ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the creation of a framework that attempts to understand our motivations as tourists, and why as tourists some landscapes figure above others, exemplified by National Parks. Many people wander no farther than two hundred metres from the car; buy an ice cream and then return to an urban home, yet feel as though they have experienced and consumed something unique, something magical. Certain touristic landscapes are understood as something extraordinary, special, perhaps even sacred. Holidays and certain landscapes can be used as temporal markers of lives and existence. There is no attempt here to provide a definition of a sacred landscape, as these are defined through reflexive practice. This chapter considers the way in which individual leisure landscapes may be elevated to a level that enables the experience to be defined as ‘sacred’.
