The Mound - #11 - The End of Holidays

Welcome to The Mound, a weekly newsletter in which we at Good One Creative pitch— for free — our solutions to the world’s problems

According to the AFR, climate change and the vicious heatwaves that’ll come with it are likely to make tourism across Southern Europe impossible - with the +40 degree temperatures already driving would-be holidaymakers to book their trips in the “shoulder seasons”. Meanwhile, exorbitant ticket prices and of course inflation are leading many people to scrap their travel plans entirely.

It’s clear that the cost of our holidays is getting too much - for the planet and our wallets. But we’re optimistic at Good One; we prefer to think of these challenges as opportunities to advance the art of kicking back. And holidaying is in dire need of an update.

Just about every single product, service, and commercial experience is today unrecognisable to what it was thirty, fifty years ago. Everything except holidaying. I mean, sure, we book the tickets a little differently and the bathing suits have changed - but we’re all still doing it the same. Bit of sun, some drink, and a Tom Clancy… where’s the imagination? Where’s the innovation, the radical reduction of use-times and those lightyear leaps in advancement we’ve seen across computing, transportation, and fintech?

When it comes to productivity growth, I’d argue that holidaying is - crazily - slacking off.

Well no more. Like the obnoxious kid whose parents are too drunk to care about their screaming in the hotel pool, we’re here to disrupt holidays. Join us as - lubricated by a cocktail of sunscreen, pool water, and arse-sweat - we slide further down the lounge chair toward peak unproductivity. It’s time the world reimagined how we holiday. So chill out, pups, and listen in. 

Here’s how we fix it:

When you think about it, most holidays are just really, really expensive ways of getting bored. Sleep in, read a book, eat lunch, read a book… the essence of any holiday is to lie down and read until you realise that it was never your schedule that prevented you from reading; if you were any good at it, you’d do it at home, too. So you get your phone from the hotel room - and, hey, why not check the emails just this once?

This is the point of holidays - get so bored that you feel like working again. Once you understand this, the opportunities for efficiency gains start popping up like crazy. We don’t need to travel to another continent to experience such boredom, we can achieve that virtually anywhere. Now, some of you might say it’s about the journey, not the destination. To that I say - get off my email list with that hippie-dippy bullshit! Anyone who says it’s not about the destination is invariably lost - and, no matter the number of shells on your necklace, your organisational deficits will not be made a virtue. It’s exactly this sort of zombie-brained sentimentality that’s suppressed our invention of the fastest, cheapest, and most powerful boredom-inducing holiday experience known to mankind. 

Here’s what we’re pitching:

From the street (just a few minutes from home), this building looks like any other. Through the front door, though, you’ll find an exact replica of a tire shop’s waiting room. Wait by the desk for a few minutes - and, just as you’re about to take a seat, a mechanic appears. (You’ve filled out the forms prior to coming, so you can rest assured the mechanic is at least one foot taller than you.) He asks why you’re standing, there’s a chair over there and your car won’t be ready for at least a half hour. For good measure, he then shakes your hand - and his hands are ROUGH. Yeah, you’re not saying anything to this guy.

You take a seat, pull out your phone to find that you’ve got no reception. Looks like all you’ve got to entertain yourself are the magazines they’ve left for you - classic titles like Fishing, Fly Fishing, and a near-white issue of 4WD from… my god, 2006! Has this just been sitting here for… seventeen years?

Feel your heart rate slow as your whole world comes to a screeching halt. Watch the fly on the ceiling and sit back as your mind sinks to the very bottom of commercial and temporal nirvana. When you’re finally released to the world, you’ll be shocked to learn that exactly no years have passed since you left. You are the same age as before - but you feel younger, more appreciative, and ready for your life to resume.

You’re welcome, Australia.