When I first told my friends that I was spending the weekend in a Mexican mansion on a date with a stranger, they thought I was insane. Miss Travel functions like any other dating site, in that users create profiles and message back and forth before arranging to meet if they hit it off—but rather than having your first date at a local dive bar, you have it at an all-inclusive resort in Bora Bora.
In theory, it's a site for people with a disposable income who love to travel and want to add a date into the mix. Miss Travel gives you the option to offer a free trip to someone or find someone to pay for your trip though there are a number of lonely souls offering to go halfsies, so it does, to some degree, serve people who might just want to go somewhere with another corporeal form.
But, of course, the subtext is sex. And maybe sex because someone else paid to whisk you away. Rather than having your first date at a local dive bar, you have it at an all-inclusive resort in Bora Bora. This might be intentional, as the brand splashes "females are FREE! Go to the site and you'll find a community of brashly straightforward people, with every profile very clearly defining precisely what the person wants. You'll find men looking for relationships, wanting to "have fun and see where things go," or being openly honest about the fact that they're married and busy and just want to "introduce someone to the finer things in life" in exchange for some side action.
Get exclusive access to fashion and beauty trends, hot-off-the-press celebrity news, and more. The women are equally blunt, if not more so—and most of them seem to be seeking funding for the trips of their dreams, fully aware that there's an expectation as a result.
Many profiles specify precisely where they want to go and what they are or aren't willing to do when they get there. Some want added perks, like a shopping fee, on top of the free trip. The romantic in me hates the idea of diluting a relationship into a business transaction, even though I'm not too much of a pollyanna to realize that all relationships are, in some way or another, a type of exchange.
