Expecting the world puts big pressure on vacation

“There’s No Getting Away” (May 10) is a much-needed wake-up call for a lot of us. Our acutely consumerist society sets us up for this, however. It’s no surprise that the magazines on my nightstand bear such familiar headlines as “Hawaii: 20 Perfect Places to Stay Now,” “St. Bart’s Sexiest Villas” and “World’s Best Cruise Ships.” We’re conditioned to gauge the quality of vacations by whether they are “perfect” and “sexy” and ranked. Somehow I think Robert Louis Stevenson (the great Scottish author) got it just right ... and without Conde Nast ratings. He says, “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move” (1879, “Travels With a Donkey in the Cevennes”).

Lawrence Szabo

Venice Beach