This is the month when summer vacation plans become real and urgent — only eight weeks to Labor Day, almost no time at all. The vacations of last summer, if any, seem far away. The media tantalize us with images of the golden days of summer and how we can enjoy them, at a price. Right now, when we so much want to get away, almost any price seems worth paying.
Financially speaking the tourism market is much like any other market — it’s a long way from the top to the bottom. Leaving aside the super yachts and private jets favored by our billionaire classes and political royalty, there are hundreds of luxury vacation opportunities that sound very much like paradise on the move, and that most of us could afford if we sold our house first.
This is the top end of the market, where you can be magically transported to some of the most delightful places on earth and enjoy top-of-the-line sights and experiences in total comfort. The flights are first-class, all the hotels are five-star, and your guide probably wears a three-piece suit and speaks six languages. Your companions are agreeable, the food is excellent and physical exercise is kept to a minimum.
I’m not speaking from personal experience, of course, but from the stories that more fortunate travelers have told me. The worst part of such a luxury vacation is that it must come to an end. It wouldn’t surprise me if some members of each tour group refused to go home, and immediately join the next tour.
Further down the economic line, in the vast middle range of the market, vacation trips are more of a lottery, and sometimes you feel that the odds are rigged against you — crowded flights, kamikaze bus drivers, grim hotels and guides whose acquaintance with the territory or with the English language is flimsy at best.
At the bottom end of the market are those tours that are not so much vacations as self-imposed endurance tests. The market for these so-called extreme or adventure holidays continues to be brisk, although they are nothing new. Fifty years ago, when I had more hair, more courage and an enviable suntan I worked for an adventure tour outfit based in London. My job was to be a driver and guide for small groups of intrepid, and sometimes marginally insane tourists who wanted to see the real Greece, the real Turkey, the real Russia or the real Morocco.
If “real” means dirty, desolate, and totally lacking in basic amenities we certainly delivered on that promise. The “adventures” consisted mainly in surviving or even recognizing the food, trying to sleep in our cheap collapsing tents and being at the mercy of a guide with no sense of direction and bad eyesight. Nobody booked a second trip with our company, although they were amazingly economical.
Too many vacations are all about relaxation and pleasure. There’s no challenge, no excitement and no risk. For a real break from routine, you should consider a vacation that is nothing but challenge, excitement and risk, say an overland expedition to some deeply unfashionable and unfriendly corner of the planet. Let the price be your guide — the cheaper it is, the more memorable it will be.
