‘The White Lotus’ Is The Worst Kind of Travel Inspo
Ask yourself, "What would Tanya do?" And then do the exact opposite
It starts with a body in a casket, which should have been the first clue. Yes, it is paired with dramatic drone shots of pristine beaches, set in a glamorous resort full of beautiful people, and every frame is packed with idealized leisure. But it’s right there, up front — even if you missed the biting satire, the skin-crawling cringe, or the omnipresent caricature of the Ugly American. Go back to the beginning, and remember: A human being is dead. The White Lotus is not travel inspiration.
Yet it’s hard to deny the glamor in their solipsism, movie-star aura with surface-level appeal. As we near the season 3 premiere of Mike White’s show, the resort life aspiration machine is in full effect. There are merchcollabs, activations, and countless online guides explaining how to travel like the grotesque personalities at the core of the show.
Thrillist has found that The White Lotus consistently turns its locations into objects of serious wanderlust: In spring 2023, months after season 2 captivated viewers with lingering shots of the Four Seasons in Taormina, Sicily, the hotel experienced an extreme crush — the bar manager reported literal tears from tourists who couldn’t get in, and the hotel had to change policies to make sure their guests could access services without being overwhelmed by starstruck plebeian lookie-loos. As a further, and perhaps more modern, data point: web searches for Sicily spiked some 50% higher than usual after the show wrapped at the end of 2022, according to Skift.
In advance of season 3, the official Tourism Authority of Thailand is taking steps to prepare for the inevitable influx of international interest, above and beyond the usual for the always-popular Koh Samui. And according to Forbes, that surge has already begun, even before the show has aired.
But the fictional guests on HBO’s outstanding anthology series are the last people you should emulate on vacation: Season 1 actor Steve Zahn’s Mark Mossbacher, an insecure, philandering, habitual oversharer who is largely blind to his own privilege, and his on-screen family are fully dysfunctional. In season 2, Jennifer Coolidge’s Tanya McQuoid is an unstable narcissist who stumbles her way through a series of deeply chaotic relationships, both intimate and financial. Season 2’s Aubrey Plaza takes a masterfully polarizing turn as Harper Spiller, a sharply cynical lawyer whose marriage is in an unhappy, bickering rut, and that’s just the beginning. Almost every character displays alarming degrees of unkindness and entitlement as they go about trampling staff, local culture, and each other like hot, spoiled bulls in a 5-star china shop.
In truth, they are all of the things that a good traveler should never be: ignorant, closed-off, incurious, boorish. In other words, they’re true outsiders parachuting in for a self-absorbed stay in a country and culture they view as little more than props and backdrops for their vacations. But how are you even supposed to enjoy the view if you can’t get your head out of your ass?
The White Lotus has become such a cultural touchstone surrounded by so much hype and hoopla that it has left a profound impact on resort-goers. An Instagram search for “White Lotus vibes” yields endless, mostly unironic results. Even those vacationers who are distinctly unlike the in-universe guests find themselves wondering what Tanya would do. That is to say, you can no longer go to a resort without comparing it to the show.
There was a similar phenomenon around the release of The Menu in 2022, a movie that went out of its way to skewer the culture surrounding fine dining restaurants, and fine diners themselves in particular. At some point during any nice dinner out, someone was obligated to bring up in a half-awed, half-smirking way how much it felt like the movie, as if adding a layer of irony or self-awareness to say, “Yeah, ok, sure. We like fine dining, but we’re not really like that. Right?”
Now, after two seasons of melodramatic megalomania in HBO’s prime Sunday night time slot, when someone comes back from a visit to a resort, they cite The White Lotus in much the same way. Whether the trip was to Thailand on a honeymoon, Hawaii with the kids, or an all-inclusive in Cancún, the show has become an integral part of our popular conception of “luxury,” what it means and what it entails, and most of all how it looks in the lifestyle-influencing age. It is a pointed topic of consideration, from the planning stages through the return flight, scouting out precisely how to match that luxurious facade, even if chaos awaits back home. With, maybe, some secondary thought as to how you can avoid being as horrible as the Di Grasso men from season 2.
So, then, the lingering question: Should The White Lotus keep you away from resort travel?
Let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. Resorts are fun, and it’s nice to give in to pampering once in a while, especially in a particularly fraught time in the world. Merely going to a resort doesn’t make you an inconsiderate oaf. In fact, many of the folks at Thrillist are already on the record as fans of an all-inclusive experience. So, here’s the moral instead: Let the show be a warning, not a condemnation.
Isn’t that what art should do anyway? Jostle us out of our routines, shake us awake with distorted mimicry, and give us insight into our own habits by showing antic caricature of our grimly recognizable selves? As a show and as art, The White Lotus is a success. It is holding a mirror to our worst tourist instincts, that we may better avoid them in the future.
Just remember, when you do take a set-jetting visit to The Four Seasons in Maui, or Taormina, or Koh Samui, to be a better guest and a better global citizen. Be more inquisitive, open, and kind. Bask in luxury, but don’t be an asshole about it. And if you find yourself promising to go into business with a particularly inspirational resort employee, well, maybe follow through on that.