Dear TIME-Reader:

AS the tourist season nears its peak, U.S. vacationists are on the move --about their own country and on record invasions of foreign shores. The travelers, according to reports from all our sources, are devoting themselves mostly to just plain fun, like the newlyweds motoring down the Loire Valley in a rented new bug-model Citroen, the bald Philadelphian sipping vermouth and eying the Italian beauties strolling along Rome's Via Veneto, or the middle-aged sportsmen playing at being matadors in Madrid's new bullfighting cafe.

Among the estimated 600,000 Americans who will travel abroad this season will be many thousands of TIME readers. We were pleased to learn from surveys at international airports and ship piers that just about half the passengers read TIME. Some of these are seasoned travelers and many others are off on their first trip across the ocean. Both the seasoned and the inexperienced tell us that they often take tips from our pages about where to go and what to see abroad. One of the old hands took off by plane last week with our last story on Pablo Picasso and the artist's big retrospective show at the Louvre. This traveler said he intended to head for the Louvre as soon as he hits Paris. Another reader, a friend of one of our editors, just returned from Italy with a replica of an Etruscan figurine he bought after reading TIME'S story (Sept. 6, 1954) on Etruscan ruins.

Perhaps you have noticed, in our advertisements, that our gypsy tendencies are no secret to the companies that run ships, planes and nor those that manufacture luggage and cameras, know the people who are going places.

Happy traveling!

Cordially yours,

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