Travel has to do with discovery, difficulty, and inconvenience. It doesn't always pay off. There's a strong element of risk in travel. Time is usually not a constraint for the traveler, but every tourist is under a time constraint. The traveler doesn't really know where he or she is going, but has a sense of discovery.
Tourists know exactly what they want to see and they arrive with a lot of preconceived notions.
There's a kind of enlightenment in classic travel which has nothing to do with materialism or consumerism. By its very nature, travel is cheaper. A recurrent theme in these essays is that the traveler must approach the world with humility. You need the people you meet. You need their protection.