In terms of activities, witnessing living history(ie remnants via grinding stones or the"real west") in Montana and California evokes intense feelings, lending support to Botterill and Crompton's(1996) contention that individuals' emotions and feelings are part and parcel with the meaning they attach to an experience. How these tourism experiences are interpreted and the meanings they evoke, however, depend on the research method used. The three case studies highlighted in this chapter demonstrate that different diary, in-depth interviews, and open questionnaire) have somewhat parallel results. For example, the diary method reveals what is important to visitors based on what they as experience highlights, unexpected occurrences, and disappointments. Tourists visiting Arizona recognized specific attractions, activities, and settings as important to their overall experience-enough so that they wrote them down in their diaries. It can be interpreted that highlights c to quality tourism experiences and that disappointments correlate to those aspects that deter from quality experience However, while it is clear those aspects that from experience and that certain aspects were part of the important to visitors, the diary responses did not provide as much depth with respect to the"meaning" behind the experience. This partly due to the question which the responding in the diary. The question did not why that was important what it meant to them. With respect to the California e visitors expressed their and about the river by responding to open-ended questions in mail-back questionnaires. As a result, visitors oul to relive the experience(positive and negative) and the meaning of the experience was expressed through their recollection. They also spoke to the importance that geographic location(from a macro to micro perspective) had on the mean they attributed to their experience. Quality experiences o the river were interpreted as those responses where the individual used emotive connecting words, exclamation points, and to us how wonderful the experience was to them. Again, the disappointments or concerns expressed in their diaries s aspects that take away from their quality experience. Finally, the richest experience-related information was derived through the use of on-site in-depth interviews with tourists visiting Montana. In this situation, interviewers asked tourists to discuss their experience as they were embracing it. Hence, tourists were given the opportunity to describe the environment, but also the feelings they were experiencing while in that environment. Through tourists body language, the excitement they exhibited when describing their experiences and the tenor of their conversation, interviewers were able to interpret what factors contributed as well as took away from their quality tourism experiences.