Old Roads, New Tramps: 19th Century American Pedestrian Travelers in Europe

This essay examines travel books written by American pedestrian travelers in Europe in the 19th century. Drawing from recent studies on the cultural history of walking (Solnit 2001; Amato 2004), it analyzes works by authors such as Bayard Taylor and Mark Twain, showing that these texts aimed, on the one hand, at “americanizing” the elitist concept of “Grand Tour” by refashioning it according to the egalitarian and democratic ideals of the New World, On the other hand, they contributed to build an alternative tourist imagination by spreading a new way of experiencing the destination, very much at odds with the comforts and values of middle-class tourism, which had risen considerably thanks to the development of the railway system.