There's conventional sex, make-up sex, rock star sex and travel sex! There is no doubt travelers have sex appeal and that wanting to travel more is called wanderlust.
Forget Kissinger's quote about power -- travel is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Face it, foreigners are exotic, different, mysterious. We are all curious about other cultures fetishes, taboos and practices between the sheets: How are Italians, really? Are the French what they claim? What about Jamaicans, Japanese, Hindus, Muslim, Israelis, Africans and Latinos. And what about those Swedes?
We all really want to know. It is a big part of traveling to want to personally understand other cultures, intimately. It is text book social identity theory and anthropology101 pursuing forbidden fruits.
Consensual sexual relations while on the road, within an existing relationship or in a budding new one, makes for great sex. Be it on a typical summer vacation, a quick weekend getaway, a Swingers Cruise, joining the Mile High Club, at a LGBT-friendly destination, Club Med fantasy vacations, during a Hen Party (or a Cougar Cruise) or Stag Weekend and Mancation. While traveling, we lose our inhibitions and act as not so innocents abroad as changes in latitudes create exciting changes in attitudes.
The vacation sex equation is simple: sense of freedom + exciting environment + exotic locals + sun/sea + feeling relaxed + mysterious new partner/uninhibited familiar partner + the privacy of hotel rooms + alcohol = great travel sex!
Welcome to the Hotel Casanova. Isn't the very nature of what travel is about, fulfilling fantasies of sort? Travel flings rock. Vacation sex rules. And occasionally, those language barriers and gaping cultural differences are broken down when carnal knowledge leads to a deeper anthropological appreciation of each other.
In my capacity as the Event Director (aka the Ringmaster) of the annual around the world travel adventure, The Global Scavenger Hunt, I can tell you that sex on the road happens...a lot! Among our great travelers we have had our fair share of: casual hook ups, travel buddies with benefits, erotic date nights, x-rated skinny dipping, marriage proposals, hotel romps, prowling late night stray wolfs, poolside seductions, hotel room key exchanges, illicit rendezvous, early morning walks of shame, and even 'happy ending' collections -- don't ask!
What does uninhibited, no-strings-attached travel sex abroad sound like: "But, I have a boyfriend? Oh well, I'm on vacation!" "I've just got to sleep with that hot Italian guy! When will I ever be here again?" "Did I really just sleep with that girl? Oh well, I'm traveling!" Most of all, travel sex mostly means a lot of kissing and no telling.
There is definitely something about traveling and sex that seems inevitable -- like trains and tunnels taking us to the erogenous zones of sultry tropical environs. And we all know How Stella Got Her Groove Back. Travel sex is indeed the Big O of adventures.
I have a good friend with their own version of the Century Club -- collecting international lovers instead of passport stamps. Another wants to join the elusive 7-7 Society -- seven liaisons on seven continents... although Antarctica remains a cool mistress to obtain. A great lady traveler I know has her own erotic World Heritage Site check list if you know what I mean: Machu Picchu, check; Grand Canyon, check; St Peters Cathedral, check! I even have a postcard from a Don Juan-like friend simply saying: "Can't come home yet...I still have condoms!" Indeed, different strokes for different folks and foreign conquests abound with everyone trying to capture a new flag.
And who am I to judge. There was a period of time where I only dated Pan Am (RIP) flight attendants -- and the stories are all true; spent sultry all-nighters on Ibiza; windsurfed the sex-fueled beaches of Greece for way too long; prowled the sordid red light districts of Amsterdam, Bangkok, Hamburg and Tokyo's Kabukico; attended Rio's infamous bump n' grind clothing optional Carnaval -- Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing on the Cariocas; and for a while I even suffered a serious bout of IWD -- Icelandic Woman's Disease.
So, in my best Carrie Bradshaw Sex in the City impression, it got me thinking: Is sex on the road: A) inevitable, B) better, C) copious, or D) manageable? After all, What Happens in Vegas...or Jamaica, or Bali, or Paris...Stays in Vegas, right?
Well, for sure we North Americans are trained at a young age to equate travel with sex. Think first kisses at summer camps; those infamous rites of passage known as those sex-fueled Spring Breaks -- where cocoa butter, beer and bikinis turn young adults into hedonistic heathens. And don't forget those Canadian snow birds headed south on their annual migrations in search of sand, suds and sex.
So, as an author, I did a little research (objectively I might add), and I found a few surveys about sex on the road. In a word -- we really like it!
The travel sex facts are:
So, there you have it. Is travel sex, vacation sex or holiday flings really all they are chalked up to be? I want to know because I am thinking of a new highly participatory culturally-oriented scavenge for our 2014 travel adventure event.