The tourist gaze takes on an especially personal slant when adopted for genealogical purposes. This leisure project is sometimes aided by a visit to the family’s “old country,” to the community from which some of the hobbyist’s ancestors emigrated. Touring here may well include dining...

This type of tourist gazing is infused with altruism, of wanting to selflessly help, for example, poor people or endangered fauna in faraway places. In what is also known as “voluntourism,” career or serious leisure volunteers spend from two weeks to several months improving drinking water,...

Here, the tourist gaze revolves around art as a serious pursuit, which is mostly possible in the performance arts of music, dance, and theater. Most of these performers (including singers) are professionals; that is, they are occupational devotees who arrived there from an amateur background....

This book links the tourist gaze with established leisure studies theory, a needed addition to the Urry/Larsen macro-level treatise on the subject. With this complementary serious leisure perspective (SLP)-related approach, we now have a more complete view of the tourist outlook. Furthermore,...

Collecting various objects is a hobby that can motivate collectors to travel to distant national and even international cities, towns, and regions in search of dolls, antiques, art objects, natural objects (e.g., rocks, conche shells, fossils, starfish). At least two folk arts invite enthusiasts...

Passive entertainment is basically where one sits back and enjoys a satisfying experience. As a tourist gaze, it is exemplified in the people who frequent, often internationally, various casinos to participate in roulette or attend racetracks to gamble on the horse. Also, passive is the...

Casual tourists living in harsh winter climates may head to warmer settings to escape such weather. Some do this by relaxing for a few weeks or longer at a beach resort or longer still at a rented house or apartment from which they can explore local attractions. Casual sensory stimulation has...

This chapter lays out insufficient detail the serious leisure perspective (SLP). It covers serious, casual, and project-based leisure. There is also a discussion of work and leisure and one about the nature of activity. Non-work obligation and occupational devotion are also considered. The main...