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Travel Is A Basic Need, Not A Luxury – Thanks To Millennials

by Tanya February 08, 2015

If you’re anything like me, you are obsessed with travelling. As much as possible and as far as your money can stretch.

I love everything about it: researching the destinations, reading reviews on TripAdvisor, entering my credit card details online, getting the travel confirmation on my email and then anticipating the trip. The earlier I book a flight, the longer I am excited about the whole thing.

Travel is the only thing I indulge in and save money for. It’s one of the few things that make me feel truly alive.

Like many other Millennials, I’ve already travelled more than my parents. My grandma still thinks that travel is only available for the wealthiest vacationers, hence she can’t believe I’m able to afford the amount of travels I do in a year.

Little does she know how cheap travelling can be and how frugal we are as a generation.

We (Gen Y) don’t own homes, cars,  insurances and other costly must-haves that our parents did. To us, it’s not about possessions, it’s about amazing experiences.

Millennial travellers aren’t also doing the typical sun-and-sand vacations or visiting touristy cities. Instead, we’re adventurous. We want to explore other cultures in rather remote destinations.

To me, it makes sense to travel now, when I’m young and healthy, instead of saving travel for a future that is in no way guaranteed.

Life is today, not in 30 years. I don’t really believe in those commercials showing young looking retirees fly-fishing, hiking or dancing on the beach? What did they do to enjoy life before they “retired in luxury”?

Why I don’t want to own a car?

Photo source: www.londoncyclist.co.uk/

Photo source: www.londoncyclist.co.uk/

I live in London, where cycling is the quickest, healthiest and cheapest way to get from A to B. Especially in the city centre.

I don’t want the hassle that comes with finding a free parking space, pay for car insurance and all the rest of it.

However, I’d love to be able to have an access to a car whenever I need it. For that, I’ve used Zipcar (an on demand car-hire service that is very popular with Millennials).

(PS! The Regents canal-side on the photo is my everyday route to work. It’s beautiful!)

Why I don’t own a home?

It’s not that I don’t want to own a property, I just cant afford it in London.

Recession has really put me off any big financial or life commitments and paying out mortgage until I’m 80 just scares me.

So what do Millennials buy, then?

For many companies in the UK, it’s quite literally the billion-pound question.

A study done by Eventbrite shows just how much Millennials are turning away from materialism and traditional measures of success, and instead focusing their income on experiences.

In fact 65% of the 18-34 year olds surveyed were driving the “Experience Economy” through buying real life experiences versus possessions. As a Millennial, I strongly identify with this trend.

Meryl Ferrer, London, 22, agrees: “I work hard all year and prefer to save my money for things that take me away from the norm. Live experiences such as travel, festivals, concerts and sporting events are the things that I really look forward to, and that I’ll always remember. They last much longer than a new dress.”

Millennials are changing travel industry

Currently the travel industry’s most influential customers – Millennials – are becoming more and more responsible for changing the way we travel.

Thanks to Millennials, travelling is not a luxury any more. We see travel as a vital piece of our life journey. An average Millennial travels several times a year. There is a big boom of travel bloggers out there, who make money whilst travelling nonstop.

Thanks to impatient, self-reliant, service-oriented Millennials, start-ups like Cheapflights, Airbnb and Hostelworld have been able to enter an industry with traditionally high entry barrier and change things for the better.

Airbnb is the perfect example of what happens when the Democratization of Fairness ideology is applied to the travel industry. For a Millennial traveling on a budget, hotels can be pricey. Why not crash on someone’s couch for a week at a much lower cost? Both the couch owner and the traveller win. The same principle applies to Cheapflights.co.uk, which provides a one-stop-shop for the cheapest deals you can find online, saving you both time and money.

Now, all this holiday talk made me want to plan my next getaway. I think I’m going to Prague for a weekend …

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Tanya

The first Millennial blogger in the UK. Twitter @_luckyattitude

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