From about the mid 18th century, the number of travellers visiting Wales for pleasure began to increase steadily. Most of the early tourist – late 18th and early 19th century – were English Gentry, woefully ignorant of Wales and its people. They wrote detailed accounts of their journeys which they, later, published as books. The latter were, basically, tourist-guides aimed at the would-be sightseers of that period – mainly highborn people who could afford the luxury of travel.