（本文作者，“孤獨星球”創(chuàng)始人托尼·韋勒和他的妻子莫琳·韋勒）

背景介紹：孤獨星球出版社（Lonely Planet Publications，簡稱Lonely Planet，縮寫：LP）是世界知名的的私人旅游指南出版社，由托尼·韋勒（Tony Wheeler）和莫琳·韋勒（Maureen Wheeler）夫婦于1972年在澳大利亞維多利亞州墨爾本西郊的富茲克雷區(qū)創(chuàng)立。其出版社出版的旅游書籍就稱為《孤獨星球》系列，是第一個針對背包客撰寫的旅游系列叢書，受到背包客及其他低開銷旅游者的廣泛歡迎。截至2004年，一共出版了650個主題，涉及118個國家，年銷售量達600萬本。

In late 1972, my wife and I had spent six months traveling through Asia when we landed in Bangkok from Calcutta. We’d bought an old car in London, driven it all the way to Kabul, sold it for a small profit, and carried on east by whatever transport came our way. We didn’t realize it at the time, but a travel revolution was about to take place in the region. In the next 40 years, travel was going to be on a dramatic growth curve everywhere in the world, but nowhere would the change be as great as in Southeast Asia.
1972年末，我和妻子從印度加爾各答飛往泰國曼谷，這時我們已經(jīng)花了六個月完成了穿越亞洲的旅行。我們在倫敦買了一輛舊車，一路開到阿富汗首都喀布爾，在那兒賣掉了車，再繼續(xù)向東旅行，路上用上了所有我們能夠找到的交通工具。當時我們并未意識到，這一地區(qū)正醞釀著一場旅游革命。在此后的四十年中，全球旅游業(yè)都以驚人的速度增長著，但在東南亞地區(qū)發(fā)生的變化無疑是最大的。

Four decades ago, Bangkok was still winding down from its role as a Vietnam R&R escape. The movies of The Beach and The Hangover, Part 2 were still many years away. My wife and I continued south: we hitchhiked from Bangkok to Singapore, took a ship to Jakarta, and thumbed a ride on a New Zealand yacht sailing from Bali down to Australia. Sure, there were other tourists around—we certainly weren’t first-time pioneers—but compared with today’s numbers, they were minuscule.
四十年前，曼谷還在忙著擺脫它作為越南戰(zhàn)爭中軍隊休整地的角色。電影《海灘》和《宿醉II》的拍攝還是許多年以后的事情。從曼谷開始，我和妻子繼續(xù)向南旅行：搭車到新加坡，乘船到雅加達（印尼首都），然后搭上了一條從巴厘島開往澳大利亞的新西蘭游艇。當然一路上還有其他旅行者——我們顯然不是第一批吃螃蟹的人——但規(guī)模跟今天比起來實在微不足道。

A host of factors came together around that time. The baby boomers—I was one of them—were stretching their travel wings and going farther afield than their parents had ever dreamed. Europe was just the jumping-off point, whether we were planning on riding the Marrakesh Express or following the Beatles all the way to India. The first 747s had taken passengers on board just two years earlier, and soon a host of new airlines would become familiar names, flying us to undiscovered places and doing it at delightfully low prices. Plus, the world was opening up. Over the next 10 years, Southeast Asia would make the transition from war zone to fun zone—and in the subsequent decade China, almost totally closed off since the communist takeover in the late ’40s, would open its doors.
有許多因素造成了那之后旅游業(yè)的快速增長。首先，在“嬰兒潮”中出生的那一批人——我就是其中之一——正在四處旅行，遠離家鄉(xiāng)去到他們的父輩從未想過的地方。不管我們的旅行計劃是搭乘馬拉喀什快車還是跟隨披頭士的腳步前往印度，歐洲都不過是一個起點。最早的波音747飛機不過在兩年前才開始運營，但很快一批新航線就將為人們熟知，并以低廉的價格帶我們飛向尚不為人所知的地方。另外，這個世界也正變得更加開放。在接下來的十年中，東南亞將從戰(zhàn)爭地區(qū)變成游樂場——再之后的十年，自共產(chǎn)黨在40年代末當權后幾乎完全封閉的中國也將打開她的大門。

A generational shift, aviation developments, and dramatic political changes kicked off that travel revolution, but it was technology that really pushed it along. Suddenly we could book cheap flights, find comfortable hotels, research our sightseeing, and tell the folks back home about it, all more or less instantly.
新一代人的出現(xiàn)，航空工業(yè)的發(fā)展，連同出人意料的政治變革一起揭開了這場旅游革命的序幕，但真正推動了這場革命的是技術的發(fā)展。仿佛就在一夜之間，我們都可以訂到便宜機票，找到舒適旅店，獲取景點資料，并把旅行經(jīng)歷告訴留在家里的人了，而這一切幾乎瞬間就可以完成。

So in many ways the world has become a much less lonely place in the four decades since the first Lonely Planet guidebook. Yet I never forget that if you want to get away from the crowds, the empty places are still out there.
自第一本《孤獨星球》旅行指南出版以來的四十年間，這個世界在各種意義上都已經(jīng)變得不那么“孤寂”了，但我一直不曾忘記——如果你想要遠離人群，空無人煙的地方依然存在。

Earlier this year I was kicking around the Solomon Islands and ended up one day at a small resort just south of the port of Gizo. I took a resort kayak and paddled out into the bay to an island a mile offshore. I pulled the kayak onto the sand and there I was, on the same sandy beach where a young JFK had stumbled out of the water, his patrol torpedo boat sunk after a collision with a Japanese destroyer nearly 70 years ago. How many people get to do that? Tourist numbers to the Solomons are still tiny despite superb scuba diving, comfortable places to stay, and fine local beers.
今年早些時候，我曾在所羅門群島呆過一陣子。有一天，我閑逛到了Gizo港南邊的一個小景區(qū)。在那兒我找了一只小艇，劃到了離岸一英里遠的一座小島上。我把小艇拖上沙灘，站在那兒，站在年輕的約翰·肯尼迪曾站過的同一片沙灘上——近70年前，他的魚雷快艇在這一帶撞上了一艘日本驅逐艦之后沉沒了，而這座小島的這片沙灘正是他從水里跌跌撞撞地爬起來的地方。還有多少人到過那兒呢？盡管在所羅門群島能夠享受到頂級的潛水設施、舒適的住所和優(yōu)質(zhì)的當?shù)仄【疲ツ莾旱挠慰鸵廊环浅Ｉ佟?/div>

I’m a lucky traveler. I get that thrill of experiencing something by myself, far from the crowds, on a regular basis. You don’t have to walk to the remote corners of Tibet or kayak the backblocks of the Pacific to find your own place. Surprisingly, in our?jampacked?world, it’s still remarkably easy to escape the congestion. Could you find a more crowded European destination than Venice in the summer? Well, go there, walk a few blocks away from the swarms in St. Mark’s Square, choose any one of a dozen beautiful old churches, sit down in a pew, and look around. Chances are you’ll be by yourself.
我是個幸運的旅行者，時不時就能體會到遠離人群獨自旅行的快感。但是要找一個只屬于你的地方，不一定非得去到西藏偏遠的角落或是太平洋人煙稀少的腹地。即便我們的世界已經(jīng)擁堵不堪，要想逃離擁塞還是非常容易。歐洲沒有哪個旅游景點比夏天的威尼斯更加擁擠，但即便在那兒，你只要從人潮洶涌的圣馬可廣場出發(fā)，走上幾個街區(qū)，在眾多優(yōu)美的老教堂中隨便挑一個，走進去坐在長椅上——看看四周吧，很有可能你是獨自一人。

The world is a more crowded place, the check-in lines are longer, the planes are bigger, the tourist numbers larger, but if you want a lonely place you can still find it.
這個世界正變得比以前更擁擠，檢票口排的隊更長，飛機更大，游客更多，但如果你真想找一個沒有人的地方，你還是找得到的。

聲明：雙語文章中，中文翻譯僅代表譯者個人觀點，僅供參考。如有不妥之處，歡迎指正。