The Case for Staying Regional
Darrell Wade, who co-founded Intrepid Travel, believes the travel industry has lost sight of what actually matters. Speaking recently, he argued that the current focus on large cruise ships and sprawling hotel resorts misses the core reason people leave home: to encounter different cultures and connect with unfamiliar communities.
Wade pointed to a historical pattern. Travellers have long ventured into the unknown, accepting discomfort in exchange for genuine experience. A cruise ship carrying 7,000 passengers might offer 20 restaurants, he noted, but any port city likely has thousands more dining options ashore, each embedded in local life.
The argument isn't about deprivation or budget constraints. Wade is proposing a trade: swap a long-haul flight to Morocco for a shorter trip to New Mexico, and you might still get the cultural immersion you're after while cutting aviation emissions substantially.
Testing the Distance-Culture Link
The suggestion raises a practical question: do travellers value the act of going far, or do they value what they find when they arrive? If culture and human connection are the real draw, then proximity becomes negotiable.
For a US traveller, Morocco offers medinas, desert landscapes, and a distinct culinary tradition. New Mexico offers pueblo architecture, high-desert terrain, and its own layered food culture shaped by indigenous, Spanish, and Mexican influences. Both involve stepping outside the familiar. The difference is the carbon cost of getting there.
Intrepid's proposition is that the second option can satisfy the first impulse, at least some of the time. It's a hypothesis that depends on whether travellers are willing to rethink the mental equation that links exoticism with distance.
What This Means for Operators
Tour operators built around long-haul itineraries face a tension. Emissions from aviation remain one of the largest contributors to travel's climate footprint, and pressure to reduce them is growing from regulators, investors, and some customer segments.
Shifting demand toward regional trips would require operators to reframe their offerings. Instead of positioning Morocco as the draw, they would need to make the case for New Mexico, or for other closer alternatives that deliver cultural depth without the flight time.
That reframing involves more than marketing. It requires building itineraries that feel substantive, not like consolation prizes. It means working with local guides, finding lesser-known communities, and designing experiences that don't rely on the allure of distance to justify the cost.
The Limits of Substitution
Not every destination has a regional proxy. Iceland's volcanic landscapes don't have a direct equivalent in the lower 48 US states. Japan's temple culture and urban density are difficult to replicate elsewhere. Some travellers go to specific places for specific reasons that can't be satisfied closer to home.
But Wade's argument doesn't require perfect substitution. It requires enough overlap that some trips - perhaps many trips - can be redirected without sacrificing the experiences travellers are actually seeking.
The test will be whether the industry can make that case persuasively, and whether travellers are ready to accept it. If culture and connection truly matter more than distance, the logic holds. If distance itself carries value - as a marker of effort, status, or accomplishment - then the swap becomes harder to sell.
A Broader Shift
The idea fits into a wider conversation about how travel adapts to climate constraints. Flight-shaming has ebbed and flowed as a cultural force, but the underlying pressure hasn't disappeared. Carbon offsets remain controversial. Sustainable aviation fuel is scaling slowly. In the absence of a quick technological fix, behaviour change becomes part of the equation.
Wade's suggestion is one version of that change: not travelling less, but travelling differently. It's an approach that preserves the industry's economic model while trying to shrink its environmental footprint.
Whether it works depends on execution. Regional trips need to feel as rewarding as the long-haul ones they're meant to replace. If they do, the distance between Morocco and New Mexico might matter less than the space between routine and discovery.
