Who wouldn’t love to travel the world? Travel probably dominates about 50% of most people’s bucket lists. I’d love to spend a week in a freestanding hut over the water in Bora Bora or go on a safari in Africa. I’m really dying to eat at Jiro Ono’s restaurant in Japan before he dies. But I am a struggling artist and sadly right now, none of these vacations are in my budget at the moment. Apparently Visa likes to be paid every month and my landlord really doesn’t care about my dream vacay on the first of the month.
I can’t afford a luxury vacation right now so I don’t take one. But there are plenty of people who can’t afford vacation who are traveling on other people’s dimes…mostly stranger’s money. Enter Trevolta. Trevolta is basically Kickstarter for vacations. The official description of Trevolta on their website reads as below:
Trevolta.com is a global crowd-funded travels website. We enable travellers to submit their extraordinary ideas for expeditions in order to raise funds for it. Projects can be backed by inspired people or sponsors looking for marketing opportunities and brand awareness.
When I first saw this website, the first thing that I thought was this is f-ing BS! It really pissed me off. First of all, have you people ever heard of saving up for something? When you were a child did your parents not buy you a piggy bank for you to save your allowance in? Why is it that today people seem to skip the save part and they immediately go pandering to others for money?
I’ll admit there are some hilarious trip ideas on the site like climbing Kilimanjaro while wearing a $25 tuxedo, but why in the world would anyone back this? Like Kickstarter, “backers” receive something for their donation that varies by the denomination they donate. It can be anything from a photograph from the person’s journey to a postcard, to a souvenir or even Skype call from the traveler. Aside from the audacity the travelers have to ask other people for help funding their travels I have even less respect for the backers that oblige. Yes, some people set up their pages and post the link on Facebook so their friends can help out but if you’re going to ask for other people’s money what’s really the difference between that and posting a status update asking for help?
Basically my thoughts are that if you need crowd-funding to take a trip you shouldn’t be taking it. If you have internet access and are able to set up Trevolta.com page, you’re more than capable of putting your nose to the grindstone and earning/saving enough money to take a trip that you can pay for yourself.
