Comment by jajko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jajko | Hacker News Reader

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That's easy - experiences. This is what many rich pay their last dime for. You can get much better experiences than they pay for, for much much much less.

Going for an exotic tropical beach location? Well they normally stay in sterile 5* bubble which is boring beyond belief and very unauthentic. You can go ie to Seychelles or Bali, live with locals in cheapish airbnbs, swim on same beaches or go to same restaurants they do, if you want, or even better eat with locals too. You can dive on same spots, kite surf on same spots etc. You will remember such vacation much more than they will do.

Or another typical one - skiing holidays. You can go ie to Verbier or Chamonix and ski next to kings, princes or industry moguls on same slopes they do, use same lifts, but you can ie go of piste for some extra fun. Sure afterwards you can only go to public spa but that may be better equipped than their private one. Or you can paraglide over them (on your own, not with paid instructor). And so on and on...

I know you can outmatch them only on specific aspects of those experiences, but that part is rather easy. Rich play their game of life in general very safely, so you can have way cooler things if you take some risks, and invest time into learning how to get best out of travels and adventures. Rich generally pay others to figure these out for them, and then of course such service is not well tailored to specific personality and expectations as much.

I lived in Southeast Asia for years and explored countless beaches at price points all across the spectrum, and while I understand what you're saying and agree to some extent, there are still experiences only money can buy.

Example 1: the overwater bungalow in the Maldives where I could watch fish swim under a glass table and step right off the balcony into the reef to join them.

Example 2: the stupidly expensive hotel in Laos where my wife and I were the only guests one night, so we got to enjoy a tropical sunset at our private pool bar with our private orchestra playing just for us. (The GM, who dropped by for a chat, told us a honeymooning couple last year had dropped six figures to buy out the place to do the same.)

Not really, ie that Maldives bungalow - I had exactly same experience in Mabul island for example, with 0 snobbishness that luxury inevitably brings (and is disgusting for me personally). Literally watching manta rays under my feet while eating breakfast. Kids would come on their dhingy and sell fresh coconuts right from water. All for peanuts.

Very similar experiences can be had in ie Togian islands in Sulawesi. And I could go on. Not everything is yet spoiled for rich.

As said its not full end-to-end experience, ie getting there in economy flight class instead of direct private jet is... well different, but the gist of adventure and reason why actually travel there can be easily matched, or surpassed. While leaving much more intense trail of memories and experiences with locals, which is what you are left with at the end. Instead of having everything served on plate like a clueless baby, you discover and 'fight' for your own adventures. And while paying 1-10% of price rich living next door paid.

Coming back from such vacation makes it feel like it lasted massively longer. 2 weeks feel like a month at least, 3 like few months. 3 months in India & Nepal spent in such way felt, and I am not joking, like decades spent traveling. A very surreal and profoundly enjoyable feeling, when memories of life back home feels like memories from previous life before one reincarnated.

The rich are often in a different age group than those that would enjoy such adventures. But fully agree with you.

With all due respect, you're showcasing some serious reverse snobbery yourself here, since you're basically claiming at your "authentic" travel experiences make you superior to those "disgusting" luxury tourists paying for their experiences.

But I'll throw you a bone: it goes both ways. I've had equally memorable experiences doing things like sitting with a couple of farmers on the floor of a jam-packed 3rd class train carriage in Thailand, sharing a bottle of Maekhong and watching the rice paddies go by. And commuting to work with canal boats in Bangkok barrelling down the klongs at ridiculous km/h was much more fun than taking a taxi, as long as you didn't bonk your head on a bridge or slip and fall into what's basically ripened sewage.

Chamonix and ski next to kings, princes or industry moguls on same slopes they do, use same lifts, but you can ie go of piste for some extra fun.

This makes no sense to me. First of all Chamonix is hardly what I'd consider a 'rich' people ski resort. You're far more likely to be skiing next to a broke ski bum than "kings, princes or industry mogul". But beyond that, why can't the rich people ski off piste? In fact the rich people have the option to decide on a whim to take a helicopter to the really nice off piste runs and do 7 runs in a day if they feel like it, while you and I can only do one since we have to walk up. They can also travel to some of the finest skiing in the world, do two quick runs, decide the snow wasn't great and then just chill at the hotel bar and fly home early, knowing that it doesn't matter because if they want they can just come back in a few weeks.

Rich people can (and do) do all things you do, but they can also do a bunch of additional things that you and I cannot hope to do.

In theory, these rich people can do all of those "genuine" experiences too - and the lesser famous ones probably do? - but especially kings and the like are so valuable that they can't go to "normal" places anymore, for security and safety reasons. Rich people and their families are prime targets for kidnapping and extortion.

> That's easy - experiences. This is what many rich pay their last dime for.

The topic is stuff they buy that I don't know about.

That's European rich though. If you're American rich, you're Reed Hastings who co-founded Netflix, so you can buy up a ski resort in Utah for you and your pals so you don't have to ski with the poors.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/everettpotter/2023/09/17/netfli...

Powder Mountain (Reed Hastings' ski resort) has lift tickets available for about $100-150, in-line with most common ski resorts in America (about the same price as Hunter Mountain in New York, for example, the place everyone in the area takes their family).

If he wanted to not ski with the poors he would do as rich people already do and go to Deer Valley.

Although last I heard Powder Mountain was pivoting a bit to an premium resort kind of deal, same kind of thing Windham Mountain in NY is doing. Still, neither are pricing out normal skiiers yet, they're just edging in to "do you have more money than sense? dump some of it in this overpriced 'mountain club'" territory. If I had Reed Hastings money I wouldn't bother buying one of them up, I would just fly in to any of the existing nice ones with better terrain and facilities than Powder Mountain (or Windham) have.

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