Early travellers to Greece and their modern counterparts

The view of tourism’s past for Greece is dominated by narratives of early travelers who recorded their experiences punctuated by reference to Greek archaeological treasures, the natural history and the population, and portrayed Greece as a place of difference. Based on these accounts, this study undertakes a typological approach as a crucial element of understanding early Greek travelers’ interests. A typological interpretation of early travel accounts has resulted in six groups of travelers, namely the antiquaries, the collectors, the philhellenists, the artists, the environmentalists, and the professional travelers. These types are compared with modern tourism in an attempt to identify similarities and differences that will help to establish continuity between early and modern traveling.