One of the few philosophers of the 21^st Century known to the general public, Alain de Botton is renowned for his detailed explorations of the minutiae of daily life (for a given quantity of middle class white Europeans, but more on that below.) If The Art of Travel is an indication, he is also the sort of person I hate meeting on vacation.

He’s the Show Me state, arriving grumpy and rumpled from his voyage to stand before the purported spectacle he has dutifully come to observe and demand that it enthrall him, turning away spitting into the dust when the vista/church façade/thing in the guide book cannot overcome his exhaustion, his highway numbness, his sense of entitlement. All I could think was, brother, you’ve got to get out more.  

De Botton’s enduring thesis appears to be that, since travel is never quite what we expect it to be, we shouldn’t do it at all.  Perhaps because he draws inspiration from some of Europe’s greatest grumps. Anyone who’s travelled a lot may have noticed that no type of person is more consistently displeased by the facts of travelling than middle-aged white men, yet these are de Botton’s only voices of reference. 

Men like Charles Baudelaire, who crafted many beautiful sentences in his writing, evoking our emotions with a master’s touch, but who personally was a miserable shit who despised the world and sought constantly to escape from it.  Ought we really to take his word on the value of going abroad?  A man who was so disgusted by a layover in the tropical isle of Mauritius that he cancelled his entire trip and went home? That’s not exactly the mark of a staggering genius.

Yes, there are moments of more interesting thought, but I was in truth too busy travelling (and enjoying the shit out of it) to read much of the rest of the book. I do know that it has confirmed my intention to never, ever go on an ocean cruise. Because if I encounter a fellow traveler of De Botton’s temperament, I want to be able to walk away.