Are you ready for a "Mancation"?

There is a new travel industry trend, it's called the "mancation".

The concept of a gender specific trip has "been around since the first caveman took his club and went hunting with the others in the tribe." Yet, mancation has become a buzzword in the travel business lately. Tapping into the success of marketing all-girls getaway packages, hotels and resorts have started featuring all-male bonding vacation packages that include everything from poker, to extreme sports, to spa treatments. Golfing is the most popular activity for all-male vacation groups, but destinations have developed unique programs to accommodate the growing trend. The latest mancation packages offer spiritual healing, culinary instruction, yoga, and sexual reawakening.

In promoting mancations, some organizers "have discovered that men tend to create ‘micro affinity groups’ in childhood, college, or grad school, and that the groups often take trips together." According to one online survey, about 34% of male respondents take at least one mancation every year. It is estimated that about 20 million American men go on mancations every year and collectively spend between $10 billion to $12 billion during these excursions.

The majority of these men are married and between the ages of thirty to fifty-five years old. During the summer of 2006, half of the Fairmont Hotel chain’s 50 properties in the United States created mancation packages. For example, the Fairmont Chicago mancation package consists of a three-course steak dinner, a cocktail seminar, whiskey tasting, cigars, and poker.

Think of it as the travel version of a "man cave." Experts say that it is not to be confused with a bachelor party stereotyped drunken bar crawls. Instead it is about doing things that regular family members wouldn't want to do and the trend has been fueled by the already common practice of couples taking separate getaways. Though mancations are increasing in popularity, so-called "girlfriend getaways" still vastly outnumber them, according to experts.

Most importantly these trips are not about finding partners, says the operator of one of the many websites aimed at such trips. Instead they are about deepening friendships, pushing each other and engaging in activities that families and wives might otherwise be adverse.

Source: Wikipedia/Mancation