Flightster

The positive charge towards travel buzzwords

• by Jools Stone
• on September 23rd, 2010
• 10 Comments

Stick the word ‘Cation’ into google and see what you get. Can’t be bothered?  OK then I’ll tell you: ‘a cation is an ion with fewer electrons than protons, giving it a positive charge.’  The top result from wikipedia. Knowing very little about particle physics it meant nothing to me either, but that’s not the point of this post. I did it to see just how many of these travel buzzwords ending in cation I could find.  I was about to give up and try a more targeted search when I stumbled across mom-cation on the second results page.

It’s all staycation’s fault.  It’s barely a nipper and yet already it feels like it’s been with us for a generation doesn’t it?  Like Gizmo from Gremlins, it may have seemed cute and harmless at first but it’s spawned all number of little linguistic critters.

Morecations

On the same post you’ll find a name check for mancation. I’d already been warned about this one by Ayngelina from the Bacon is Magic travel blog earlier today.  Typically involving hunting, fishing and similar manly pursuits they’re effectively stag dos without the pesky excuse of an impending wedding.  The next time you’re having a little male bonding session in the pub try suggesting you organise a mancation soon. Doesn’t sound too macho does it? You could easily confuse your drinking buddies into thinking you’re proposing a gaycation, another niche travel trend which needs no explanation.  (But going down that alley of discovery online could lead you to this club where the hosts give tips to beat the winter blues such as  ‘grinding up on some hot homos is a good way to keep warm.’)

Glamping

A different type of camping altogether has its own buzzword of course. I’m talking about glamping, which was cleverly cooked up to bypass some of the stigma which hovers over plain old camping like midges round a campfire, especially in countries like Britain where the weather rarely helps its plight. It was pounced on enthusiastically by music festival promoters keen to coax out the older or more cosseted (and less thrifty) corner of their market.

In fairness many ‘glampsites’ have gone to very impressive lengths to do the the phrase justice.  Take a look at Sawday’s Canopy and Stars, a   luxurious selection of  treehouses, gypsy wagons, yurts and even a converted horse trailer, or this Country House Hideout in Scotland, which offers guests their own personal mini-campsite complete with pine hot tub, canopy bed and mobile woodburning cooking cart.  It’s a far cry from Butlins.

But let’s get back to those cations. Those who know what I’m about will know that I wholeheartedly approve of the whole Traincation idea, but even I have to admit it’s a clumsy phrase. It doesn’t even have that proper ‘ay’ sound. In literary terms it’s a half rhyme, and they’re always deeply unsatisfying. Shannon’s recent post on this blog made me wonder if there are  dogcations and indeed I didn’t need to paddle far to find them.

Everyone deserves a holiday and perhaps our increasingly fragmented lifestyles create opportunities for those publicising travel brands to create new and exciting buzzwords which, as this post by Vicky Baker suggests,  gradually morph into trends which soon get absorbed into every day language and concepts, whether we like it or not.

Slow Travel

There was an interesting discussion recently on Andy Jarosz’s 501 places blog about the semantics of slow travel. It asked how literally you should interpret the term and whether even it should be replaced with an alternative notion of deep travel.  That is, immersing yourself in the culture of a particular place, interacting with the locals and generally not behaving like the archetypal pampered tourist. Inevitably slow travel means different things to different people but the term is sensible enough I think.

Slow Movement

Its origins stem from the slow food movement which sprouted in mid 80s Italy as independent restaurantuers sought to defend their patch from encroaching multinationals. Slow travel blogs proliferate and many exhibit a strong fascination with food, some to the point of obsession.

The slow movement has its own vaguely spiritual orbit taking in slow sex (ask Sting), slow reading and even slow money.  I was reading about it recently in Christine Louise Hohlbaum’s book The Power of Slow, which aims to teach the tricks of living slow and escaping from the shackles of that ‘time=money’ mantra which continues to dominate our ever-accelerating world.  I plan to review the book on my own blog soon but I’m rather behind with my offline reading and only 80 pages in. Hopefully Christine will forgive my slow progress.

End this cation madness

I’ve saved mt favourite for last, and it’s not even a cation.  The main inspiration for this post came today when I first heard the term flightseeing, which is taking a scenic tour by seaplane. It seems to be a popular way of seeing Alaska, (note the unfortunately disconcerting company name in that link) and spotting bears. In similar Indiana Jones style, you can tour around the mountains and lakes of New Zealand and across Scotland’s Loch Lomond.  There’s just something pleasing about the word to my ears, but then again I’ve only just heard it.

I’m sure there are many more cations out there eagerly awaiting conjunction.  If you’d care to toss a few into the pot then please leave a comment below.

And if you happen to be reading this in 2015, tell us which of these buzzwords has stayed the distance, vanished from the map, blended into popular use or even seem laughably archaic to you now.

Jools Stone

Jools Stone's blog, He Thought of Trains, chronicles the highs - and occasional lows - of traveling by train in an age of budget flights.