This week a promotional email popped into my inbox asking if I’d like to experience wine country like a travel writer. I resisted a temptation to facetiously reply, ‘You mean I won’t have to pay for anything?’ or, alternatively, ‘So I’ll get whisked in, quickly shown around, then whisked off again for another whistlestop tour of somewhere else that I’d love to spend more time exploring?’
The latter is a bit unfair as I’ve enjoyed some wonderfully long, lazy afternoons in sunny vineyards feeling like Bacchus as I gorge on great food and quaff more wine than is sensible, achieving a slightly inebriated Nirvana in the process, as part of a press trip.
A lazy afternoon in a Spanish vineyard.
I decided against responding, but the email stirred memories of our first tentative steps into the world of travel writing, when there was a buzz about rolling up somewhere on a writing job. Telling people we were researching for a travel article opened doors, leading to us being showered with information we normally wouldn’t get and being introduced to people we would never usually have access to.
Our focus initially was very narrow. It was Tenerife, Tenerife, and Tenerife. Mind you, there was a lot to discover on an island that many people thought they knew about because it was (is) a massively popular holiday destination. There was a niggle that although we were writing numerous articles for a magazine, we weren’t real travel writers as we never really travelled anywhere except around the island we lived on. After a year or so, commissions took us to La Palma, La Gomera, and Gran Canaria, while a regular copywriting job brought Lanzarote into the mix. But it still wasn’t proper travel writing to us, not compared with the ‘real’ travel writers we followed, the ones who jetted off all over the place living lives full of adventure and discovery.
Route finding on Gran Canaria.
Gradually, our scope expanded outward, taking in other parts of Spain and then Europe, and we found ourselves invited on press trips. At first, these were a real thrill and a lot of fun. We got to meet fascinating people and have exceptional experiences. I remember an American writer commenting about a particularly exciting one, ‘Why are we doing this when real travellers will never get the chance?’ I batted his comment to one side, mainly because I didn’t want to acknowledge it was true, but also because I didn’t care; I was having a great time.
It didn’t take long for the scales to start to fall. The first time was checking into a monastery where we were staying at 23:00. It looked a fabulous place. Whether it was or not, I couldn’t tell you. We had a dawn breakfast and were off again before daylight, moving on to different accommodation at the end of another travel-experience-filled day. Instead of feeling I was being exposed to insightful travel experiences, I felt cheated. If I were travelling under my own steam, I’d take the time to enjoy and explore the old monastery. It was my first taste of the red pill. I couldn’t eat when or where I wanted, choose where to visit, where to stay, what bars to drink in or even what time to get up. Maybe worst of all, there was no spontaneity. That’s the deal, it was costing me virtually nothing – he who pays the piper calls the tune and all that. Some experiences were like the amuse-bouche version of travel, getting to enjoy a teasing taster without getting to hang around for the main course.
Coaches waiting for holidaymakers.
The real road to Damascus moment came at a ‘refreshment’ stop on the way from one ‘attraction’ to another. As my fellow writers poured from the bus transporting us around the place, I suddenly had memories of coach excursions from when Andy and first started travelling together (mostly involving package holidays to sun-kissed Greek islands). We stopped going on these because we didn’t enjoy being herded about like pack animals. It was not the way I wanted to travel as a holidaymaker and not the way I wanted to travel as a travel writer. The illusion of a glamourous and exciting lifestyle dissolved at that moment.
There were other press trips where there was more freedom to explore or which gave a decent taster of travel experiences, like three days walking the Camino de Santiago. But mostly we pulled back from press trips. Luckily, this coincided with an opportunity which resulted in us being able to travel in a way that suited us better.
Walking a stage of the Camino de Santiago.
I have many fond memories of these trips. I met some great people, made good friends, and had unforgettable and unique experiences. But what automatically popped into my mind when I saw the email titled ‘Experience wine country like a travel writer’ was ‘No thanks.’
