I often wonder if my generation will create the next “It” place. I’ve come to realize that it takes about thirty years for one to develop, and for it to become truly hot. If we started now, we still wouldn’t have our generation’s “It” place until we were well into our 60s. That’s too far from now.

But maybe that’s the problem. Our generation is obsessed with immediate satisfaction.

We can’t wait 30 years to develop our own “It” places so we just keep heading back to the ones created by our parents to have fun. It’s much easier than doing the heavy lifting ourselves, only for our kids to benefit 30 years on.

So how does a place become an “It” place? What does it take? Let’s narrow it down to the best and most popular places to vacation in Western Europe. Like all good things in life, there are only a handful of these places around the world, and everyone seems to want a piece of St. Tropez, Courchevel, Ibiza, Mykonos, Sardinia, Mallorca, Megeve, St. Moritz, Gstaad, and Bodrum.

How does it start? Well, the trajectory of an  “It” place is similar to that of a powerful brand or product. It needs to be discovered, promoted, validated, and then advertised.

First comes the beauty of the place, discovered by a select few who have an eye for charm and location. Like all prized real estate, the place in question usually has some constrained geographic characteristics, such as a limited amount of land or difficult access. Second, it takes the right person to set the trend, to pave the way. Generally speaking, this work has been done by the most talented and artistic among society, who happen in many cases to have been gay, or hippies, or elites with unlimited access (the most famous celebrities in the world) or unrestricted budgets (the wealthiest amongst society). Finally, in order to achieve “It” status, the place usually needs at least one iconic hotel, as well as several chic boutique properties.

Mykonos was sniffed out and then popularized by the gay community. Don’t ask me why, but they found it and unveiled it to their other fashionable friends who wanted to party—and the rest is history. Even after decades of intense nightlife, it’s still a magical locale. Everything about Mykonos (and all the “It” places I mention here) is so well-known to this readership that it would be silly-almost cliché-for me to even mention the places on the island that I love.

Little Venice, Mykonos, Greece. Photo credit: Sailko via Wikimedia Commons

Back in the Sixties, hippies were the trendsetting group, representing as they did, the counterculture of free love, music and great times. And Ibiza, a free love outpost that hosted all of the biggest musicians in the wildest way that we cannot possibly imagine, quickly came to represent that counterculture. Rumour has it that Bob Dylan lived in the lighthouse in Formentera, partying with the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Jethro Tull, who were all regulars. Ibiza has been at the center of Western society’s music culture since 1963, and continues to this day in the vibrant music scene which makes or breaks the biggest electronic and DJ acts in the world every summer.

A perfect example of a celebrity-created “It” place is St. Tropez; Brigitte Bardot singlehandedly made that once quiet fishing village the hottest place to party in the summer. Decades later, and despite the inevitable influx of trashy people coming to see what all the fuss is about, St. Tropez remains a mythical, fun, and beautiful place, attracting an exceptional crowd during many weeks of the summer.

Port of St Tropez. Photo credit: Adrian 777 via Wikimedia Commons

Another example of celebrity influence is Mallorca in Spain. While it became fashionable at first because the Spanish royal family have their holiday home there (Marivent), it reached a new level when Michael Douglas took a shine to it.

In other cases, it is the lack of celebrity that has played a role in the development of an “It” place. Disinterested in the extravagance of Courchevel and the celebrity party scene of St. Mortiz, the Rothschild family invested in and developed much of Megeve in the French Alps. They attracted their friends, and the circle of French families with which they associate, to this Alpine village so famous for its picturesque charm. The magic continues to this day, but in large part the town’s “It” status owes much to the Rothschild imprimatur.

Place de L'Eglise, Megeve. Photo credit: Leo-seta via Flikr

Sardinia offers another example. Prince Karim Aga Khan had it all, at least in superficial terms:  money, power, title, and beautiful women surrounding him. He built Porto Cervo in Sardinia in the 1960s. I don’t know whether it was he who first dubbed that storied coastline “Costa Smeralda” – Emerald Coast – but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had. Not that it’s not lovely, but the story of Sardinia smacks of the genius branding required to make an “It” place “It”, and that’s exactly what the Aga Khan had in mind. He created an exclusive holiday village for the rich and famous with high-end fashion boutiques, expensive restaurants, and luxury hotels. He served as trendsetter and unofficial ruler, imposing his will at every step, all the way down to having the final word in approving what building materials his friends, the Agnellis, could use in constructing their villas.

Where the gays, hippies, celebrities, royals, and the super rich congregated, the most amazing soirees followed.

The party people took the “It” places and made them truly hot. The reputation of each place spread through each epoch’s proverbial six degrees of separation, and the stories of amazing party nights passed from circle to circle. The myth begins to develop. The brand is established. The followers of the “It” place chase the dream, want to be a part of the brand, and perpetuate the fantasy.

Is there an Aga Khan among the trendy royals out there, who is going to stake his or her claim to some beautiful island and fashion it for his or her friends into the next Costa Smeralda? Is there a new Rothschild or other family scion investing in a small village to protect its natural beauty for his own enjoyment and the chance to attract friends to the next hot spot?

Will we ever have a bombshell like Brigitte Bardot from our generation who will make a small fishing village into the hottest of summer party spots?

Do they or we even have the patience to do any of this, to make something out of nothing, to enjoy the slow passion for a place as it develops and attracts our friends over 20 or 30 years? I think we do. I think it is happening in three or four places around the world as we speak. One small place in Greece comes to mind. Another in Brazil.  Another in Africa. A final one in South America. But if I told you, it might happen too quickly or get ruined by greedy real estate developers. So, let’s speak in thirty years…