The gap year 'traveller'

(Went out for the first time ever with hair down on Friday evening. Comments on 'new look' required).
So yes, the gap year 'traveller'. Traveller comes complete with inverted commas because of the changing definition of the word that I think no longer applies to the mass tourism created by the cursed travel Industry. It used to be considered exciting and adventurous to launch yourself half way around the world and see Christ looking out over Rio, now it is part of the average twenty-somethings photo album next to their 'drunken night on Fraser Island' and 'me trashed in Cambodia' snaps. If your student room isn't complete with a miniature Buddha, a boomerang and a bong, you just wont fit in.
I've never been into this idea of seeing places for the sake of seeing them. Yes, some of what I've seen has been on what is now the standardised Tourist Trail, but this is in spite of everything rather than because of. I loathe those people who make comments such as, 'Peru! Yeah, I've been there!' as they rattle off the inevitable list: a day in Lima, day in Cusco, the Inca Trail, Lake Titicaca, Arequipa, back to Lima. Peru in a week. They then try to compare our experiences of Peru, a futile attempt to find 'something in common' which is impossible, and dear Lord if we did have something in common I'd probably throw myself from the nearest building.
What happened to individuality? Oh hang on, I know - commercialisation coupled with its inevitable counterpart, capitalism. (Ah, the wonder that is alliteration...). The majority of tourists love the fact that they can eat MacDonalds in any country (I personally appreciate the presence of such places purely for their bathroom facilities), buy Gap jeans at discount prices in certain parts of the world, and if all goes wrong then daddy's Amex card will solve the problem. Every time I go away I put myself in increasingly tough positions with greater challenges, only to have them revealed as mole-hills rather than mountains. To anyone who hasn't been to the Amazon, perhaps travelling by boat up the river for four days into the heart of the jungle sounds exciting, original, fraught with danger. Trust me, it isn't. And look at it this way - hundreds of Peruvians do this every day, and being as both Peruvians and I are mere mortals it is hardly surprising that it is highly feasible. It is amazingly annoying to go to somewhere you perceive as the middle of nowhere to bump into another blasted English person who insists on talking to you for hours purely because you were produced in the same ghastly country.
The typical gap year traveller then comes back loaded with 'experiences' of daring-do that are in reality on a par with getting the tube in London or, for those slightly more adventurous ones, standing on a Bradford street corner at 3am. Much as I like to mock them, though, I will applaud the healthy dose of cynicism that they also return with. After 'seeing the world, man, seeing how like the Other Half live' (i.e. realising that poverty doesn't mean eating a pot noodle for three dinners a week while ensconsed in your small but comfortable student room), the traveller genuinely wants to make a difference. Either that, or they want to give everything up and open a hostel on a remote Honduran beach. I can't wait to see what effect this has on the economy of countries such as the UK, who export vast quantities of these 'gappers' every year. What happens when students don't want to become accountants, but journalists? Not IT geeks, but travel writers? I love how most of the third world would love to have the chance to live in England, and all we want to do is escape it...