🗝️ The Upgrade | Weekly by Anne Marie Brown.
Issue 13 · Is the 40th Birthday The New Bachelorette?
In The Upgrade this week:
Pre-Departure – Is the 40th Birthday the New Bachelorette?
The Room Report – Hotel Regina Louvre, Paris
The Lobby Bar – Louis Vuitton Will Open a Hotel, Coolcations, and another large hotel chain enters the Safari lodge game
Travelers,
I am sending out The Upgrade a bit late this week, as I’m flying home for our big Euro Summer trip. With a three-hour delay leaving Paris, we will land in Denver around midnight, if all goes according to plan. To be honest, the delay was the only travel hiccup we encountered on a 3.5-week trip through England, Italy, and France with a 5- and 7-year-old in tow, so I’ll count that as a win.
My husband has had the patience of a saint as I conducted site visits and meetings at every stop of our trip, because let’s face it, travel advisors never really vacation but rather balance work and travel simultaneously in a constant tug-of-war. The Travel Dispatch this week for paid subscribers will be the full details of our trip.
This week, I’m reflecting on milestone birthdays, particularly 40th ones.
Happy travels! Anne Marie
Yours truly in Paris, on our balcony at the Regina Louvre, with the 40th Birthday Girl
🗝️ Pre-Departure — Hospitality Hot Takes
Are 40th Birthdays the New Bachelorette Trip?
Bailey Quin (McCarthy) is dressed in pink Dolce & Gabbana in Paris, surrounded by friends and people in pink poodle costumes. The next day, she posts elegant shots of herself and her guests in “tweed and tipple” dress aboard the British Pullman train.
Her trip, outfits, and themes are fabulous – ushering in her next decade with a fanfare that puts our boomer parents’ “over the hill” fetes to shame.
I devour each of her posts and message about them to a friend, gushing over how incredible each day is.
Bailey Quin, who is infinitely cooler than I am
I am writing this on a flight home from celebrating that particular friend’s 40th birthday on the French Riviera. She rented a villa and filled it with our family and another one for a week of beach clubs, pool time, Sancerre, hotel tours (because it’s me), and incredible food. At nearly 40,000 feet, I am now digging through photos and reflecting on an incredible week.
A year ago, I took five of my closest girlfriends on an epic trip through the British countryside. We galivanted in the gardens of Cliveden House, indulged in martinis and caviar in the Lanesborough bar in London, drove Ineos Grenadiers off road on the grounds of Estelle Manor, and played croquet in our best crisp whites at Four Seasons Hampshire. And oh yes, we dressed in 1920s garb and boarded the British Pullman murder mystery train. (If you’d like to recreate this trip, send me an email at AnneMarie@alpenglowtravel.com).
I was, admittedly, not the first woman to celebrate my 40th in style abroad with “my girls.” Also, Bailey’s birthday trip was likely much higher in budget, larger, and included more poodles.
We were, however, all part of a greater trend of women celebrating our fourth decade not with a whimper, but a bang.
Women are treating 40 as a new peak - a time when our children are out of the baby stage, our incomes can support such opulence as we hit our career strides, and our friends are ready to reconnect on a meaningful trip, leaving the kids at home.
These trips often include smaller groups, more curation, zero penis straws or “tribe” hats, and significantly more luxury hotels or villa rentals.
As my millennial clients turn 40, I’m sourcing villas in Mallorca, Irish castles, Mediterranean sailing yachts. There’s not the “everyone has to agree on a restaurant and hotel” discourse of our bachelorette days gone by. These are trips where you are given an agenda and show up, frequently treated by the birthday girl to the accommodations and at times, to much more of the trip.
On my trip, some of our favorite moments were true reflections of girlhood. We became hilariously lost on a forest walk, attempted to film Downtown Abbey reenactments at Highclere Castle, tried to solve the mystery on the Pullman in terrible British accents, and went to bed each night after dinners full of meaningful discussions about such things as private vs public schools for our kids and what the rules of croquet actually are.
I haven’t laughed that hard or stayed up that late in years.
Each day, we gave ourselves permission to fully dress up. (Our luggage was excessive, but that was the point.) I wanted the trip to be filled with the opportunity to take up space and stop apologizing for being a group of dynamic women wholeheartedly ourselves, having a blast.
As a travel advisor, I could have easily booked all this myself, but my birthday gift to little old me was to use another travel advisor to handle the logistics for me, and it was such a treat! For once, I was the designer but not the executor. I set down my mental load and giggled my way through this milestone. My friends took that mental load on for me, and I got to relax.
This year, in addition to spending the week in France for the aforementioned 40th celebration, I traveled to Rwanda to celebrate another friend’s 40th with gorilla trekking. I’m off to Charleston – much closer to home – for yet another later this year.
My Instagram feed continues to yield more examples of what Brittany Allyn dubbed a “Me Moon,” or what Carrie Bradshaw called her “self wedding.” Influencers are cresting 40 with fervor and pizazz.
Millennials are coming into our own as the “Great Wealth Transfer” begins. While for many, that transfer may not be a reality, my cohort is hitting the point in their careers where they have the salary to spend on meaningful travel and the seniority to take the time off.
We have ridden an early adulthood filled with student debt, global instability, pandemics, economic upheaval, and for many, bidding the dream of owning a home as nice as our parents’ place goodbye.
We are realizing that tomorrow is never promised. We are choosing to spend our time and money intentionally on experiences with people we love. We are building villages of friends with similar interests and children the same age as our own. These 40th birthday trips reflect those priorities.
While new social media platforms pop up at the speed of prairie dogs, Instagram continues to reign supreme in the millennial female zeitgeist. Most of my travel inspiration begins with Instagram, and many of my clients find me there or through Reddit. When I ask what they are envisioning for a trip, they often send reels or posts. These big celebrations are a chance to curate that vision for our closest friends.
Earlier this year, I wrote about the rise of women’s retreats, and I believe these 40th birthday trips are a continuation of that larger trend.
It’s not just women. My husband spent his 40th birthday heli-skiing with some of his closest guy friends and traveled to the Masters to celebrate the 40th of another friend this past spring.
Hotels and experiences are once again, the forefront of these celebrations, and should embrace the trend. The hotels that make group bookings for rooms, upgrade the birthday girl or guy, smooth the process of transfers and restaurant reservations, these will be the ones that end on Instagram. Of course, they should also avoid my check list from “What Luxury Hotels Get Wrong.”
Forget “thirty, flirty, and thriving.” We are now “Forty, fabulous, and fleeing the country with our friends.”
🗝️ Room Report — The Hotel Regina Louvre, Paris
Our trip ended with a last-minute extension to Paris. Realizing our flights would be cheaper flying out of CDG than Nice for our dates, we called an audible about a week before we left for our Euro Summer and booked three nights at the Regina Louvre.
I’ve mentioned this hotel a few times on this Substack, mostly because I feel like it’s not one of the most well-known hotels, but it does punch above its weight for the price point. I have typically stayed in the Marais at my other favorite little boutique hotel - the Pavilion de la Reine - and have also stayed at Le Meurice, The Relais Christine, La Reserve, and others. My clients are typically at the Rosewood or Bristol, with an occasional Four Seasons George V booking thrown in.
Keys: The hotel has 98 rooms and 32 suites, restored to 19th-century style.
Room we stayed in: The Eiffel Tower Suite - our kids were on a sofa bed with a separate door between our room and theirs. We had one bathroom, and a small balcony overlooking the Touleries Gardens and the Eiffel Tower.
Rate: 1800 euro per night (included breakfast and a $100 credit due to being in our Preferred Hotels network partnership)
History:
The Regina Louvre is owned and run by the fourth generation of the founding Baverez family, 125 years after they first purchased it.
The building sits on the site of the former Royal Stables of the Palais du Louvre, where Kings Henri III, Henri IV, and Louis XIII learned to ride horses.
Named after Queen Victoria as a nod to the then-new friendship between Britain and France
Opened for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, which drew 50 million visitors to Paris
In 1919, representatives from the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, and Japan sat down inside the Regina and created what became the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. The organization now serves 160 million people. It was born in this hotel.
Appeared in The Bourne Identity, Kiss of the Dragon, La Femme Nikita, and a dozen other films
Good Parts:
I’m a sucker for a classic, elegant hotel that feels like it's right out of the Belle Epoc. Relais Christine has beautiful wood interiors and ceilings, without feeling stuff. The lobby bar was a cozy spot filled with red velvet chairs for late night cocktails. Breakfast was solid, and the included breakfast could also be taken in our room, so we could watch the sun come up over the Eiffel Tower.
Our suite was on the 6th floor, and it’s always been a dream of mine to see the Eiffel Tower from a hotel room. This room delivered.
The location is excellent for shoppers who want an easy walk to the luxury stores of the Place Vendome area, or visitors who would like to be near the Louvre.
Drawbacks:
Our room and our friends’ room were not cleaned our first morning there until 4 and 5pm, respectively. That is likely the latest I have ever had a room turned in my life. I requested that housekeeping come the next day at 10am and they did deliver on that, but really, a 5pm turn is now just a missed cleaning. This is abysmal for a 5 star hotel.
I also was seriously bummed about the shower situation. For 1800 euro, those suites need a real shower, not a bath with a detachable head that’s not even high enough to go over my 5’6’’ frame. Showers were a challenge, but for three nights, it was livable. I wouldn’t book this room for a longer stay due to that issue. Our friend’s Junior Suite did have a real shower with a glass door and a separate bath. Choose wisely.
🗝️ The Lobby Bar — Hospitality updates, promotions, and the occasional pun
Louis Vuitton is opening a hotel on the Champs Elysées. In another example of retail dipping their toes in the waters of the hotel world, Paris will soon welcome a Louis Vuitton hotel. The Paris property is shaping up to be one of the highest-profile openings of the year, with interiors and programming built around the house codes. If you collect Objets Nomades or plan trips around a Vuitton exhibit, start thinking about booking your stay.
Air France added La Première to Houston on July 5. Texas clients heading to Europe finally have a first class option out of IAH. The same aircraft carry Air France’s new business class with doors, so the buy-up crowd benefits too.
Wealthy travelers are trading August in Positano for Arctic lodges. Instagram is serving me tons of “coolcation” videos in the midst of the European heat wave. Apparently, I’m not the only one. New data from Global Travel Collection shows European summer bookings down 10 percent while fall is up 25 percent. Greenland and the Faroe Islands have begun to appear in my request folder, and more of my clients are picking Croatia, Montenegro, and Albania over the Amalfi Coast.
PUBLIC West Hollywood opens July 15. Ian Schrager’s third PUBLIC hotel puts 137 rooms on the Sunset Strip. It’s the right hotel for a design-conscious couple who want to walk to dinner. It’s the wrong one for a multigenerational family that needs connecting suites and a pool deck; stick with the Bel-Air or Beverly Hills Hotel.
JW Marriott is opening a safari camp on Solio Game Reserve. Because every hotel chain now wants to get in on the safari camp world, JW Marriott is opening a camp in Laikipia, Kenya, where you can spend your Bonvoy points with less controversy than the Ritz Carlton camp in a migration crossing.
Always yes to experiences over things (though I also like things) but an experience with friends is more memorable! We did my husband’s 40th as a surf trip to Nihi Sumba and Amankila, it was great!
Well I should have read this a year ago - I celebrated my 40th with my family and didn't even think of a girls' trip. Maybe if I start planning now in a few years I can do an epic 45th. Also, with you on your fave Paris hotels! Staying at one of the Pavillons next month and can't wait.