Special-purpose travel in ancient times: 'Tourism' before tourism?

Abstract

Tourism is generally regarded as a quite recent phenomenon, but researchers and scholars do not agree on its historical roots: some relate them to the mid-nineteenth century progress of transport infrastructure and the availability of leisure time, others to the Grand Tour as a particular type of aristocratic travel in the 17-18th centuries, and some even to mediaeval pilgrimages. However, trips similar to today's tourism were made as early as during the ancient period, when people travelled not only for trade and business, religion, sports, health, education and other specific reasons, but also for leisure and pleasure involving sightseeing of the new and unfamiliar areas. The aim of this paper is to bring together the insights of the literature on travel in the ancient Graeco-Roman world and, particularly, on special-purpose trips which might be seen as a distant forerunner of some modern forms of tourism.

Keywords

• special interest tourism
• tourism history
• ancient travel
• Graeco-Roman world