His and hers holidays to beat holiday incompatibility syndrome
“HOLIDAY INCOMPATIBILITY SYNDROME” SEES MARRIED WOMEN LEAVING THEIR HUSBANDS AT HOME
Conflicting travel tastes lead many women to holiday without their husbands say Thelma & Louise and travel partner, GoLearnTo.com
Women’s online travel community, Thelma & Louise and new travel partner, GoLearnTo.com have spoken out in support of the theory of “Holiday Incompatibility Syndrome”, after both companies agreed that they are seeing a growing trend for married women to take holidays without their husbands.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph this week1, columnist Allison Pearson described what her travel agent has identified as “a classic case of late-onset Holiday Incompatibility Syndrome (HIS)” between herself and her husband. “I like to lie down, he likes to stand up. I like to bake my Vitamin-D deprived bones, he hates the heat. My idea of a relaxing morning is a smiley man with a tray – think Rafa Nadal’s cousin – bringing me something cool in a tall glass. His idea of a relaxing morning is finding a fossil or a church with a glass case containing the leprous finger of a saint who died a prolonged death that has a firework named after it”, she said.
“Men and women often have very divergent holiday tastes”, says Thelma & Louise co-founder, Christine Davies. “I was inspired to launch Thelma & Louise after my own husband refused to come with me on a back-packers’ tour of the Northern Territory in Australia. I found a female travel buddy online who shared my ambition to climb Ayers Rock and off we went, leaving my husband behind to enjoy his luxury, Sydney hotel.”
“At Thelma & Louise we witness a great many married or attached members joining the community to find a female travel companion because their husband or partner doesn’t share the same dream or holiday interests as them. It’s often the case that a member’s husband goes on a golfing holiday every year without her and she’s looking to take an adventure of her own. The husbands don’t tend to mind because they feel reassured that their wife is travelling with a like-minded, female companion she has met through Thelma & Louise, rather than setting off into the unknown, alone.”
Vanessa Lenssen, founder of learning holiday specialist, GoLearnTo.com, and a travel partner of Thelma & Louise, added “85 per cent of our customers are women and a growing proportion of those women are married or attached but are booking places on our holidays and courses without their husbands or partners.”
“It’s not to say that they never holiday with their partners. They do. It’s simply that they want to seize the opportunity to do something that’s just for them once in a while, whether that’s a cookery course in Italy or painting lessons in the Dordogne.”
“We have also introduced holidays which offer two different activities from the same base, in order to accommodate those couples who are experiencing “Holiday Incompatibility Syndrome” but who still want to be away together. One example is horse riding and cooking in rural Portugal. One half of the couple can opt for horse riding and the other cooking. They spend their day-time activities apart but get to enjoy their dinners and evenings together. Other dual-activity holidays include Spanish and yoga or photography and surf in Costa Rica or Flamenco dancing and Flamenco guitar in Seville, kitesurf and surf in Lanzarote, cooking and photography in France and many more.”
GoLearnTo.com recently teamed up with the women’s online travel community and Thelma & Louise members now have access to exclusive offers and discounts on GoLearnTo.com holidays. The offers are updated every week in the “Trip Ideas” section of www.thelmandlouise.com and range from Pilates in France and Spanish lessons in Costa Rica, to dancing in Argentina and sailing courses in Australia.
What do you think? Are you travelling seperately from your partner? If so, tell us your preferred activities…
For holiday inspiration, discover what you can learn on your next trip at GoLearnTo.com
Category: In the Press