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Today's traveller seeks experiences. More than the amenities and creature comforts, more than the attractions and canned entertainment, more than the must-sees and photos, the real-life experiences are what compel people to travel.
Here are reflections from the WHL Group about what the buzzword ‘experiential travel' means, and our own favourite memories of it.
Connecting with the local kids in Nigeria is an example of experiential travel. Photo courtesy of flickr/Louis Kreusel
"To me the experiences that make travel so compelling are usually ones that sneak up on me. They're the encounters that simply bring a smile to my face, affect me profoundly and enrich my life immeasurably. When I think about experiential travel, I think about volunteering to take a bunch of local kids in Nigeria on their first scout camp just outside Lagos; I think about going out with friends in Vienna to cut fresh Christmas trees in the country and the stop on the way home at a beautiful wine cellar to eat local delicacies and drink the local wine; I think about the night an American friend and I went to a little French restaurant for dinner in Geneva, Switzerland. Neither of us speaks French, so selecting what to eat was a challenge. The dish we picked, according to my poor French, was goose liver in chocolate sauce. Of course we both thought ‘that can't be right.' So we ordered it only to discover that it was indeed goose liver in chocolate sauce – and it was delicious!"
"Sometimes the simplest moments during your travels can provide the greatest memories and experiences.
Such was the case on a recent trip I took down to central Vietnam, where after stopping in a small village for lunch, we found ourselves special guests at a local wedding party. With the encouragement of a few hundred other guests (and a few beers), we were on stage with the bride and groom singing a traditional Vietnamese love song.
I'll be honest: we were not good, but we were all in agreement that it was the most memorable experience of our trip. Experiential travel does not have to cost anything. It's just about engaging with the local people and truly experiencing their culture from the front line, even if you do end up the laughing stock of the village!"
~ Luke Ford, CEO, Gunyah
"Experiential travel is about valuing the experiences you actually have over what you're told you should being doing by someone else. We're all different, we all enjoy different things and our travel should reflect that. My experience of the Louvre, for example, was terrible – crowded, noisy, expensive – and that was something we're told we should do as visitors to Paris. What I actually remember about that trip is drinking some decent red wine in a quiet bistro, because that was the experience I enjoyed. We should let our own experiential preferences guide us, not somebody else's book."
~ Paul Tavner, Developer, The Travel Word
"Experiential travel is about using all your senses when you travel and enhancing your travel with rich and unexpected experiences that will become your stories and memories. When I was in Myanmar a couple of months ago, we were riding on the back of a truck to visit a pagoda and happened to drive through an Aung San Suu Kyi rally. A big group of local villagers had gathered and was playing music and chanting to support her. We got off the truck and joined them, shaking hands, learning their songs and waving their flags. This brief encounter was more memorable than any attraction or site we visited and the best memory and story from the entire trip."
~ Ashley Hiemenz, Product Manager, Gunyah
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