It’s taking a bigger bite out of this summer’s tourism than great white sharks at water parks. It is culling group packages down to singles tours. It is making this summer’s vacation a holiday for hermits.

“The hermit is he who needs a friend, and in the absence of a community has befriended himself.”

―Anthony Marais

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With our cover-up on, like a shark cage of very fine mesh, tourist season opens in the mind.

“The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.”

―James Russell Lowell

The cover-up provides alone time to converse with a masked stranger.

“Thinking: the talking of the soul with itself.”

―Plato

More than a sun-blocker or predator-filter, it is a vacation from the jaws of the pack.

“A hermit is simply a person to whom civilization has failed to adjust itself.”

―Will Cuppy