Tim Leffel on Prepackaged Travel Vacations

Posted by Mike Richard
Filed under: Quotable, Rants, Sidelines

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This seems a rather appropriate complement to The Super Ultimate Definitive List of the Only 1001 Places You Need to See Before You Die. Ever..

Visa Prepackaged Travel Vacation Vending Machine

[T]ake a look at this ad from Visa that is running … this month. It’s a vending machine filled with flag-covered countries: the UK, France, Italy, Australia, India, Mexico and more. The tag at the bottom says, “Pre-packaged travel plans make it easy to pick up and go.”

In other words, traveling somewhere should take as much thought and planning as buying a bag of Doritos or a Snickers bar. And hey, it will be just as nourishing!

There are so many things wrong with this ad that it almost makes me want to use my American Express exclusively.

- Tim Leffel, Cheapest Destinations blog

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Vagabondish editor, Mike Richard, lives in Rhode Island - a spit of land in the northeastern U.S. He is a professional web designer and travel junkie with an unhealthy addiction to backpacking, camping, hiking and seeing the world. He enjoys knit hats, small, declarative sentences and speaking in the third person.



Share Your Thoughts

Rene
October 30th, 2007

That is just so wrong.

When Jim and I went to the Basque region of Spain way back in 2000, we wanted to rent motorcycles. Instead of a prepackaged tour, we got some beater bikes from a shop in Madrid and did our own thing, on our own time, for far less money.

Sure, those tour riders looked way snazzier than we did when we saw them blow past us near Pamplona. They rode shiny new BMWs, and didn’t even have to carry luggage. And they never needed to think about where to ride or stay or eat. How easy.

But all these years later, I’ll bet they don’t have the same (now) funny stories that Jim and I do, like ones about our bikes breaking down in Bilbao and how we tried to get help in our awful Spanish. Or, how we ended up staying in some really far out hostels in the middle of nowhere, like Agreda, in places where tourists seldom ventured.

This is what makes travel worthwhile. Why bother if it’s all thought out for you?


Mike
November 1st, 2007

I couldn’t agree more, Rene. To be honest, some of the best travel stories I have stem from when things went wrong. The prepackaged vacation offerings are reminiscent of so many other plastic, shrink-wrapped, FDA-approved things we do here in America (and increasingly other parts of the world) - amusement park rides; microwaved dinners at Olive Garden; the “authentic” cafe experience of Starbucks. It seems so little is truly authentic anymore.


Travel Guy
April 1st, 2008

I agree the spot isn’t perfect for Visa, however, I’ve had some good experiences with vacation packages and escorted tours at times when I wanted to travel and was willing to pay a little more to avoid planning/worrying. I don’t think the ad hits as hard (in a bad way) as you guys think. Just my opinion. :- )