Gail Pool

I wish I Married a Travel Junkie, by Samuel Jay Keyser--a travel-averse spouse married to an intrepid traveler--had been better written and edited, but in view of my own experience in New Guinea, I definitely responded to this observation:

"The average traveler when asked why he or she travels almost always responds with something like, "I want to experience someone else's culture. That's a red herring. How can you experience someone else's culture from an air-conditioned bus going 20 miles an hour through the streets of Pusan? All right. Get off the bus and walk through the fish market. You haven't experienced someone else's culture. All you've experienced is a lot of fish for sale. Most anthropologists spend years trying to get inside someone else's culture. Many of them come back home to a nervous breakdown for their efforts. Culture hopping isn't easy."