The book will follow the precedent set by Dennison Nash’s "Tourism Social Science Series" anthology, "The Study of Tourism". "The Discovery of Tourism", will present the personal histories of some of the world’s leading tourism geographers, many of whom pioneered the field. The stories will reveal the diverse personalities, passions, and peculiarities behind the authors’ choice of tourism as a specialization. Such experiences are worth reporting as a celebration of the global community of geographic scholars – current and future – working in tourism. Being able to read the histories of senior scholars may help younger scholars as well as students, whether in geography or other social sciences, appreciate the challenges and rewards of a life devoted to the study of tourism. This dispersal of geographers among different academic departments will be one of the topics addressed by some of the contributing authors and it reflects the broad intellectual curiosity, capacity, and contributions of tourism geographers. Further, it means that these personal histories will be of interest to scholars outside the field of tourism geography.