When an automaker flies one of us out to some exotic locale–let’s say Tucson–it’s usually just a solo trip. These aren’t exactly vacations, since they’re brief and usually jam-packed with driving, meetings, briefings, feedings, et cetera. That doesn’t mean there aren’t perks. The meals are usually great and journalists generally get to bank the airline miles. There’s just very little downtime.
Mercedes found this out when she took a trip to France on Audi’s dime. It was her first trip abroad and one that was a little nicer than the average person is going to be able to afford. Solo trips, though, aren’t the only kinds of press trips. Automakers will sometimes invite a spouse along for the journey, especially if it’s a more lifestyle-oriented event like Pebble Beach or a place like Palm Springs.
The alternative is that most automakers don’t mind, with advanced notice, if you pay for your own spouse to come along. This is often a great deal because the most expensive part of the trip is often the hotel and the frequenters of these types of junkets often have plenty of miles to spare. In these situations, your husband can enjoy the day in Edinburgh while you’re out driving. Usually, the spouse or SO is invited to at least one dinner.
In all my years doing this, the best version of this I’ve ever heard is that an unnamed journalist was invited to Hawaii on a trip by a Japanese automaker. I’ve been told it was Mitsubishi and the car was the Mirage, but I’ve never confirmed it. In this possibly apocryphal story, the journalist in question brought along his fianceé.
This makes a lot of sense, right? If you’re going all the way to Hawaii you should bring your girlfriend along for the ride and surely she’ll be able to find something to do during the trip while you’re out trying to induce understeer from an economy car on a mountain road in paradise. There are beaches, stories, great food and… priests.
That last bit is important because what this genius did was get married in Hawaii during the trip and basically got Mitsubishi to cover the most expensive part of the wedding (depending on how nice the ring was). In the common telling of this story, this was a second marriage, so no family was expected to come. Just a guy, his soon-to-be-wife, and maybe a Vice President of PR as the witness.
David’s on his honeymoon in Hawaii right now, though this isn’t a press trip. He just paid for it himself, which feels anti-carjournalist if I’m being honest. I insisted to David multiple times that he didn’t need to work on his honeymoon and, yet, there was a story from David today that he admitted he wrote quickly while ENHRN (Elise, Not Her Real Name) was at yoga.
Commenter PajeroPilot kinda hit the nail right on the head here:
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