“Find out why revenge travel will be more popular than ever this summer after the break,” the reporter teased the other morning on the news before cutting to commercials.
“Revenge travel? What the heck is that?” I wondered. Since I had to get going, I turned off the TV and made a note to look into it later. That was something I wanted to know more about.
Well, I’ve had a chance to do just that. While I disagree with the term to describe the phenomenon, I get the concept. Let’s check it out.
Revenge Travel
As the vaccines started rolling out to more and more people in 2021, a buzzphrase ripped through the travel industry. After a year of lockdowns, restrictions, and cancellations, people were eager to “make up for the lost time and experiences with a vengeance,” as the HuffPost quoted Konrad Waliszewski, co-founder and CEO of the travel app Tripscout, in their article about revenge travel.
But what is it?
It refers to a huge increase in demand for travel as life gets back to normal. It’s all about YOLOing, living in the present, and not taking anything for granted.
And that’s why I’m not nuts about the term. “Revenge” has such a negative connotation, but the phenomenon is anything but. It’s really “carpe diem travel,” which would’ve been a much better phrase to describe the big trips and dream vacations people are booking that they had previously reserved (if only in their minds) for “someday.”
And I get it. I think it’s a natural reaction to want to grab the bull by the horns and embrace life when you suddenly can’t do something and realize you’ve been taking it for granted.
I know I did that when I got cancer and when I recovered from treatments. Up until then I’d been having a near-life experience. But I made myself a promise —as well as a list— of all the things I wanted to do when I got better. And when I did, I launched myself at them like a crazy person! (BTW, Haunt Jaunts is the result of crossing off one of the items on my list.)
Revenge Travel Examples
You don’t have to spend a ton of money to partake in revenge travel. It’s all a matter of perspective —and permission. (That you give to yourself, that is.)
It all boils down to this: Where have you always wanted to go? What trips called to your heart pre-pandemic? Where did your restless spirit long to roam?
Did you always want to go on an African safari? A cruise? To see the pyramids in Egypt?
Or were your goals more modest? Say, taking several weekends over the course of the year to catch up with long-lost friends or reconnect with relatives?
Basically, “revenge travel” is going to wherever you put off before and doing whatever you always dreamed you might. There’s no wrong way to do it. Only what’s right for you.
Check-In
Have you partaken in any revenge travel?
Courtney Mroch is a globe-trotting restless spirit who’s both possessed by wanderlust and the spirit of adventure, and obsessed with true crime, horror, the paranormal, and weird days. Perhaps it has something to do with her genes? She is related to occult royalty, after all. Marie Laveau, the famous Voodoo practitioner of New Orleans, is one of her ancestors. (Yes, really! As explained here.) That could also explain her infatuation with skeletons.
Speaking of mystical, to learn how Courtney channeled her battle with cancer to conjure up this site, check out HJ’s Origin Story.
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I have not participated in revenge (or carpe diem!) travel, but I never had the travel bug. After pandemic lockdowns, I am trying to appreciate face-to-face speaking more, even in mundane situations like the checkout stand at the grocery store.
Oh, Priscilla, I love this comment so much. I wonder if other people feel the same because I have noticed more and more people talk in the store. Like even yesterday while I was waiting at the deli. A woman struck up a conversation with me. Before the pandemic, she might have or might not have, but after the pandemic I find that sort of thing happens more and more often. And the people who work at the stores are grateful for whenever people acknowledge them and interact, the more pleasantly the better. But your comment, as they so often do, touched a nerve and warmed my heart!