Do touristic visits help you as a historian?

There are many articles relating to this but these are my favourite:
http://www.historytoday.com/tom-jackson/lessons-holocaust
http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2013/10/holocaust-and-unknowable-past


Well, in my opinion, it completely depends on how the visit is presented to you. For instance, when I went to Berlin and visited the memorial for all Jews, there were boards with information, you could listen, you could watch videos, and there was so much interaction! This, I believe extremely helped me to grow intellectually. Yes, it brought emotion but I do not think that emotion necessarily blurs your perspective, but more often or not, stimulates interest in the subject. However, when in Shanghai, I visited the Jade Temple, a wonderful Buddhist site, which includes the Jade Buddha, that was thoroughly hidden under Mao (by poo, which indeed is a crime in Buddhism and was the only way), stolen from the Burmese (well, that is a story, or rather a mystery, in itself) and contains many glorious Buddhist statues of the different Gods, for example the one of the sea. Did I learn any of this during the visit? No. Why? Because there was not one piece of information given to visitors, not even in Chinese! Therefore, this did not help me intellectually in any way, despite, of course, me learning what a Buddhist temple looked like. The visit was simply monotonous unless you knew about the temple beforehand, or had a guide book of some sort. But does reading out of a guide book really help?
Nevertheless, I set myself the task of learning Chinese history as I study it. Best way I found: reading Jung Chang's great novel 'The Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China', which definitely proves that visits aren't always useful, and at times, simply watching a movie or reading a book in your sofa at home will help you more.

However, I am a believer that travelling helps so incredibly much intellectually, as you learn the culture of the country, how the people think/act and what it looks like. This definitely stimulates interest, well in my case for sure, encouraging to then pursue your studies about that country/culture.

Questions to Consider:
Does emotion play a part in history?
Should emotion play a part in history?
Can we actually judge if something was right or wrong without having lived in that period of time?

It's an interesting topic.... please comment and share your views! I would love to know them!