the ethics of travel

I'm reading Owen Lattimore's The Desert Road to Pakistan, written in  the late 1920's.  He and his wife made an unforgettable trip across what was then Mongol country, partly by caravan, by cart and various other means of travel.  I had previously read Eleanor's Turkestan Reunion, and wanted more.

In his introduction, he talks about travellers who ignorant of the history, customs and language of the people among whom they travel, substitute adventure for the gathering of information and turned incompetence in the art of travel into 'endurance of hardship'.

My little 2 week trips smack of such laziness.  I can defend it by saying how busy I am, but the end result is that I know so little of the places that I go to visit.  This puts me squarely in the camp of the arrogant American that I do my best to distance myself from.  And yet...I will still travel, I must.  I think the greater harm for me would be not to go.