I hear the word luxury much too often in the travel world. Luxury experiences. Luxury hotels. Luxurious linens. Luxury beaches. Luxury this, luxury that. The best, the finest, the most, the mostest. To me, somewhere between common sense and lunacy, we misappropriated this word “luxury” and now use it as a doorstop for pretty much everything. Luxury has lost its luster, and it’s very much all of our fault.
I wrote about how “luxury is a lie” for Wonderlust Travel, you can read that here.
The word “luxury” originates from the words “lust” and, interestingly enough, “lecherous,” but is now used to describe anything that vaguely resembles wealth or perceived affluence, or even just somewhat nice. But what most people don’t realize is that the word is laden with much more than just a new development of overly shiny condos in Mexico or Florida. Gross.
Back in 2011, the BBC premiered a miniseries on the history of luxury and its ambiguous meaning. Cambridge University academic and host of the program, Michael Scott said, "Luxury isn't just a question of expensive and beautiful things for the rich and powerful -- it feeds into ideas about democracy, patriotism and social harmony, as well as our values and our relationships with the divine.” I’m taking “divine” as more of a Britishness and less of a Christian theme here...
Luxury just is not special anymore. Real luxury isn’t what the travel industry has force fed us. Real luxury is personal -- and it is actually, truly special. It’s understanding space, time and freedom. Actually, stop reading, let those three words roll over your tongue slowly. What do they mean to you?
If you can find that somewhere in your deepest caverns, you’ve touched luxury -- something money could assist with, but can’t outright buy. We travel for those three things, not to be in “opulence” or “splendor,” because in the end that’s immaterial to the full human experience.
So yes, a hotel like the Amanoi in Vietnam, up on pink cliffs overlooking the East Sea, would never have been built if it wasn’t for a very big investment to get roads to this particular far away place. And yes, it takes an iconic hotel group with true imagination to show us how to find this space, time and freedom -- and then note how cautious these starry-eyed leaders are of the word luxury. Yet again, few understand the power of the word, and they use it very wisely.
I want to reclaim the word, use it when it’s truly a thing of great comfort or grandeur. Maybe the luxury police could come and check out its overuse and gently tap the knuckles of the over-users. Because that hotel, and that experience, and that spa isn’t luxury. It’s just a room, just a car ride, and just a massage table with bad background music, without the consciousness that people actually deserve more --- that they deserve better...
Of course luxury is personal, it’s a feeling and you can anoint anything you’d like with it. But like the word “organic” or “artisanal,” eventually it won’t matter at all. (I am calling on you, Brooklyn.) And that’s why travel is better when you take it from high and low. If you always do it on the high, you’re missing the real moments. From the ivory tower of your hotel and your black limo you can’t see the beauty right in front of you. But by all means stay at the gorgeous hotel, but come eat on the street. Or stay on the street, at an Airbnb or a tiny inn run by locals and book one meal at the Michelin star chef’s restaurant.
If we all use the word luxury less, perhaps then we’ll be able to reclaim it and only utter the word when things are truly “luxurious.” Like when you’re on the road, and that feeling of magic washes over you. You’re not remembering the luxury - you’re remembering the lessons, the stories and the people you’ve met. Because as it stands now, the word has lost its meaning. And that is where the country of Estonia fits the bill perfectly.