Guilt Trip

Many of us accept that we are living in a new era, one in which nothing is inconsequential. All our actions, it seems, are imbued with profound significance: the generation of pollution, the repression of this group or that, the exploitation of tradition, and the spread of disease. The global consciousness released by the internet and smartphones has rendered innocence ignorance; not knowing has become the same as not caring.

Travelling has long been considered a remedy for ignorance: a way to see inside the world of others, to experience different cultures, to empathize with (or scrutinize) their actions, even to regain innocence. Afar, we are babes in the woods, without language or custom, learning the value of mercy and generosity at the hands of others. But in a growing number of circles, that old sense of receptive naïveté has been replaced by the idea that travel is damaging, insensitive, unnecessary. Even the low-impact mantra “Take only pictures, leave only...