Government regulations require travellers to visit in the manner of tourists - through a travel agency, with a group, led by a licensed guide, following an itinerary, usually on a bus. Travel-lers go on journeys, making their way alone, with backpack, journal and guidebook, to the ends of the earth. It is time to let the myth Rest In Peace.The writer is a presenter on BBC News 24. TRAVELLERS OFTEN feel the need to distinguish themselves from mere tourists.

Tourists go on group tours, following fixed itineraries, on buses, with guides, to overpriced destinations. The glory of the House of Kennedy, like that of the House of Agamemnon, is in the past. The only Kennedy who really mattered died 36 years ago in Dallas The What if? questions are pointless There are no more worthy torchbearers. One is in Rhode Island, another in Maryland; both are hard-working public servants.

There is also a Congressman from Massachusetts who makes occasional forays into Irish-American politics.But it was John F Kennedy Junior who, in his father's words, carried the torch into a new generation. There were those who assumed that his political magazine George was a hobby, filling in time until the glorious day when we should wake up and discover that another Kennedy was running for the White House, another JFK who would rescue America from the slime of politics The truth is far more prosaic. JFK announced that there would be an American on the Moon before the Sixties were out There was. Exactly 30 years ago this week anyone in the world who had access to a television set stayed awake to watch those first steps for a man, those giant leaps for mankind.Or there is Eunice Kennedy Shriver, largely unknown in Britain, the JFK sister who helped create that most wonderful institution, the Special Olympics for the mentally handicapped There are still Kennedys in public office. Yet no one remembers Jackie as the ageing wife of a Greek millionaire. Every American recalls only the young and beautiful widow of their devastatingly handsome President Jackie died, for ever young JFK died, for ever young.