There is no rhythm nor reason to it. Scattered traffic here and there and then long periods of scarcely a fellow human to be found. Season 2023 isn’t season 2022. The COVID 19 pandemic forced those with means to make new decisions, decisions like staying close to home. The major urban areas of the Northeast emptied out as city dwellers looked for ways to escape lockdown and the reality of being caged inside a megapolis.
Maine became a hot landing zone. Close to the major cities but still rural, wild in parts but also able to cater to a long-standing generational wealth population visiting their second or third homes. Both 2021 and 2022 were times of intense development and intense strain on both natural and human resources. Staffing was and still is a major issue. Reduced hours, closed patios and long waits became the norm. Massive price increases also became airborne, traveling from town to town as those with cash to burn ventured north. Hotel rooms I once had for $99 per night are now renting for $625 per night.
But there’s a problem.
The skies and world are open once again and the masses are going elsewhere. Not all but many. Europe caters to the formerly cooped. Airfares still retain their COVID heights but Americans are traveling again and in record numbers. Why sit for hours in bumper-to-bumper traffic and pay $600+ a night when you can hope a flight from New York to Rome for less than one, eight-hour hotel stay?
Don’t get me wrong. This place hasn’t become a ghost town, not by a long shot, but numbers are down. Locals who have been here for fifty plus years say “Weird, sunny on a Friday and I just drove through town and there was hardly anyone there.” Sure, the beaches on sunny weekends are still popular spots but this year I see far more Canadians than ever before. I also see an automatic 18% gratuity applied to every single bill.
Last year as we drove our van cross country I told my wife, “America should be renamed Land of the Scam.” COVID showed the best and worst of our country, and although we love to tout ourselves as the white hat wearing good guy of the classic western, we sure do love to get over on each other, and our voyage across the country proved again-and-again we are no different from anyone else, and we do love our money grabs. Gas, housing, food, parking, tolls, you name it. When the chance presented itself we took it.
And now the issue is that the prices remain but the people may or may not. Last night we looked at menus for a perceived dinner out. An $18 dollar fish and chip from last year was now $30 at the same restaurant. And yes, most often, the portions are smaller. At some point we overplayed our hand, but I do think greed has become a domineering factor in our culture. Also note, COVID changed everything, and I get that. COGS, transportation, and all other tentacles of the business world. Just look at banks and money lending. TIGHT.
The top financial tier of our country is just fine, but the rest of the classes are hurting.
I know where I am is a place of privilege, as is this location, but this little story is playing out all across our land. Ever seen a $150 tent site at a campground? I have. How about $7 gas? (Euros are like “that’s a deal.”) I guess the real question is “Do Americans know they have subsidized gas?”
I love coming to this place but my guess is our time is up. This year was only possible through a stroke of luck which won’t be around come summer of 2024. A quick check online and I see that the closest rental location to where I am, a small house, is nearly $20,000 per month. You know how many needless cameras I can buy for 20K? Mesh speedos? Hook kick instructional videos? We had a nearly thirty-year run here, so I can’t complain, and there are plenty of places near my home that I have still not explored, but come summer when my imagination begins to think of the buttery, Atlantic light I’ll have to reflect on the images made and the times we had.
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Hotels are crazy now…. I used to stay in mid-tier 3-4 star hotels on the road, but those are priced out of reach (except in SE Asia), and I’m staying in 2-stars now. Choice Hotels is growing in leaps and bounds as people get used to paying more for less.
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You can easily pay $100 for a shit hotel these days. Often times even more.
We have seen all of that around here as well. It has changed our behavior accordingly. We go to cheaper restaurants when we go out, and we don’t go out as much. The greed implosion is coming, sooner than later, and it will not be pretty.
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Totally agree. Even wealthy friends are like “Don’t like being gouged, we eat at home now.”
Dan, the price of everything has rocketed here in Europe, too. Fuel for the car is very expensive (I no longer even check: I fill the tank and pray for the health of my credit card), and ironically, the number of cars on the roads has risen dramatically. The good part of living in the semi-sticks, though tourist-infested ones in summer, is that I can find reasonable shops just over a kilometre from home, which gives me the choice of either driving if I need to buy heavy items such as drinking water, or simply walk if it’s just to have a coffee or go to the post office etc. That said, the stronger sunshine this year, coupled with my age, makes walking anywhere in this heat less than good news. There is a small general food store closer to home, but it’s only a summer operation, there to catch the tourists from nearby hotels and holiday lets. Higher prices than better stores in the town, obviously enough. The great rip-off culture is here to stay, at least until the entire holiday structure collapses, which I think it could easily do.
In the early 80s, we could drive into town and never wonder where we’d find a slot to park the car; now, it’s a gamble every time. But in a way, seen from the locals’ perspective, they make much more money than before the tourist boom. Unfortunately, once on that train, there’s no getting off. Many can no longer afford to marry, buy homes or even rent apartments, which partly explains the recent staff shortages at hotels, supermarkets, restaurants etc. that stem from the simple fact that those erstwhile seasonal workers from elsewhere can no longer afford to come spend the tourist season working in resorts because the rents are unaffordable to their pay grades.
As a society, we have lost the plot. Life was perfectly fine during the film years; before I had a computer I didn’t know that I was suffering because I was unable to become an instant – if temporary – expert on every subject under the Sun; nobody I knew felt disadvantaged because their boss could not reach them on the ‘phone when they were on holiday or just out with their family on the weekend. Conversation was a natural part of living, but today, an introverted bunch of quasi-strangers sits at the family table, each deeply immersed in a cellphone world, possibly even texting one another as they sit there. The social fabric is fraying across the many folds.
We do not need constant material evolution. We have long passed the point where we required more gadgets in order to live comfortable lives. Just look at contemporary cars: they are festooned with crap nobody needs; there are more switches inevitably to go wrong than ever before; even the steering wheel now carries a bunch of switches – who came up with that distracting beauty? Why do I need to engage in a conversation with the car? Why is it too much to expect me to open the door with a key? Why might it take six or eight cylinders to propel me to the supermarket when four do the very same job perfectly capably and just as quickly?
The current heat wave across the Med caused my poor fridge/freezer to pass out (on the day before yesterday). Inspection of the freezer section revealed that the bottom drawer where I store my Kodachrome and various other now historical and obsolete image-making materials was frozen solid to the body of the structure: it took around thirty hours of disconnection and thawing onto towels etc. before I could pull the thing out and free the mostly unopened packs of film from inside the drawer and attempt to dry them out. I felt quite sad. Sad that I had neglected that stash for so long that the block of ice had been allowed to develop in a self-deicing machine; sad that the Kodachrome wasn’t even capable of being processed if I ran it through a camera, and perhaps saddest of all at the optimism that had led me to stock up with all that material. I didn’t hear the digital train coming down the track. At least the fridge is working again today.
Quote: As a society, we have lost the plot. Life was perfectly fine during the film years; before I had a computer I didn’t know that I was suffering because I was unable to become an instant – if temporary – expert on every subject under the Sun; nobody I knew felt disadvantaged because their boss could not reach them on the ‘phone when they were on holiday or just out with their family on the weekend. Conversation was a natural part of living, but today, an introverted bunch of quasi-strangers sits at the family table, each deeply immersed in a cellphone world, possibly even texting one another as they sit there. The social fabric is fraying across the many folds. End of Quote.
I’m going to keep this piece of text as it is one of the finest analysis I’ve read lately of social media horror ripping society into pieces. Yes, it seems doom is entering these comments more and more often. Why? someone could ask.
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Same, that was a great piece. Rob has his shit together.
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“As a society we have lost our plot.” That’s the key takeaway here, and this reality manifests in all the ways you mention. And you story is our story too, just with different scenery. As for the PRK, as long as you have binoculars, a good book and a good journal/sketchbook you are doing okay.
The price versus portion relationship is a good economic indicator. On our last trip to Bar Harbor, we were astonished by the price increases at modest restaurants we’d always eaten at (been going there every summer or every other summer for several years), accompanied by downsized portions. We used to save money by staying at Air BnBs and grocery shopping, but now the rental prices are also high; might as well stay at a hotel in some areas.
“Forced tipping” and “we do not accept cash” are two of the greatest scams perpetrated on consumers during the pandemic. My local pizza joint went cashless then abruptly instituted a 3% credit/debit card fee added to the main bill to offset the cost of processing the mandatory cashless policy they instituted (they want the tip in cash, however!). So now I feel like I’m back in 1986, going to the bank to get cash before going out to a restaurant.
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Oh ya, scams are almost at the level of being totally accepted now. I got an order of fries the other day that looked like an order they pulled from another table after it was picked over. I could see the look on the face of the server which read “Is he going to accept this?” And for this I got to pay $9.
Prices are insane! Wife and I went out for Pizza here in NJ. We had one large pizza with two toppings, antipasto salad, two draft beers each: seventy bucks before tip!
Burgers are now nineteen dollars here too!
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Time to eat at home.
I’d love to see the greed implosion start off as Chuck commented, the sooner the better. But I’m doubting it will be soon. It’s been here for almost 2000 years and the ever profit hungry system is built on it.
You mentioned COVID as a gamechanger. I’m sure within 10 years the heat will have an even bigger impact on prices and opportunities and possibilities for the tourists in the western spending dollars and euros culture.
https://theconversation.com/tourists-flock-to-the-mediterranean-as-if-the-climate-crisis-isnt-happening-this-years-heat-and-fire-will-force-change-210282
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I think the heat, and other factors, will lead to more COVID style outbreaks, and yes, ten years might be too kind.
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And the credit system. Just put it on a card and then declare you are bust.
As long as people are willing to pay, there will be those willing to take their money. It’s really that simple.
I won’t go too far into the fact that those of us who didn’t come from money, had parents who took one vacation a year if that and only to visit with relatives, who only “ate out” with nearby relatives as well. More affluent, the lifestyle many of us now enjoy is something our parents could only dream of. Yet now with the price of literally everything rising faster than our incomes, returning to a lifestyle more akin to that of our parents looks more and more a possibility. Perhaps by paying more regardless of the cost has contributed to the rising prices of what are becoming luxury expenses – and doing so less often might help bring those prices back down.
@Reiner: I agree about the heat… but unfortunately I don’t think we’re going to have to wait 10 years for it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/29/something-weird-is-going-on-search-for-answers-as-antarctic-sea-ice-stays-at-historic-lows
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For sure. We rarely went out as kids and where we did go was very standard fair. I just visited one of these spots after 45 years and was amazing it was still there but also amazed how average it was. Still good, don’t get me wrong, but not the fancy place I remembered as a kid.