The Freemyer family of Sweester, Indiana, has won a “vacation do over” from the American Society of Travel Advisors (ASTA). ASTA announced the “Vacation Do Over” contest earlier this summer, offering contestants the chance to re-do their failed vacation.
In winning the contest, the Freemyer family will now get to go on a dream vacation, valued at up to $10,000, and planned by an ASTA travel advisor.
“Our goal in this campaign was two-fold,” said Zane Kerby, ASTA’s president and CEO, in a written statement. “First, we needed to understand the pain points that consumers experience when they book on their own. And second, we want to show the value that travel advisors provide by re-doing one ruined trip in particular for a lucky winner.”
To enter the contest, the Freemyers submitted a video describing their worst vacation ever: their honeymoon, in which the groom planned a cross-country road trip as a gift to his new wife. Needless to say, many things went wrong, ending up with the wife stranded in a new state with no cell phone and not knowing if her new husband had just left her, as described in the submission video below:
“Our failed honeymoon was years ago and there were so many parts of it that were epically bad,” said Stephanie Freemyer. “People kept telling us, ‘it only gets better,’ but each day kept getting worse until it literally ended in flames.”
Now, Dan and Stephanie Freemyer, along with their two young children, Tait and Lucan, will work with an ASTA-verified travel advisor on a new trip. ASTA will be documenting their journey on TravelSense.org.
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