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I’ve ridden on what was at the time the world’s fastest rollercoaster, Formula Rossa in Abu Dhabi. It accelerates from zero to 240km/h in five seconds with nearly 4.8G of force. Riders wear goggles to protect their eyeballs.
I didn’t enjoy the experience and felt physically ill for the remainder of the day, but it made me think about travel and always wanting to go faster, further and better.
Why do we insist on doing certain things, even though intuition or experience tells us we mightn’t enjoy them? Why are we sucked in by bucket lists and frequent-flyer points, and seduced by luxury hotels and Michelin stars? Well, for valid reasons occasionally, and there’s no harm if approached in good measure.
But often a bit more balance might deliver better holidays, and our quest for the best might be better directed towards a more rounded travel experience.
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Of course, different people obsess over different things – though I’ve yet to meet a traveller unwilling to discuss at length their jet lag, or theories on how to minimise it. We all have our niche preoccupations, from the coldness of our beer to how early we should arrive at airports.
But here are some obsessions I dare say are widespread. No harm in occasionally giving into their lure, of course, but let’s not make them an all-consuming passion.
Bucket lists
I get it. We all have a need to understand the world by ordering it, ranking it and making sense of the information overload. We want to know we’ve been to the right places and not missed out. But consider bucket lists an indication, not an obligation.
I don’t believe there are any genuine must-sees. Van Gogh paintings aren’t must-sees for those with no taste for sunflowers or severed ears. The Eiffel Tower is just a bit of romanticised ironmongery, and you could perhaps spend a better half-day in Paris than on a visit to it.
In short, don’t let the hype and peer pressure overcome your instincts. And don’t succumb to the herd instinct. Bucket lists have ruined many places through overdevelopment and overcrowding. Inconvenienced locals become enraged.
You don’t get bonus points and a free set of steak knives by ticking off lists of places that someone else has decided are terrific. They aren’t curated to your likes, and you’re better off wisely cherry-picking. There’s no better bucket list than one you draw up yourself.
Rooms with a view
The view is one of the top lures used by hotel advertisers when, really, we’d be better off being assured whether the bed is comfortable, and hot water reliably produced, and in a shower space large enough to avoid bruised elbows.
Our desire for rooms with a view isn’t so much obsessive as misguided. Ocean-gazing rooms cost more than city-gazing rooms in the same hotel, even though the light-twinkled cityscape can be far more pleasing at night.
You pay significantly less if you forgo any kind of view but get the same room category. And realistically, how much time are you going to spend in your hotel room? Even when there, for how long will you stand by the window? Ten seconds?
Save your $100 extra dollars and spend it on a cable-car ride, or cocktails on a scenic terrace, or an ascent to the top of a skyscraper. That’s view-money better spent, and more enjoyable.
Airport lounges
Nothing pleases us more than being able to post on social media from an airport lounge, preferably with a glass of champagne and our business-class ticket “casually” displayed in the foreground.
Airport lounges allow us to show off, which is a sensible and appropriate thing to do in what are for many people straitened financial times – just ask Marie Antoinette, who would never have mingled with riffraff in the terminal concourse.
Why do we consider airport lounges so wonderful? We pay a lot of money for lacklustre finger food and that champagne which – oh, sorry – is only sparkling wine. Some lounges are so overcrowded that you can barely find a seat, let alone a shower.
Those who can afford business-class travel presumably stay in very nice hotels and eat in fine restaurants, and yet they seem to be overcome by being offered limp canapés in airport lounges. I don’t know what that’s all about – but how do I get in?
Perfect beaches
Somewhere, in some secret place, you’ll find the ideal beach, and it will feature white sand and turquoise water and be undisturbed by a single other human footprint. Or so the tourist brochures, websites and social-media feeds would have us believe.
While I’m sure such places exist, don’t expect to encounter them. The word “pristine” is one of the most misused in travel. Nowhere travellers go is truly pristine, not least a beach that features several resorts – and water likely filled with microplastics.
Certainly, beaches are an escape from noise, busyness and urban confines, where we have nothing to do but frolic in the sun and snooze in a suncream-ed state of bovine contentment. Nobody is working on beaches. Everyone feels younger.
But while beaches are the ultimate symbol of travel, they aren’t the end-all. We fantasise about staying there forever. The reality? The perfect beach entrances for a while, then we get the urge to move on to more interesting things.
Frequent flyer points
I’m sure reams have been written about consumer psychology. I’ve read none of it, but it certainly works. We fly for 20 years, accumulate enough points to get a free flight to Adelaide, and count it as a triumph – although our 20-year membership fee has cost more than the flight would have done.
How we love frequent flyer points. The internet is filled with arcane ways to maximise and best spend them, until we’re deluded into thinking we can fly business class to London thanks to a simple week’s supermarket shop.
We’re additionally obsessed with edging into the next membership tier that gets us what – a free bun? A nice silver or gold suitcase tag? A bit of extra baggage allowance we never knew we needed?
The airlines are convulsed with laughter. Their profits accumulate, seat availability tightens, requirements to redeem points increase. We all know we pay for these loyalty systems one way or another yet, paradoxically, remain certain we’re getting freebies.
Luxury hotels
Of course, we should obsess over luxury hotels. Centuries of travellers who’ve gone before us and who put up with squalid inns and smoky, camel-stinking caravanserai are willing us on. Even many of us will remember when luxury meant a tiny plastic packet of soap and a kettle.
Now we have minibars, espresso machines, Frette linens and bathrooms fit to stage a Vogue photoshoot. Pity the billionaires. The joy of luxury hotels is that we get to live better than at home for a Cinderella night – and, oh, what a pleasure that is.
Luxury hotels are compensation for ageing, too. We did the backpacking hostels and basic hotels and, with rising income and dwindling tolerance, now treat ourselves to upgrades.
But here’s the thing. A hotel is a means to an end. Get over the hotel fetish and the belief that hotels are a destination in themselves. However good they are, they’re never as good as the world outside.
Burgers and pizzas
Low-quality meat, limp lettuce and a dry bun, all of so little flavour that they have to be bolstered by too much salt and sauce. It isn’t easy to fathom how burgers have stormed the world, and yet here we are.
Tourists can’t get enough burgers, even in places where much better sandwiches are available, such as Vietnam with its fresh, healthy and unbeatable banh mi, or Argentina with its scrumptious choripan. Or anywhere.
And then there’s the equally ubiquitous pizza, scrumptious at its best but, even then, only for the first few crunchy slices before it sags and cools into a lumpen stomach-stopper. Besides, how often is pizza at its best? Even in Italy, the pizzas served to tourists are mostly dreadful.
Yes, burgers and pizzas are familiar comfort food. Yes, they’re cheap(ish) and easy to order. But come on. Look for a better and more local alternative, and you’ll seldom regret it.
Wellness
I declare spas the biggest con ever devised to separate gullible humans from their hard-earned money – and considerable amounts of it at that. All that stress that has been purportedly washed away will be right back as soon as you get the bill.
Is anyone genuinely relaxed in a wellness centre, being poked and prodded by strangers, and anxious about the proper rituals and behaviour? I think not. Not as relaxed as they’d be walking in the woods, or going for a swim, or smelling the roses – and all for free.
The pseudo-medical quackery that was supposedly dispelled by the Enlightenment abounds in wellness treatments, with their promises that breathing salt-laden air, being slapped with seaweed or listening to the tinkling bells of a mysterious tribe will set us right.
If someone told you to lie down, slather yourself in yoghurt, stick a lighted candle in your ear and listen to whale song you would rightly consider them mad. And yet oh how we love paying $400 for the privilege.
Shopping
I place shopping on a par with being swarmed by bees or missing flight connections on my list of things I’d rather avoid. I accept I’m an odd one out, having travelled on many tours and cruises with people who’d rather hit shops than sights.
I understand others’ need to splurge, to treat themselves and give their family little gifts – up to a point. And I used to acquire souvenirs myself until I realised my house looked like a weird provincial museum, and required too much dusting.
But maybe we should buy less, more selectively. Do we want every quaint village taken over by fridge magnets and nougat? Do we want every airport to offer nothing but Toblerone bars and Chanel handbags?
Support local craftspeople and fashion designers. Buy things of practical use that won’t end up in landfill. The rest of the time, remind yourself that owning things is never as much fun as experiencing things, and spend accordingly.
Carry-on luggage
This obsession goes two ways: those who travel with nothing else – a fanaticism recently fuelled by social-media trends, some of which reduce packing to just pockets – and those convinced a checked-in suitcase is the only way to go.
I’m in the latter category. I hate lugging a carry-on around airports and unpacking it at security points, exposing my choice of underwear and reading material to the (admittedly disinterested) world. Besides, you really don’t need much on an airplane.
I’m efficient. I object to the delays created by passengers with carry-on luggage as they haul liquids, entire wardrobe changes, food rations and a stuffed monkey or grandpa’s ashes (yes, really) through security.
Boarding, too, has ground to slug-like speed as passengers wrestle gigantic carry-ons along narrow aeroplane aisles, then try to shove them into small overhead lockers. Need a helpful tattooed passenger to wrestle your luggage into said locker? It should have gone in the hold.
Michelin-starred restaurants
Michelin-starred dining is often a protracted and perplexing experience, some may say an endurance sport, during which we overdose on too much fat, salt, sugar and alcohol – and are charged a sheik’s ransom for the privilege.
Michelin-starred restaurants are a theatrical experience and the matire d’ and waiters are players in a strange production you’ll never understand, but in which audience participation is required. You’re pushed to your limits and then – with the arrival of the cheese trolley and four dessert courses – over the edge.
We pretend you know all about aiguillettes and embrouillades. We risk our lives on half-cooked eggs and unpasteurised cheese. We come to accept a sliver of lobster served atop a blue smear on a vast plate sprinkled with pansy petals.
Michelin dining is all emperor’s new clothes, but it’s done with such panache that you know you’ve had a unique cultural experience. There’s something about those stars that we just can’t resist despite our bafflement.
Smartphones
Put your phone down, have a proper look. And a sniff. Take a glance just around the corner from the much-hyped sight that everyone seems to be clamouring to pose with, and you can easily find something enjoyable. The world isn’t boring, or sanitised, or curated. It’s a wonderful, madding, exhilarating muddle.
Share the moment, not on social media, but with your travel companions then and there. Be present. The world seen through a screen and given value by its number of likes and shares isn’t the real world.
Five decent travel obsessions
Plane seats
Who doesn’t, when checking into a flight, scrutinise the seating plan like Nostradamus foretelling the future? And indeed, our immediate future depends on whether we’re squeezed into the middle seat, doomed near loos or screeching babies, or have secured the benefit of an extra inch of legroom. Can we check in early? Should we pay extra for a preferred seat? Are we driven insane by code share flights that won’t let us choose at all? Yes, because we’re all airline-seat obsessives.
Pillows
This is the traveller’s inescapable nightly problem, yet we can do little about it. We plump our hotel pillows, fold them, squeeze them down, pile them up, or petulantly fling them on the floor. It makes no difference. We wake up with sore necks, or don’t sleep at all. The pillow menus offered in luxury hotels barely help. It’s a lottery, and most of the time we lose. Whenever we’re blessed with perfect slumber, it feels like a miracle.
Good coffee
We’re right to fuss because Australians know what a decent brew is, yet seldom get it overseas. We’re desperate for flat whites and long blacks, and instead get dishwater or tar or thick, short coffee that makes us choke. The good news? Coffee is slowly getting better everywhere these days – yes, even in parts of America. Besides, sometimes we should let go and enjoy the alternative coffee cultures of destinations such as Oman and Turkey.
Sunsets
Of course we love sunsets. We aren’t stony-hearted people indifferent to natural wonder and romance. No matter how many sunsets we’ve seen, the next one is always guaranteed to catch our attention. And why not: the Technicolour spectacle is matched by the vague melancholy passing of another day. Then there are those destinations at their most beautiful at sunset and, luckily for us, the orange flamboyance of our own outback is a prime example.
Vegemite
You probably have to be born in Australia – which I wasn’t – to appreciate Vegemite. But I do know that Australians carry their own everywhere, and that tour and cruise companies that rely on Australian customers have a jar sitting on the breakfast buffet like a tribal artefact. And since nothing else comes close (sorry, Marmite) we have every reason to obsess over this salty, distinctive spread – and to amuse ourselves by getting hapless foreigners to try it.
Agree? Disagree? Leave a comment below or write to us at [email protected] We’ll publish the most interesting and entertaining responses. Keep them decent, and try not to obsess.
