Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is ubiquitous in tourism. Its advocates boast of new gadgets, apps and channels and indeed who would disagree about its many benefits and opportunities. There is already plentiful research on the subject but most is about functionality and operations. It is characterised by an emphasis on innovation (e.g. Neuhofer, Buhalis, & Ladkin, 2015) and marketing (e.g. Mistilis, Buhalis, & Gretzel, 2014) so there is a significant research gap where deeper sociological, psychological and philosophical theorisations are called for. This is particularly so as we move towards the internet of things and even the internet of everything. ICT is set to further radically change tourism and its ever more totalising prospect surely merits critical research (Munar & Gyimóthy, 2013; Tribe, 2007). This rationale guides our interest in the relevance of alienation. Alienation describes the psychological and sociological situation where humans can feel a strong disconnect with their everyday lives and habitats. This emptiness in turn may drive a search for the authentic through travel (MacCannell, 1976). But the advance of ICT and the rise of the super-connected traveller surely give rise to new questions of alienation. How does super-connectivity influence tourists’ experiences of authenticity? For example, the super-connected tourist may have an obsessive need to be online: may be relentlessly routed and led by TripAdvisor: may crave approval by Facebook friends: may fail to disconnect from work: may stubbornly maintain chats and conversations with those back home: may over-tweet: may be diverted by a need to compose perfect selfies, may overlabour to project ‘‘the perfect me in a perfect place”. This gives rise to our broad research question which is to understand and critically evaluate the nature of alienating aspects of ICT in tourism (ICTT). We use the term e-lienation to describe this phenomenon and offer a thick, rich description of this concept. We start by framing our context and examining the intersections of tourism and smart technology. Next we explain and justify our method of netnography. The main section intermingles the findings with the literature review. Finally the conclusion summarises the original contribution and discusses limitations, implications and issues for future research.