Going to extremes

As long as there's been tourism, there's been tourism for the rich. 

In fact, when tourism was first a thing, it was pretty much exclusively for the rich. If you were a peasant hard-scrabbling a living on your piece of dirt, you probably never took a day off (other than Sunday, when you were stuck in church) or traveled more than a mile or two from where you were born. 

But nobles? They got to sail off to parts unknown to the peasants. 

The only non-rich adventure travel was done by explorers and missionaries. 

In the mid-19th century, with the rise of a middle class, vacation travel became popular, but the best of it was, of course, reserved for the well to do. They got to pack their trunks and take the Grand Tour of Europe. 

Late twentieth century tourism went mass market. People started taking vacations; they started going places. Many of us reversed the travel of our grandparents and great-grandparents. They emigrated from Europe for economic opportunity; we went back, guidebooks in hand, to look around. The more adventurous among us - which would not include me - went on African safaris, toured Angor Wat, flew to Rio by the Sea-o, soaked it up in Bali. 

But for the wealthy, none of this pedestrian middle-class tourism was enough to satisfy the travel bug. After all, what's the big thrill of seeing the Cliffs of Moher or lighting a candle in Notre Dame if Maureen Rogers can afford to do it.

Thus the rise of extreme tourism, which the recent implosion of the OceanGate Titan submarine shone a glaring spotlight on.

And if you thought that travel agents had gone the way of switchboard operators, you've got another think coming. 

Kristin Chambers is a Boston-based extreme-travel agent, or as they're better known, travel consultants. Because when someone's big-spending, you're not agenting, you're consulting.

“There’s always those that are really looking to up-level and go where almost no one on Earth can go,” said Chambers, who runs the Newbury Street firms D.A. Luxury Travel and TRAVELLUSTRE. “They’ve been super successful in their careers. They’ve accomplished, accomplished, accomplished. So, what’s next?” (Source: Boston Globe)

Extreme tourists are paying what is to me an extreme amount of money to up-level. The Titan tourists sprung for $250K per for their rendezvous with destiny. 

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ company Blue Origin routinely brings paying customers to near-space for a rumored $1 million. Climbers are flocking to Mount Everest in record numbers, with some paying six figures for “fully custom” experiences. And amateur adventurers can now get to the North and South poles in just days — a trip that would take months a few decades ago.

A plunge to rubberneck at the Titanic's remains will probably be off-limits for a while, but if abyss-level deep sea is your thing, there are tours to the Mariana Trench for $750K.

Extreme tourists tend to be male, aged 40-60, and as Chambers noted, they're accomplished, accomplished, accomplished. And competitive, competitive, competitive. 

Modern adventurers don’t just want to scale Everest anymore. They also tackle the “Seven Summits,” a series of trips to the tallest peaks on every continent. Then both poles. And then the “Second Seven,” the world’s next-highest peaks, just to be in even more exclusive company.

Eric Larsen runs tours to the North and South Poles.  

“There’s a desire to be unique and distinctive from everyone else. That’s where you get into this race to do all these things,” Larsen said. “They’ve got something they’re trying to prove.”

But Larsen worries that something is lost when modern navigation and aviation make visiting the Earth’s farthest reaches as convenient as booking a dinner reservation — albeit a very expensive one.

At the highest tiers, he said, adventures just aren’t what they used to be.

“If you go to space, are you an adventurer because you sit in a rocket and get flown there?” he said. 

But some extreme tourists don't want to just sit on their arse and get space shot. They want to really court danger.  

Shannon Stowell runs the Adventure Travel Trade Association, which had among its members the ill-fated OceanGate Expeditions. He's heard some pretty strange requests:

One client said she wanted to travel to Mexico, then link up with a smuggler and illegally cross the US border, just for the thrill.

“We gave that a hard ‘No,’” Stowell said. “We said, there’s no way we’re going to be involved in anything, first of all, illegal, and second, insane.”

So much for the 40-60 male demographic. I guess illegal and insanity knows no gender bounds. Bet she could have found some cartel member who would have obliged her. Or at least taken the money off her and dumped her body in the Rio Grande. 

There's extreme tourism, then there's really going to extremes.