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One of the world’s great divides is between those who can afford to go on holiday and those who can’t. Asser Khattab, a Syrian refugee in France, recalls: “I grew up surrounded by people who had never experienced the joy of peaceful tranquillity, the carefree nature of a summer holiday or the option to switch off for a few hours a day to pursue a variety of hobbies; I thought that was normal.” And it always was, for most humans since the beginning of history.
But that is changing. This year is expected to be a record year for international travel. Barring another pandemic, numbers should continue to rise thereafter, as billions of people finally acquire disposable income and discover the transformative experience of going on vacation.
Some lucky people were already on holiday in ancient times, when wealthy Romans had seaside villas on the Gulf of Naples. In Victorian Britain, factory workers went to the beach every week at Wakes. From the 1840s, the arrival of railways began to democratise international travel. Suddenly, ordinary Britons could take “excursions” to Paris or see the battlefield at Waterloo. These early travellers travelled mainly in tour groups to save money and enjoy the protection of guides who could mediate foreign languages and cultures. Chinese tourists in the 2000s did the same.
Imagine the sense of wonder people feel when they first leave their limited worlds. Orvar Löfgren, in his 1999 book On vacation: a history of vacationsquotes Agnes, a German immigrant raised in New York in the early 20th century, who loved to take boat trips with friends. She wrote of her favorite destination, Coney Island: “Oh, it’s just like what I see when I dream of heaven.”
That was the pitch of the 1950s promoters selling charabanc “mystery tours” to working-class families in Liverpool. In the recent podcast series McCartney: A life in lettersPaul McCartney recalls that the supposed mystery destination used to be Blackpool beach. However, the trip seemed so magical to him that he later confused it with hallucinogenic trips in the Beatles song “Magical Mystery Tour.”
These holidays offered an escape from the grueling routine of life. There was no boss to tell you when to get up or what to do. Housewives didn’t have to clean all day. Everyone could celebrate their rise to the holidaymaker class. I remember as a child in the 1970s spending an afternoon looking at a boring slideshow of the neighbours’ holiday photos. They were so proud.
Then there’s mental health. Being somewhere else helps put your own life into perspective. You may not learn much about the place you’re visiting, but you learn something more valuable: about home. You understand that the few square miles of your existence aren’t the whole world. That can make your problems seem manageable.
I realized how rare this privilege was one midnight about 25 years ago, when I was making photocopies at a Chicago print shop. The young saleswoman came over to chat. She confessed that she found her life as a single mother unbearably hard. But she had recently been away for the first time, in Milwaukee, and she had seen that life there was hard, too. Maybe, she supposed, it was like that everywhere. She was desperately looking for points of comparison for her experiences. Part of her suffering—and part of the unique cruelty of American capitalism—was that she lived in the only developed country without guaranteed paid vacations.
My first book, Football against the enemyIn 1994, a book about football fans was published. In Glasgow, I met an ex-player called Jim Craig and together we lamented the aggressiveness of some hardcore Celtic and Rangers fans. Craig then said: “But don’t forget: you’ll have summer holidays, I’ll have summer holidays, but they won’t.”
Now, more people than ever are doing it. Largely due to cheaper airfares and the expansion of short-term rentals like Airbnb, “average spending per international trip fell 17 percent in real terms” between 2000 and 2019, according to the World Travel Market’s Global Travel Report. bad for the climate and good for mental health. Last winter, during a work trip to India, I escaped to the coast of Goa. From stories of Western friends, I had imagined it as a playground for Western backpackers. In 2023, almost all the tourists were Indians, some of whom were probably on their first vacation.
It’s easy to make fun of people who film themselves on a plane, but some of them are enjoying a pleasure their parents never experienced.
Email Simon at simon.kuper@ft.com
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