Every May some ten thousand Romanies (aka Gypsies) perform a pilgrimage to Les Saintes-Maries-de-le-Mer, a remote fishing village in the south of France. Their annual gathering has developed into a popular festival of Romani culture that spawns its own pilgrimage of tourists and journalists—as well as some tension between the townspeople and the Romani.

Watch out for that alligator! Louisiana swamp tours led by Cajun raconteurs are both cooked up and authentic; they are trips through the “natural” environment but also something devised to snare tourist dollars. What show are the tourists seeing? Has the natural environment taken to performing daily, twice on weekends? How “pristine,” “primitive,” and “untamed” are the swamps?