I grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, a town best characterized by a jeremiad emblazoned across upper backs and pickup trucks: "If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot 'em?"
While such an armed intervention might be unique to the American South, it also identifies one of the most bizarre global characteristics of the tourism industry: self-damnation.
From Pattaya to Paris, everyone hates the tourist.
And everyone -- tourists especially -- goes through great pains to separate themselves from the peripatetic leper caste.
The canny nomad stays off the beaten path, eats only where locals eat and, above all, refers to him- or herself as a "traveler."
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