engaging, well-written and concise, this book provides a context for the tourist-traveller debate – a microcosm of social and cultural complexity where the quotidian meets the extraordinary and the economy of colonisation meets the egos of the great explorers. It is this legacy that explains our ongoing fascination with frontier adventure travel from exotic journeys through 'otherness' to space travel.
Jennifer Laing is a Senior Lecturer at La Trobe University, Australia. Her research interests include heritage, events, travel narratives and the interaction between media, popular culture and tourism. She also co-edits the Advances in Event Research series (Routledge) with Warwick Frost.
Warwick Frost is an Associate Professor at La Trobe University, Australia. His research interests include natural and cultural heritage and the interplay between tourism and popular culture. His recent publications include Books and Travel (with Jennifer Laing, 2012).
1. Introducing the Explorer Traveller
Section 1 – The Hero’s Journey
2. The Call to Adventure
3. Preparation and Departure
4. The Journey
5. The Return
Section 2 – Imagining Explorers
6. Fiction and the Myth of the Explorer
7. Desert Island Castaways
8. Re-enactments
Section 3 – Tourists At Play
9. Crossing Borders
10. On Safari
Section 4 – The Future
11. Destination Mars
12. The Explorer Traveller: The Myth Continues
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