To my mind, if you call it a tour, then it's a tour. On crazyguyonabike I try to draw a line at people posting their bike commutes, but I think nobody deep down really thinks of those as "tours" anyway, even if they are 20 or 30 miles in length. Somehow doing the same trip to work every day doesn't seem like a tour, not to me, or to many other people. On the other hand, a simple day ride of a few miles could certainly be seen as a tour, especially if the person doing it sees it that way. So I guess the defining attribute of a tour is that it is "special" trip in some way, done in its own right and for its own sake, and a lot has to do with how the rider sees it in their own mind. It has little to do with the actual number of miles covered, or whether it was overnight, or camping, or motel, or sagged, or panniers, or trailer etc etc - those are all variable and optional when you come right down to it.

I often see homeless guys tooling around Eureka on their bikes, with a whole bunch of stuff in milk crates lashed onto the back. I sometimes wonder if they see themselves as being on tour. I don't think so; I believe they are just using the bike to get themselves from one location to another as part of their regular lives. So they probably wouldn't call it touring, even though they look the same and are probably carrying a lot of the same gear as a tourist might.

Another way of looking at a tour is that it's something that is optional, recreational, not being done as part of your everyday work (e.g. commuting) or necessary chores (e.g. shopping). Of course then even this is vulnerable - is a bicycle tour leader then not touring, since it's being done as a job? And is a training ride a tour, since it's recreational? Anytime you try to pin this stuff down to a rigid definition, you start to see exceptions and grey areas. So I just say, if the person doing it calls it a tour (in good faith) then it's a tour.

Just my opinion,

Neil