What is land snorkeling, you ask? Well, it’s going outside to see your surroundings and enjoy the sights and sounds and details. You know, something normal people just call GOING OUTSIDE. It was the latest in a series of clickbaity, increasingly stupid, pointless phrases being tossed around in the travel world to make you think there’s some new trend you absolutely need to know about. But in reality, it’s the stupidest damn thing you’ve ever heard of that makes you mad you wasted the five seconds it took you to click on the headline.
Subscribe to Matador Network’s
Free Insider Travel Substack
There are some news outlets that love covering this type of story, putting the latest buzzword into as many stories as possible. Matador Network, I think, actually does this far less than most. (Go on, do a search for “land snorkeling” on our homepage; I’ll wait.) I’m someone who consumes a lot of news, and even I’ve gotten so annoyed with the outlets that do this that I’ve started blocking entire outlets from my news feed just to avoid it.
(By the way, I hate the term “forest bathing” with just as much passion.)
Anyway, I thought it could get no worse than land snorkeling. And then a certain A-list news publication, which I’ll allow to remain nameless, got me with maybe the stupidest buzzword I’ve heard to date:
Airport Divorce.
But this one is about more than being stupid and pointless — it’s straight-up offensive. “Airport divorce” is the new BS term for utterly normal behavior — two adults briefly doing their own thing at an airport — and dresses it up as a meaningful relationship event.
The phrase implies that couples are supposed to remain physically attached at all times, even in a place where people naturally have different priorities. Simply spending 20 minutes apart while one of you gets coffee and one of you browses Hudson News is not something significant enough to require a label or justification. It is simply two people spending twenty minutes apart. Am I getting “restaurant divorced” every time I go out to dinner with friends instead of my husband? Am I getting a “grocery store divorce” if I grab bananas while my husband heads to the bakery?
Photo: Dimitris Asproloupos/Unsplash
It also makes basic independence sound incompatible with being married. You are not “temporarily divorcing” because you sat at a different table, shopped alone, or went through security at a different speed. You are still in the same relationship — you’re just exhibiting the tiniest modicum of independence. God forbid.
Finally: the phrase sounds like it was invented by someone who thinks being alone for forty-five minutes is a radical act of self-discovery. You are not reclaiming your identity, Karen. You are eating an Auntie Anne’s pretzel near Gate 32 while your partner charges their phone back at Gate 28.
And don’t even get me started on the word (cringe) “girlboss.” 