Glamping: is it worth it?

'Glamorous camping': so is it worth forking out hundreds of dollars for a tent fitted out with Persian carpets? Heather On Her Travels says: "I can't understand this glamping thing - If you're going to pay top hotel prices why not stay in a top hotel and be done with it? Suppose I might be tempted in some East African game park though." I agree. If you're not into camping, can't cope with the bugs, can't get by without blow-drying your hair, don't want to 'go' in the bush, and don't mind throwing money around like Gigi Bondick, then it's probably worth it. I've glamped at bush retreats while researching books and while it was nice not to have to pitch our own tent, to sleep in a bed and have a private bathroom, I didn't think it was good value. If anything, they just weren't luxurious enough. If I hadn't have been researching a book and working all day, I would have been happier camping the trad way. I wouldn't call the Four Seasons 'Tented Camp' Golden Triangle or Al Maha 'glamping' as some writers do. They're luxury resorts with solid structures, swimming pools, spas, and restaurants. The Golden Triangle's 'tented' suites do have canvas walls but they also boast wooden verandahs, floors and doors, bathrooms, mini-bar and all the amenities you'd expect of a five star resort. As does Al Maha, where the suites (pictured) are proper buildings apart from their canopy-shaped roofs, and are as plush as any of Dubai's deluxe hotels with enormous bathrooms, heavy colonial-style furniture, and private plunge pools. You only know that if you do research - another reason why travel writers need to visit the places they're writing about. They do have Persian carpets though.

Carry on Glamping

Glamping down under? There are endless options from Karijini Eco Retreat (take a look here) to El Questro's Emma Gorge (pictured here), however the Australian travel media seems largely to have missed the glamping trend. Except Lissa Christopher who in Carry on Glamping for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald writes: “Glamping is about exploring your positive feelings about nature at the same time as your fondness for linen napkins and turn-down services.” Unfortunately Christopher's story is little more than a cut-and-paste of others cited in previous posts. The result of a trip courtesy of Voyages Hotels and Resorts to Longitude 131 (at least we know she's been there), like the writers of other glamping pieces, Christopher also recommends Paws Up, Montana and Clayoquot Wilderness Resort, Canada. (Which makes me wonder which of the resorts issued the press release that started the trend.) Christopher quotes the much-quoted Bondick family: “Gigi Bondick and her family, from Massa- chusetts, are glampers. "We're just not the camping kind of people," she says on a US-based blog.” There's no link to the US-based blog. Perhaps because the interview source is a Los Angeles Times/ Seattle Times story by Kimi Yoshino reporting from Greenough, Montana: “When 6-year-old Ethan Bondick told his mom and dad he wanted to go fly-fishing in Montana, his well-heeled parents were stumped. "We looked at each other and said, 'Oh, god, now what?' " said Gigi Bondick, 37, a "reformed" attorney whose husband works as a private-equity partner in Massa- chusetts. "We're just not the camping kind of people. We don't pitch tents. We don't cook outdoors. We don't share a bathroom. It's just not going to happen. This is a kid who has never flown anything but first class or stayed anywhere other than a Four Seasons." Sound familiar? Yoshino continues: "After typing "luxury" into a Google search along with "camping" and "Montana," the couple settled on The Resort at Paws Up... The Bondicks... shelled out $595 a night plus an additional $110 per person per day for food.” Christopher's story continues: “"We don't pitch tents. We don't cook outdoors. We don't share a bathroom. It's just not going to happen." The Bondicks pay about $1000 a night to holiday at Paws Up in Montana...” Stories 'researched' this way raise interesting questions for travellers. If the writer has misled readers here, where else has she done so? How can we trust her recommendations? And if you're about to shell out $1000 a night you want to be able to trust the writer, to know that she's been there or at least done her own research. I guess, at least we know her math's okay.

Pictured here? Our luxury tent interior at the Four Seasons Golden Triangle where we stayed while researching hotels for DK's Thailand guide last October - not nearly as expensive as the Paws Up by the sounds of it!

We're all going on a glamping holiday - again, and again, and again

A problem with the travel media, and the US media in particular, is their enthusiasm for publishing syndicated travel stories (they’re cheaper) and their preference for masking that the story was syndicated (everyone wants to publish original content, right?), which means the same story appears in a dozen or more different publications in different guises. I have no problem with syndication – my own stories have been syndicated – I just prefer that papers be honest about it. The Los Angeles Times glamping story Say, has the butler cleaned the trout yet? is Kimi Yoshino’s same Seattle Times story Glamorous camping: tent, butler, $595 a night which I quoted in my last post on the glamping trend. What’s even more disappointing in the travel media today is that there’s little analysis of or insight into the growth of travel trends generally. To use the glamping phenomenon again, aside from the trivialities, the most we learnt from the body of coverage was that the trend opened up exotic travel destinations to a traditionally uninterested demographic, as Courtney Weaver mentioned in Roughing it in Style in Business Week. Interestingly, one of the most insightful comments came from The Grinder, a food rather than a travel blog, which saw glamping as being symptomatic of a growing gap between America’s rich and everyone else. Now why couldn't a travel journalist have suggested that? I'm not after in-depth socio-economic analysis here but when a writer covers a new trend, such as glamping, wouldn't it be interesting to know the how's and why's as part of an introduction to the phenomenon rather than just read about the fact that one resort's comforters don't touch the floor and that you can plug in your hairdryer at another. Maybe I just expect too much from the travel press?

The travel media goes glamping

As the cool camping phenom- enon was peaking in the UK last year, ‘glamping’ was starting to gain momentum in North America, where travel journalists admitted the trend had just recently traversed the Atlantic: “It’s known as “glamping,” or glamorous camping, a British import inspired by A-listers who wanted to be in touch with nature without touching the dirt and dishes,” the Seattle Times' CeCe Sullivan reported last May in Gather ’round the haute-grub campfire: “The tents are spacious; according to reports some are lined with antique saris and Persian carpets, and some feature fluffy down comforters tossed over mattresses that never touch the ground.” In case we'd forgotten, a few months later in the same paper Kimi Yoshino reminded us in Glamorous camping: tent, butler, $595 a night: “The number of visits to U.S. national parks is declining, but “glamping” — glamorous camping — is on the rise in North America after gaining popularity among wealthy travelers in Africa and England, where luxury tents come with Persian rugs and electricity to power blow dryers.” As one glamper tells us in that story: “It’s nature on a silver platter”. It’s a shame that level of quality and finesse didn't make it into the writing and that much of the glamping coverage dished out wasn’t worth dirtying a paper plate for - most publications ran with the same 'Ditch the smelly sleeping bag and go glamping' and ‘Where Wild Meets Refined’ angles, the same hackneyed ‘tick-off’ technique (“Gourmet chef – check. Wi-fi and laptops outside by the fire – check. $75 cigars, expensive liquor and wine – check”), and the same lack of creativity many of their UK counterparts applied to their ‘cool camping’ trend, with the same text used time and time again. Don't you hate that?

'Trailer trash' and 'glamping'

Caravanning may be attracting aristocrats in the UK, and with it a whole new posh lingo, but in the USA there’s still a stigma attached to staying in caravan parks because of the perception they're only home to the poor and unemployed, succinctly and unsubtly encapsulated in the term ‘trailer trash’. While ‘trailer trash’ may be derogatory, some self-effacing trailer-dwellers use the term themselves with good humour, going as far as to celebrate the creativity of trailer trash. Sites such as Missouri Trailer Trash, created by 28-year-old factory worker Neil Nesslage (interviewed here by Newsweek), features a trailer with a car hood as an awning! The site also has a quiz you can do to determine if you’re trailer trash, an online store where you can buy trailer trash t-shirts and mugs, and links to trailer trash sites. At Redneck Warehouse you can buy a trailer trash Barbie doll who is pregnant, has curlers in her hair, and a cigarette hanging out her mouth. (On a completely different note, Tin Can Trailer Trash is an enlightening, amusing and often moving blog by a woman who has been living in a trailer provided by FEMA since Hurricane Katrina. Her first posts explain why she started the blog.) It's easy to see then why and how the North American travel media embraced and ran with 'glamping', glamorous camping, with even more gusto than UK travel writers excessive coverage of 'cool camping'.