Washington Post: With Travel Options Limited, Some Are Swapping Vacations For Big-Ticket Toys

It was supposed to be a dream wedding and honeymoon. First up, the nuptials in scenic Banff, B.C., surrounded by their children from previous marriages. After spending a few days there, Lisa Fichman and her fiance, Mike Zampi, were headed to Switzerland for a hiking trip in the Alps, and a few days at the Montreux Jazz Festival.

Then came the pandemic, and Fichman, a retiree from Columbia, Md., found herself on the phone postponing their June 2020 plans. Like everyone at this time last year, the couple couldn’t have imagined the pandemic would still be raging a year later. “We figured we would be delayed for a while,” Fichman says. “Then we decided maybe we should reschedule for the summer of 2021. Now, we don’t really see it happening anytime soon, if at all.”

As that reality sank in over the past few months, Fichman and her fiance started thinking about how they might pivot and use the money they had slated to their big wedding and honeymoon. “We decided to channel our time and money into something fun and safe,” she says.

Both Fichman and Zampi are creative and crafty, so the result became an unexpected passion project: They bought a cargo trailer, and with Fichman serving as design consultant, Zampi has set to work converting it into a customized RV. “We’ve been tricking it out with solar panels for electric and air conditioning, installed a Murphy bed, added skylights, a table, and wired it for sound,” she explains. “Mike made the table himself and is going to add cedar planking to the exterior. We think of it as a Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired tiny house on wheels.”

While the camper was a big investment, it’s comparable to the money the couple would have spent on their far-flung wedding and honeymoon. In swapping one for the other, Fichman and Zampi joined a pandemic trend: using vacation dollars for a pandemic alternative.

It’s hard to name an industry that has been hit harder by the pandemic than the travel industry. According to U.S. Travel Association data, total travel spending by U.S. residents in 2019 topped $1.1 trillion dollars. In 2020, that number plummeted to $680 billion. It projects 2021 spending to rebound marginally, to $760 billion.

While vaccinations are helping some feel more confident about travel, for many would-be vacationers, this summer remains a time of caution. Instead of hopping on planes to reach destinations far away, they are turning their sights on fun ways to recreate closer to home. Boats, RVs, skis, high-end bikes — all experienced record high sales in 2020 and show no signs of slowing down as the calendar turns toward summer 2021.

Check out the full article from the Washington Post here.