ABSTRACT
In the transnational and post-Fordist world John was describing, tourism is no longer discernible from other ways of being in and moving through the world. As the tourist gaze becomes thoroughly integrated into the everyday, a host of other dichotomies also collapse: home and away, work and leisure, authenticity and simulation, local and global, proximity and distance. In many ways, the internet was accelerating the de-differentiation John associated with the end of tourism. It allowed backpackers to bring home with them on the road; it enabled tourists to work while on holiday; it brought the faraway nearby and allowed travelers to create a buffer that kept local realities at arm’s length. Couchsurfing represented the de-differentiation of home and mobility or of hosting and guesting, but it also revealed the way online and offline worlds were blending together. Worldschoolers are families who take their children out of conventional schools and educate them while traveling the world.
