Alcohol-free travel: Going mainstream after being relegated to 12-steppers

One year into the coronavirus pandemic, after months of gaining weight and feeling groggy, Mayra Ramirez stopped drinking. And this summer, she’ll mark a new milestone for her sobriety: a completely alcohol-free travel vacation. Ramirez, 32, spent the first 12 months of the pandemic working remotely from a tiny Brooklyn apartment, drinking every weekend and many weekday evenings as well.

In March, like many others during this hard year, she realised her drinking was spiraling beyond the merely social kind. She’s now been sober for three months.

Champagne. Picture: iStock

So when she began scouting locations for a break with a few non sober friends, she suggested Sedona, Arizona, where they all will hike and wake up early, and she will avoid potential pitfalls like nightclubs and bars.

Many Americans turned to alcohol to blunt the stress, isolation and fear of the past 15 months: An October study in Jama Network Open, the journal of the American Medical Association, found that Americans were drinking 14% more than in the previous year. Now, as vaccination levels rise and Americans head back to the  roads and skies, sober travel, a subset of vacations once relegated only to 12-steppers and recovering addicts, is going mainstream.

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In a June poll of more than 23 000 people by Branded Research, 29% of respondents said they planned to take an alcohol free trip after the pandemic and 47% of the respondents to American Express’ Global Travel Trends Report in March said wellness  and mental health were amongtheir top motivators for travel in 2021.

An analysis of social media chatter from Hootsuite, a social media management platform, showed mentions of the term “sober vacation” jumping more than 100%  over Memorial Day weekend.

Even airlines are going dry: After banning booze in the cabin in 2020, several airlines are postponing a return to serving alcohol –thanks to unruly passengers. “If you had asked me a year ago, it would have been impossible for me to think that I was going to stop drinking for good,” Ramirez said.

“But the pandemic, being at home and just sitting with my thoughts made me flip a switch and say, ‘I can’t do this anymore’.”

For the September trip with her girlfriends, Ramirez will stock the Airbnb fridge with nonalcoholic beer and act as designated driver of the rental car. Alcohol-free travel companies like Travel Sober, We Love Lucid and Sober Outside were organising completely dry trips long before the pandemic. Now they’re seeing spikes in popularity.

Hiking trial. Picture: iStock

Steve Abrams, who founded Sober Vacations International in 1987, said trips for next year are nearly sold out. “I think we’re going to bust loose,” he said.

The Art of Living Retreat Centre, a vegan wellness retreat in North Carolina that doesn’t serve alcohol, reports a 50% increase in visitors specifically seeking out a sober vacation.

Their ranks have also grown at Rancho La Puerta, a fitness and spa resort in Tecate, Mexico, where no alcohol is served in the dining room.

“Many guests have shared that through the challenging year, mostly at home, they found themselves drinking more than they ever had before,” the director of guest relations, Barry Shingle, said in an e-mail.

In cities, too, options for alcohol-free fun are expanding. Spire 73, the open-air bar atop the Intercontinental Los Angeles Downtown, has responded to a demand for virgin drinks by adding nonalcoholic wines to its  bottle-service menu.

At Regent Singapore, mocktails are being concocted with freshly squeezed juice and steeped tea infusions. Alcohol-free travel morning raves, like Day breaker and Morning Gloryville, had to go virtual during the pandemic, widening their global audience. As in-person parties return, organisers say, more travellersare arriving on the drug-free dance floor.