In the 1960s, new wealth and a hunger for freedom and exploration sparked another Golden Age of travel. At the same time as people were itching to get away and see new things, they were looking for something glamorous and fun. Slowly at first and then all at once, the destinations that had been a luxury of the wealthy became the playground of more middle class pleasure seekers. Air travel became less exclusive, and plane travel became a fashion show in the sky. Closer to home, domestic vacationers took over the pools and patios of Palm Springs, Fort Lauderdale, and Hawaii’s Big Island.
Overnight, the once sleepy coastal coves of Europe like St. Tropez and Positano transformed into fashionable party towns. The French Riviera, Amalfi Coast, Lake Como, and the Côte d’Azur epitomized the laissez-faire lifestyle and la dolce vita glamour, a new wave of journeyers sought out abroad. More domestically, thanks to a thriving car industry and the onset of the baby boom, families also began to venture farther out on holiday, road tripping to all-inclusive resorts, bicoastal beach towns, and national parks. Places like Cornwall in England and the Rocky Mountains in the United States were lined with station wagons and campers all summer.
Right now, both of these vacation styles—and the destinations they were centered around decades ago—are making a major comeback. On one hand, there’s the return of the domestic road trip, journeys through the redwoods and the Rockies, a taste for the lobster shacks of the northeast , a revisiting of American towns and even motels. Abroad, Australians are flocking back to the Gold Coast and the British to Cornwall, which for decades have been rather overdeveloped, overlooked, and probably looked down upon. When the world opened up a bit in the 60’s due to a changing attitude and more disposable wealth, these were the places that appealed and became classics. Similarly, the moment Covid restrictions were lifted in many countries in the 2020’s, many of those first destinations so alluring to discover were the places people found themselves wanting to go back to. Certainly part of that has had to do with necessity and staying closer to home, but there is more to it than that.
What first started to alert me to the trend was the requests coming in for trips to the French Riviera. For a while, this was a place that someone quite vividly described to me as beginning to smell like ‘money and gasoline’ and I tended to agree. As beautiful as it could be, it was not a place I wanted to be. It wasn’t necessarily a cool destination, and nor was Lake Como (too stuffy and stiff) or Portofino (no vibe, set in amber), for example. I didn’t think that St. Tropez nor most of the Riviera would be a place that would be somewhere I’d be heading, or really recommending, again. To me, the interest in these places was not a focus before Covid. Pre-pandemic, our travelers were stretching to farther destinations, going further afield, to lesser known Greek islands, and the like. But all of a sudden this year, there was a shift. There’s once again a pull toward these nostalgic, more built-out destinations. In part, it is a symptom of just being allowed to go again, but it’s also a desire for that comfortable yet thrilling mix, of the familiar as well as a jet-set glamour. Those iconic places, those postcard familiar haunts, are heaving this year, and looking almost as appealing as when Slim Aarons immortalised them.
I am surprised to find myself advocating (and maybe this will be only for this year) for the big hotel experience, the ones where you can go and stay in one place the whole time, but you still feel like you’re being transported. Big Island travel, those large hotels with the pool and stripey umbrella kind of situation: I think they’re chic for the first time in a long time. I like the idea of going and staying in a hotel in this retro kind of way for five days, and totally get that for this summer. It’s both a reunion of sorts and a much-needed escape.
I believe there will be, and to some extent already has been, a similar return happening to certain major cities, too. People are wanting to revisit the Romes and the Parises of the world, even if they’ve been many times. For so long and up until very recently, cities like Florence or Venice were the only places you could ever meet a cynical Italian, which is very hard to do, believe me. You could check into a hotel, even one you’d spent thousands of dollars on, and be met with an attitude or a negative experience as a traveler. I’ve recently been to Rome, and was able to walk into popular (justly so) and largely touristed restaurants without a reservation. But I would normally not have gone to them. I did this time, and the Romans were there, too. There is a joy in rediscovering those places that now feel like they have been out of reach to us. There’s a freedom now that we don’t feel cliche going and appreciating the Trevi Fountain, because the Trevi is astonishing: It was just hard to feel great about it with hoards of people there. Venice has said goodbye to cruise ships, which I feel like has arrested its inexorable decline. I am not saying that more tourists are not welcome—the opposite is true. Both places need them and are sad without them, but there needs to be a rebalancing. Perhaps this all leads to a gentler, more curious, wide eyed and excited, spirited time, not unlike the 60’s.
Surely all of this is a real symptom of the rehabilitation and the catharsis of Covid. We seem to want the familiar, both because it is what’s logistically and practically on offer, but also because it provides the comfort—and also the fun, glamour, and connection—we want to feel. It’s many of the same values and opportunities that emerged in the 60’s. It’s where we are in this moment again, another exploration phase not unlike the one then. As the world and its destinations hopefully and eventually reopen, we’ll fall in love with them again, one after another. Gradually, we’ll return to all of the places we love.
