Instead of moving geographically, the author moved social-economically to experience something different.
I think it's great, we crave authentic experiences on the road, this should also be something more common. If more people (on the top) do this, we'll have a lot less of those out of touch just eat cake stories.
It has some extra sense to tourism it's like taking photo smiled with poor villager to pretend you are kind. "Human zoo tourism" is close to what this sense means.
Hard to explain, but I get what you mean.