The internet and smartphones have made us all tourists, gawking at our own lives

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Look at these idiots. Oblivious, naïve, and probably American. Even their execution of the quintessential holding-up-the-leaning-tower-of-Pisa pose is deeply flawed. Are they aware of the history? Of the architectural miasma that hangs in the air like the smell of stale Coppertone? No, no they aren't. They're tourists and they suck.

Serendipity has forsaken them. No luck, no providence, no happy accidents. Chance replaced by the resolute certainty of a travel app. Every cobblestone is triangulated and assigned a pixel, every street photographed and mapped onto Street View. Hotels booked according to the most family-friendly reviews at bookings.com, their itinerary copied from TripAdvisor's top-10 attractions before ever leaving home.

I consider "tourist" to be the filthiest of words. It's the curse I grumble when caught behind pedestrians walking without purpose on big-city sidewalks. But I differentiate between explorer and tourist: the former being someone that travels to an unfamiliar place to learn about it, the latter a barbaric asshat driven by the desire to document his very existence. The "I was here" photographer with a penchant for flashing a peace sign.

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