Holiday Fatigue

A most recent buzzword was »overtourism«: overcrowding in cities, beaches, dream destinations. Then the big shutdown came in the spring of 2020: closed borders, closed airports, deserted city centers. With the return to normality, wanderlust will probably return, the great departure for the vacationing. But where to? Vacation was not envisioned in any of the great social utopias of recent centuries, in Tommaso di Campanella’s Sunshine State any more than in the communist paradise or in the supposed dissolution of all bodies and boundaries in the self-governing Digitalia of the 1990s. Overthrow? Revolution? All irrelevant.

At the beginning of the 21st century, vacation was the last great social utopia, the territory of freedom, three weeks a year. Unfortunately, this utopia is just ceasing to function. It has become crowded and cramped in paradise. That’s why — like every paradise — it was unfortunately closed down for good recently. The fulfillment of dreams has left behind too much dirt, a lot of weariness and tiredness. Then the COVID 19 pandemic came. And at some point, normality will return. Reason enough for a little stocktaking.