I took a £99 mystery trip. It was not ideal.
If what you want is a true misadventure—a trip guaranteed to be rife with mishaps sure to entertain the masses—it can be yours for just £99. (Extra fees not included. Many, many terms and conditions apply).
This is not a happy story, but it has a happy ending.
A few months ago, I came across a Wowcher deal that seemed far too good to be true: For just GBP£99 (asterisk), I could get a “mystery” seven-day trip from London to Mexico (asterisk asterisk). I read through the full terms and conditions at least twice and concluded that I almost certainly would not win a trip to Mexico, but I might still end up with a lovely, very budget-friendly weekend in a European city I otherwise might not plan to visit.
I have always wanted to do a mystery trip like this, ever since reading the old ‘Spin the Globe’ essays in Afar, where the magazine would send a famous writer on assignment to a destination revealed only the day before. Sure, a £99 weekend trip would not be as glitzy as spending a week in Switzerland with a seemingly unlimited expense budget. But it would be a good story, right? And what did I have to lose, other than £99?
