Millennials
Most of the people we saw on the stretch from Chapel Beach to the Mosquito River (where we turned back inland) were younger than us by at least a decade, and this triggered a conversation between Robin and me. Yes, the Memorial Day holiday had brought out the crowds, but in the past the crowds hadn't necessarily flocked to Munising and the Pictured Rocks the way they did this year. We've often had this entire coast entirely to ourselves. But this time, the Pictured Rocks were overflowing, and much of Munising was packed. Our favorite little coffee shop had a line. And everybody was young, of the generational vintage often referred to as "Millennials."
This fact led us to our thesis. We've always been unusual sorts of travelers, choosing to devote most of our accumulated wealth to road trips instead of the things many others of our generational cohort spend their money on, things like house payments or decent furniture or fancy new cars that aren't preowned Hondas. And we go to places others our age avoid, because they think these places are hard to get to on a trip involving airplanes, and there isn't anything there to keep them entertained once they arrive. No, people our age like to fly from one city to another city, or to a beach resort somewhere, or to something owned by Disney. Which really, I think is great, because that means they're not all at the Pictured Rocks clogging up Chapel Beach.
But Millennials? More and more, it looks like they travel like us.
First, you have to define what exactly a Millennial is, and that's kind of a hard nut to crack. Unlike my age cohort (firmly Generation X), Millennials themselves have used social media to take an active role in creating their own definition, and they're grumpy about the whole thing. Over the last few years, Millennials have collectively reworked the definition of themselves so that the age range has narrowed and shifted a little older, and a lot of very young people who thought they were Millennials aren't anymore. When the Millennial name first popped up, the range actually included the Millennial year, but now it's shrank down to include people born between about 1984 to 1996. That's only 12 years. In my day, a generation was 20 years long. Kids today can just barely handle a decade. This means that as of this moment, Millennials range between 23 and 35 years old.
Now, as an aside, I will say that all this is a bunch of crap, as these are arbitrary divisions decided by random people with no actual authority to declare how culture actually organizes itself. There is no actual switch somebody flipped that made people suddenly stop wearing flannel over Nirvana t-shirts and start quoting Harry Potter. Babies didn't just start calling the pound sign a hashtag in 1984. But, speaking generally, I tend to think Millennials take this whole generation-naming scheme very seriously, and they haven't yet come to the conclusion my generation did early on that the whole thing was a sham invented by some Baby Boomer marketing guru to sell more records. They're a very earnest group of people who look at the world in a literal way, and they overwhelming believe that all the previous generations have given them the shaft. (Except for my own, as many Millennials don't remember that Generation X was a thing. They think that everybody older than them is a Boomer. Which really is the most Generation X thing ever.) The fact that they're right, and they have been given the shaft only tends to make them more annoying in the eyes of the Olds, as it gives actual justification to the Millennial urge to live a life that is Authentic™.
This means that, again speaking generally, Millennials also take money very seriously (because they're less likely to have any thanks to the Boomers sucking the economy dry), and they value experience over buying a bunch of crap. When they travel, they like to go to quieter, less capitalized, more out-of-the-way places. Places like Munising and the Pictured Rocks.
So I think our secret is out. I think from now on, the kids will be coming with us.
Millennials
Most of the people we saw on the stretch from Chapel Beach to the Mosquito River (where we turned back inland) were younger than us by at least a decade, and this triggered a conversation between Robin and me. Yes, the Memorial Day holiday had brought out the crowds, but in the past the crowds hadn't necessarily flocked to Munising and the Pictured Rocks the way they did this year. We've often had this entire coast entirely to ourselves. But this time, the Pictured Rocks were overflowing, and much of Munising was packed. Our favorite little coffee shop had a line. And everybody was young, of the generational vintage often referred to as "Millennials."
This fact led us to our thesis. We've always been unusual sorts of travelers, choosing to devote most of our accumulated wealth to road trips instead of the things many others of our generational cohort spend their money on, things like house payments or decent furniture or fancy new cars that aren't preowned Hondas. And we go to places others our age avoid, because they think these places are hard to get to on a trip involving airplanes, and there isn't anything there to keep them entertained once they arrive. No, people our age like to fly from one city to another city, or to a beach resort somewhere, or to something owned by Disney. Which really, I think is great, because that means they're not all at the Pictured Rocks clogging up Chapel Beach.
But Millennials? More and more, it looks like they travel like us.
First, you have to define what exactly a Millennial is, and that's kind of a hard nut to crack. Unlike my age cohort (firmly Generation X), Millennials themselves have used social media to take an active role in creating their own definition, and they're grumpy about the whole thing. Over the last few years, Millennials have collectively reworked the definition of themselves so that the age range has narrowed and shifted a little older, and a lot of very young people who thought they were Millennials aren't anymore. When the Millennial name first popped up, the range actually included the Millennial year, but now it's shrank down to include people born between about 1984 to 1996. That's only 12 years. In my day, a generation was 20 years long. Kids today can just barely handle a decade. This means that as of this moment, Millennials range between 23 and 35 years old.
Now, as an aside, I will say that all this is a bunch of crap, as these are arbitrary divisions decided by random people with no actual authority to declare how culture actually organizes itself. There is no actual switch somebody flipped that made people suddenly stop wearing flannel over Nirvana t-shirts and start quoting Harry Potter. Babies didn't just start calling the pound sign a hashtag in 1984. But, speaking generally, I tend to think Millennials take this whole generation-naming scheme very seriously, and they haven't yet come to the conclusion my generation did early on that the whole thing was a sham invented by some Baby Boomer marketing guru to sell more records. They're a very earnest group of people who look at the world in a literal way, and they overwhelming believe that all the previous generations have given them the shaft. (Except for my own, as many Millennials don't remember that Generation X was a thing. They think that everybody older than them is a Boomer. Which really is the most Generation X thing ever.) The fact that they're right, and they have been given the shaft only tends to make them more annoying in the eyes of the Olds, as it gives actual justification to the Millennial urge to live a life that is Authentic™.
This means that, again speaking generally, Millennials also take money very seriously (because they're less likely to have any thanks to the Boomers sucking the economy dry), and they value experience over buying a bunch of crap. When they travel, they like to go to quieter, less capitalized, more out-of-the-way places. Places like Munising and the Pictured Rocks.
So I think our secret is out. I think from now on, the kids will be coming with us.