The travel writer’s role is to be the tourist’s perfect companion: to be articulate, well-informed, a skilled raconteur; to include a fair share of the unusual with a dash of the exotic; to tell it with infinite zest. It was Herodotus who set not only the pattern but the standard.
– Lionel Casson, Travels in the Ancient World
Since antiquity, curiosity about the known world has compelled the adventurous to travel. Over time they have set out by foot, carriage, ship, and train to reach their destinations. Their own travel accounts guided others who followed. This exhibition from the Oviatt Library’s collections gathered travel accounts, guide books and other tourist literature from the time of the ancient Greeks through the early 20th century.
The exhibition was sponsored by the Friends of the Oviatt Library and Gus and Erika Manders.