Americans revel in the speed and acceleration of their daily lives. Our children process information quicker than the mainframe computers of a generation ago. Essays have become sound bites; pensive reflection the nanodecision; long term planning has been replaced by the drive for next quarter's bottom line.Why then do we still insist on taking our automobile vacations in the manner of our forefathers? Attractions along the highway are like a string of pearls, but most domestic travel writers -- nostalgically enamored of small town minutiae and preternatural open road rapture -- still focus on the string.
Twenty-somethingth Century Americans have been bred for a new kind of tourism - Hypertourism - where the key is speed. For any given time period, the faster you go, the more you see and experience. QED. If you're going to waste time savoring, you might as well have Zeno riding shotgun. You'll just never get anywhere.
A corollary benefit of this Zeno-phobic attitude is an increased awareness of what we call the "information paradox." By getting out on the road and escaping your traditional sources of "news" -- by subjecting yourself to the beating flagella of unfamiliar media as you speed from place to place -- the Big Picture suddenly sits in your lap and plants a wet one on you.