The photograph reverses the purpose of travel, which until now had been to encounter the strange and unfamiliar.

McLuhan is pointing to how photographic media changes the logic of travel. Where travel once meant direct exposure to difference—new places, customs, and the shock of the unfamiliar—the widespread circulation of photographs pre-acquaints viewers with destinations in advance. The “strange” becomes visually domesticated, packaged as an image one already “knows,” so the traveler increasingly seeks confirmation of pre-seen scenes (and produces more images) rather than discovery. In McLuhan’s broader media theory, this is an instance of a medium reshaping perception and behavior: photography doesn’t merely record travel; it reorganizes expectations, turning experience into something anticipated, repeatable, and consumable.