Three retired women travel by bus on their way to discover Europe. They’ve recently lost their husbands and now it’s time to start living. They’ve heard people talk about the wonders of tourism all their lives and are dying to experience them firsthand.

My first trip as a tourist was to Italy, and it was an odyssey. I went on a 15-day bus tour around the country where I had time to toss a coin into the Trevi Fountain, hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and faint in Florence. But I didn't pass out from taking in the city's beauty, like Stendhal did, but from getting sunstroke after all the long lines I had to wait in under the hot July sun.

Ever since tourism became democratised, more and more people have the opportunity to travel for pleasure. But the tourist boom has created a tourism model where the true experience of being in contact with other cultures and places or engaging in activities that are nothing like the ones that are part of our day-to-day lives no longer prevails.

Package tours turn the experience into something tedious, predictable, and shockingly uniform. Hordes of travelers waste their time in cities, standing in endless lines to see things that don't interest them in the least, buying useless souvenirs, visiting places that look like photocopies of so many others.