I read an article in the newspaper about trends in the tourist industry that made me think. Now there are tours on offer to see the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, Ground Zero in New York, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina in Lousiana or the tsunamis in Thailand, and even an “illegal immigrant tour” in central Mexico where the tourist pays to feel how it is to cross the border through the desert guided by people who have done it.

Is it that we want to empathise with people who are less fortunate, or only that lives in the rich parts of the planet are just too boring?