Grand tours and Cooks' tours

by Lynne Withey

This history of leisure travel from the middle of the eighteenth century to the start of World War I is a record of remarkable changes - in technology, the size of the traveling public, choices of destination, even beliefs about what was worth seeing. What begins as a description of the Grand Tour of the European continent for sons of wealthy British families - the tour itself was often an education in carnal as much as classical knowledge - becomes the story of how the masses came to enjoy the pleasures once reserved for a special few. In their efforts to be exclusive, the well-to-do turned to ever more exotic landscapes. Switzerland, Egypt, Japan, and the American West were among the places they sought out, as enterprising businessmen built lavish hotels to insulate rich travelers from the inconveniences of everyday life in remote locations (and from their more proletarian counterparts). But, as Lynne Withey delightfully and informatively shows, no matter where the wealthy led, mass