'The Most Romantic Walk in the World' Reopens in Italy
Plus, will Southwest abandon overweight people?
Somebody on social media wrote the other day about how August “is such a f*cked up month, overripe days and an uneasy sense of time running out, I feel like I never do it right.”
I’m back in D.C. for a few weeks and the days are very much overripe. The heat is unpleasant and the city in a stupor. But I find myself very much at peace in my own house, in my own bed, eating well, while everybody jets around the world. I must confess, as well, that while a younger version of me could relate to the dread-filled sense that August was about the impending end of summer, I find the romance gone from this time of year. Instead, I eagerly await fall.
It’s an oversimplification, but summer while in college was about building up savings for the school year or resume-padding with an internship. In my 20s, everybody I knew was in the office and if they could fit it in, spent weekends with family or friends. Maybe they got a week to go away. Fun was squeezed in around “real life.”
I love remote work and have no desire for us to return to the era of commutes and office drudgery. But my hunch is that a strange side effect of flexible work schedules is it has exacerbated the social media pressure pushing everybody to feel they have to be doing something big or luxurious or adventurous in the summer. Because you can, you feel you must.
Loathe as we are to admit it to ourselves, even the most sophisticated of travel can leave you worn, and so we’ve replaced one source of fatigue (office culture) for another (competitive travel).
And I know things are going well economically, but it’s hard not to see the constant travel by all ages (but especially early 20s) and wonder—where is all the money coming from? And does anybody ever want to be home any more?
ANYWAYS, this week the newsletter is Department of Grievances and industry news—next week will be my destination guide for Newport, Rhode Island.
DEPARTMENT OF GRIEVANCES
WHEN it collapsed back in 2012, Cinque Terre’s Via dell'Amore (Path of Love) was seen as one of the first true victims of modern overtourism. Hundreds of thousands of tourists every year pounded its fragile path until a rock slide destroyed part of it. As much as I love the concept of the world being available for all, it’s just not possible, especially in fragile places. Italy is slowly but surely making the uncomfortable steps towards enacting sensible policies—charging high admissions, requiring reservations, requiring guides, limiting visitors. The famed path finally reopened this week, but it will be closed at night, tickets will need to be purchased to visit, and restrictions have been put in place to limit visitors (400 people max an hour). The path is currently only open to residents until August 8, and then it will be open to tourists starting August 9. Visits will be guided and tickets can be purchased once the website is fully running (one would think soon).
SPORTS tourism is about to become a $1.3 trillion dollar market over the next handful of years, and yet perhaps because it’s not chic (outside of F1 and tennis) it doesn’t fill the pages of travel publications anywhere. I also don’t find it talked about when you go to travel conferences, or not nearly as much as wellness, or luxury, or eco, etc. Which is too bad for a number of reasons, but especially from a media perspective because if there was some sort of focus or beats dedicated to this, we’d probably reach a lot of readers who have abandoned traditional media or never even thought to check us out.
I DON’T KNOW where the line falls on what airlines should be expected or forced to provide passengers, but the idea is front of mind this week for a few reasons. First, the Biden administration is pushing for a rule that will require airlines to guarantee families can sit together and ban them from charging fees to do so. Second, this week saw a different setback for the administration as a panel of judges temporarily blocked a different rule requiring airlines show the actual full cost of a ticket up front. (I am not a constitutional scholar so I can’t opine on whether the government has the authority to do this, but I did find the airlines’ counterargument that doing so would “confuse” customers laughable.) And third, with Southwest abandoning its identity as this salt-of-the-earth airline, it won’t commit to keeping one of its very American policies in place—allowing plus-size travelers the option to have a second seat free of charge.
The whole junk fee conversation is, frankly, an annoying one. Everybody loathes them across all industries (don’t even get me started on “resort fees” in NYC, LA, and Miami for hotels) and they just engender ill will and bitterness on the part of customers toward the airline industry as a whole. There are so many wonderful things about the U.S. aviation industry compared to foreign ones—no change and cancellation fees on the major airlines, no limits on how many under-the-limit liquids you can pack, generous airline credit cards, easy to use apps and websites (have you ever tried Iberia?!), less restrictive carry-on baggage policies, etc—but this eagerness to defend the right to have hidden fees is gross.
As far as family boarding … airlines have already moved on this themselves, with a number now guaranteeing that families can sit together. Requiring this will be a cost passed on to consumers, both those with and those without children. But even if you’re in the “they made that choice” camp—you surely don’t enjoy the time wasted and the guilt and shame dished out on planes while boarding as some flustered parent begs passengers around them to shift so they can all sit together?
There’s a similar argument to be made when it comes to overweight passengers being given a second seat. Yes, it could be costing more money (although my understanding of the Southwest policy is this only happens if it’s not a sold out flight) and while I wouldn’t exactly roll my eyes about this policy, I initially might lean in the camp of finding it slightly entitled. But even if you are unwilling to engage in an empathetic read of the situation of what it must be like to fly in one of those seats while overweight, from a self-centered point of view you’ve probably complained at some point in the past about your own discomfort while sharing these tiny spaces with an overweight passenger. And if preventing that situation meant you’d on average paid a few dollars more a ticket, I think you’d take it.
THERE is a stoic sadism that security officials at London’s airports have applied for years to passengers who failed to remove all their liquids from their bags, who couldn’t fit all of them into that tiny plastic bag, or were close to missing their flight. They would hold up lines for ages just to enact this security theater that I remain convinced does nothing to keep us safe. Finally, though, a bright spot. London’s Luton Airport has completed installing the scanners that allow passengers to keep all their liquids and gels in their bags.
I USUALLY find lists of travel dupes (less touristy places that are similar to famous but overcrowded places) laughably bad, especially on TikTok, but I actually found myself curious as a result of this one from The Independent, largely because I’ve never actually been to Leiden, Loutro, Guernsey, Sark, and Solta. Dearest readers—what say you?
HELICOPTERS have always terrified me a little, and I think I will definitely pay attention going forward and not go on one of these models…
TRAVEL INDUSTRY NEWS
New York City is about to see a whole lot less outdoor dining
JetBlue is expected to unveil a new domestic first class product
National Parks are free tomorrow (Sunday, the 4th of August)
Bernard Arnault lost out in his bid to snatch up the legendary Hotel Bauer in Venice
...But the demand for no-frills airlines in the U.S. is up
Bringing a dog into the U.S. just got more complicated
I noted before that Hawaii’s number in May went down, and the same now goes for June
The Four Seasons just opened its latest property in a high-rise in Osaka
Fred Segal closed its remaining stores in West Hollywood and Malibu
Are we seeing a renaissance for grand old hotels?
This year’s additions to the UNESCO World Heritage Sites have been announced