So where are people going? Michael Heflin, president of Andrew Harper Travel, says his customers are defining “remote” differently. It’s not that they want to leave civilization behind. Quite the contrary, they want to take a little civilization with them. “Travelers are discovering the beauty of remote spots that are perfect for social distancing,” he says. “And many of them are in the continental United States. Remote doesn’t necessarily equal roughing it, though.”

Jacqueline Lambert and her husband were just about to wrap up a vacation in Italy when the borders locked down. They decided to stay, renting an apartment in the Aosta Valley in Northern Italy. "We're going to enjoy the weather and beautiful scenery, which we have all to ourselves," says Lambert, a guide book author. Others are changing their itineraries before they leave. That's what happened to me last week. I had planned to spend a month in Italy, with stops in Bologna, Venice, Rome and Südtirol. Then the entire country turned into a red zone. 

Frequent travelers expect traffic jams and long lines. But holiday travel brings out the novices, says Jacqueline Whitmore, a former flight attendant and director of the Protocol School of Palm Beach. "They don't know what to expect. They get very frustrated, very quickly," she says. Whitmore has seen it herself. She worked on flights where inconsiderate newbies brought strollers the size of a Mercedes and then ordered a flight attendant to stow them.

Why are travelers so loud? Yes, there's the joy of discovery. You can't help but gasp the first time you stand at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and stare into the abyss. Or when you catch a glimpse of the Alps, the Egyptian pyramids, the Taj Mahal. But there's more going on here. It feels almost as if everyone's hearing aid has a low battery, and they're yelling at each other. It's a uniquely touristy behavior, for which there's no rational explanation.

Today, “Plaza de los Coches” buzzes with activity as merchants sell fruit piled onto wooden crates, tourists carry shopping bags by the latest designers along with indigenous mochilas, and performers dressed in bright-colored dresses dance along to bachata. This plaza is where the slave market used to take place.  It served as the meeting point of three worlds—European, Indigenous American, and African—as the international trade created a process of ethnic and racial exchange. 

Despite relentless coverage of the Mexican drug war by U.S. news media over the last several years, tourism to Mexico is rebounding strongly. Following three years of sharp decline that began in April 2009, when fears over H1N1 – the virus commonly known as “swine flu” -- effectively shut down most of the nation to foreign travel, visitors arriving in Mexico by air jumped to 22 million in 2011. That number is expected to increase again this year.