I don't necessarily agree with the text I summarised...
(and I'm responding both to Colman and Migeru)

But firstly, some not-so-rich classes did travel quite a bit ; Artisans in France used to tour the country as part of their training, pilgrims on their way, or seasonal 'colporteurs' selling stuff across the country, leaving their home during the winter (farms require many hands during the summer, but some could or had to travel during the winter ; depending on the wealth of the family, those were some of the children, or the seasonal hands that had to leave...).

More to the point, we are now materially as wealthy as those that had the time to do long range travel. But the constraints of employment, with only short time off allowed, mean that high speed travel is a necessity ; those constraints are pretty artificial. The commodification I was talking about is not that of travel, but that of time. Fast transportation is a symptom of that.

It also means that one of the point of going to another place is disappearing - most tourists may go to another place but never see another culture ; maybe a different climate, different monuments, but even food often doesn't change. What's the point of Djerba? But when the vacation is only one week long, immersing oneself in a different place and culture isn't that attractive. Some of the constraints of economical life needs to be lifted of course for that form of travel to become possible for more people.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

I would compare and contrast a train travel along the Rhine valley between Cologne and Frankfurt (scenery upon scenery) to one along the new high-speed line between the two (some nice short views of mountains and valleys, but in no small part sound barriers -- or tunnels), maybe even stops along the way for the first. (The same for car drivers: compare a travel along an old country road to one along a highway.) While I am not against high-speed rail (and until there is air travel, I won't accept arguments against them based on our age of haste), I do see where the argument comes from.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}