Yesterday was Paul Theroux's (frequent guest on Rick's radio show) 81st birthday and he had a pithy take on the traveler vs. tourist debate:
“The difference between travel and tourism is the difference between walking in the hot sun to meet an angry person who is going to insult me and then tell me his amazing story, and lying in the sun sipping a cool drink and reading, say, Death in Venice. The first is more profitable; the second more pleasant. Both are enlightening.”
I remember picking up his book about hiking the entire circumference of England only to find that it was really about one's mixed emotions at entering middle age, and that made me a fan ever since --
The Kingdom By The Sea
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005UAI0NE/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1