Travel as Interaction: Encountering Place and Others

Abstract

This article examines ‘encounters’, or interactions between tourists. The focus is on how social life is established and maintained, specifically the meaning of inter-tourist social interactions in the remote regions of Australia. The ways in which perceptions of the landscape frame these interactions are also considered. The meaning and significance of these interactions was found to be filtered through the prism of the tourists' occupation of a physically demanding, sometimes threatening and culturally unfamiliar landscape. Because of the rigours of the travel environment, tourists were keen to be in the company of others, but in encounters or relationships free of the obligation of ongoing attachment, without specific function, content or outcome. Their interactions with other tourists and the local populations enriched their understanding of the social and physical environment. Those interactions offered comfort and companionship in what they perceived to be a hostile and alien environment.