The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Has travel made children of us all?
Over the years I have stayed in a variety of places that have clearly been about getting in touch with your inner child. I have enjoyed a lot of them. I love the elaborately styled TV- and movie-themed rooms at the two Roxbury hotels in the Catskills region of New York state, but not so much St Jerome’s in Melbourne, which amounted to a set of tents on top of a shopping centre (now gone, thank goodness) and promised “next-level camping glamour”.
As soon as I arrived, I realised none of this was aimed at me. I have been on perhaps three camping trips in my life and, to me, the pursuit is synonymous with profound misery. St Jerome’s had real beds, which was something, but the shower block and toilets both required a walk across the roof. I was there for two nights and felt delighted to be going to a hotel afterwards.
The infantilisation of travel is taking a variety of forms right now. I never want to see a cuddly toy on a hotel bed (available to buy in the lobby gift shop or online, of course) again, or a life-affirming slogan scrawled in a Sharpie on my bathroom mirror. Seize the day! You’re beautiful! Likewise, I don’t want some macramé mouse or silly sign to hang outside my door to let housekeeping know I don’t want to be disturbed – those three simple words do the trick.
TreeDwellers (treedwellers.com) is a new place to stay in Oxfordshire, with seven different kinds of treehouse, one of them called B-----d Balm. So perhaps they have some awareness of the cynicism they will be encountering about the notion that being closer to the wilderness than you would be in a traditional hotel will rewire your brain while you stay in them (from £210 per night).
“Right now, you are likely to be functioning with Beta brainwaves,” the company claims, “in a state of outwardly focused concentration and high alertness. We’ll help you get back to Alpha and Theta, where you are more relaxed, creative and receptive to growth.”
I’m not rejecting the idea of staying in a treehouse. Like sleeping in a National Trust folly from centuries past, or an old lighthouse on a Greek island, it is cute. But it is also contrived to get a certain demographic of urbanites to feel like they are doing something “authentic”, rather than going again to Soho Farmhouse for the weekend – which is what they really want to do. We are all so stressed, we are desperate to be five years old again, with no responsibilities.
There are tipis and yurts aplenty all over the country, priced higher per night than any half-decent budget hotel. No matter how pretty the wood-burning stove, or how many shearling throws are on the bed, you are still going to be taking a hike in the middle of the night to go to the toilet.
On one of my infrequent forays into this territory, I stayed in a yurt near Ben Nevis. On arrival, the rain was lashing hard at the canvas, and I groaned in misery. Once we had run out of all the M&S goodies I had packed, I told my husband I wanted to leave. But it was a long drive back to his parents’ house – and late – so we literally weathered the storm.
And – hurrah – the next day was gorgeous. Maybe I could enjoy this, I thought. On the second evening, however, I realised I needed the toilet and didn’t want to play hide-and-seek with spiders across a squelchy field. I took my chance in the vicinity of our accommodation. Unfortunately, about halfway through I realised that a family of five were having a barbecue outside the yurt next door – and staring, agog, hot dogs in hand, at me. We left early next morning – and moved to a hotel where I could be far less in touch with nature.