I have to disagree. Sure, if you stick with package tours taking an air conditioned bus from one site to another, that's all you'll get. But there is more than enough to explore that is nothing like developed, Western countries. Yes, there are things like the Banana Pancake trail where it just feels like you can't escape the Lonely Planet bus. But I can't agree that the world can be so distilled into a guidebook that there's nothing left, or that somehow that makes the world homogenous.

A tourist can turn the world into Disneyland if they wish, but that's their own damn fault.