DESTINATION FRIENDSHIP
Why people are ditching family trips for vacations with strangers
FOR Passover 2014, New Yorker Atara Neuer wanted to treat herself to a vacation. But instead of traveling with family or friends, she decided to try something new: linking up with friendly strangers with whom she connected in a Facebook group for backpackers.
Upon touching down in Hawaii, the Upper West Side resident met group member Vered Benchetrit, a Toronto-based travel writer and entrepreneur — and the two immediately hit it off.
“We discovered that both of us share this unusual spontaneity and love for travel,” Neuer, the director of a nonprofit, tells The Post.
After exploring Hawaii together, the far-flung pals began meeting up regularly for trips, jetting to Rome, St. Thomas and Miami together.
The globe-trotting bond between Neuer and Benchetrit is part of a trending phenomenon known as “vacationships.” Whether platonic or romantic, travel buddies in vacationships see each other only or mostly on excursions to places that
neither party calls home.
Midtown-based therapist and relationship expert Kimberly Hershenson says she’s seen an uptick in vacationships as open-minded strangers increasingly connect over social media and dating apps.
“You get the benefits of being in a relationship, and you know you have limited time. You’re going to have fun without stress, then go back to your real life,” Hershenson says. “I think in New York people are just so caught up with work and family. [A vacationship] is a form of escapism.”
Benchetrit, 28, agrees that she’d rather see the world with Neuer than with family or friends she sees more regularly.
“There’s a certain pressure when traveling with family,” she says. “[Neuer and I] met because we had left our comfort zones, so we know we’re good travelers . . . You’re both free to do as you wish. You’re not tied down to staying with them.”
Neuer says her best self shines through when she meets up with Benchetrit, making vacationships ideal for getting the most out of your precious time off.
“They see a side of you that you may not always share, because you’re in vacation mode,” says Neuer, who didn’t disclose her age for personal reasons. “There’s also the joy of exploring uncharted territory and being on this adventure with a friend by your side.”
For some travelers, vacationships are romantic. San Francisco-based writer Laura Fraser was recovering from a tumultuous divorce in 1997, when she set off for Ischia, Italy — and met Michel Makarius, a dashing professor from France who swept her off her feet.
Every six months for the next three years, the two rendezvoused in countries such as Morocco, England and Mexico.
“[He] brought me back to life — made me feel like I had my groove back,” says Fraser, now 56, who documented the pair’s romance in her memoir “An Italian Affair” (Vintage). “We were free from any kind of expectation that it might turn into a relationship. It was the good stuff in a relationship without having to deal with who’s gonna do the dishes and take out the compost. It was all charm all the time, which was very appealing.” The two remained close until Makarius’ death in 2009.
Some romantic vacationships quickly fizzle out, however. For Michele, a 27-year-old health administrator in Harlem, a vaca- tionship went awry when she booked a trip to Turks and Caicos with a Canadian man she had met in Atlanta.
“He was just so boring and didn’t want to do anything — he wanted to stay at the hotel,” Michele, who didn’t disclose her last name for professional reasons, tells The Post. “It’s better to travel with friends than men, [who limit] your potential to have fun. You might as well just meet a guy when you travel there.”
A vacationship can also get muddled when one person visits the other’s hometown.
Sandra Hidalgo, an event coordinator in Murray Hill, had a blast traveling to Scotland and New Orleans with Susan, a British woman she befriended at a hostel in Xi’an, China, in 2010. But the relationship briefly became strained when Susan visited Hidalgo in NYC in 2015.
“When people come and visit you, they’re off and you’re not off,” says Hidalgo, who didn’t disclose her age for personal reasons. “It’s a little bit more stressful. You have to rearrange your schedule.” Now the two prefer to meet in new places.
For jet-setters such as Fraser, now happily married to a guy she knew in college, a vacationship can be life-altering in the best possible way.
“[Michel] said to me one time, ‘You’re perfect for a vacation,’ ” Fraser says. “It doesn’t matter if relationships lead to marriage, or if they’re people you see all the time . . . To me, he was the boat on my river of heartbreak, and he took me to the other side.”