The idea of being a castaway on a desert island has an irresistibly romantic appeal: sun, sea and a whole ocean between you and your desk-bound life. What could possibly go wrong?
For a group signed up to a Desert Island Survival holiday, the answer was: everything. While they had willingly agreed – and paid – to be marooned for a week on an uninhabited tropical island with little more than a knife, a fishing line and a small group of companions, the group wrote SOS in the sand and asked to be rescued after just 24 hours.
But you do not have to sign up for a survival challenge to find yourself overwhelmed by a long-anticipated holiday to a faraway destination. Kelly Forbes, CEO of UK-based responsible luxury travel agency A’Aru Collective, says some guests in remote settings are finding even mild forms of immersion unexpectedly difficult.
“One guest in the Seychelles was unhappy that they were woken by birds in the morning,” she said. “Another found their over-water bungalow in the Maldives was too close to the ocean – the sound of the waves kept them up all night. Then there was the guest staying in a tented camp in a Kenyan game reserve who complained about a hippo brushing up against their tent. For me, these things would have been exhilarating, but for these guests, it was too much to handle.”