Quite self righteous. People go to these resorts because they can't afford (time and/or money-wise) going on an actual exotic vacation.

Don't know about the indoors skiing in Dubai but I'm pretty sure the Tropical Island resort in Germany is less harmful to the environment than the equivalent number of Germans flying many 1000s of kilometers to an actual tropical island and back.

I couldn't help but think that the photographer profiled here suffers from a skewed perspective. As a professional photographer, he's used to traveling internationally to do a shoot, so he might think of it as no big deal for a New Jersey family to head out to the Adirondacks or Aspen for real skiing, as opposed to going to the planned mega-mall with indoor slopes [0].

[0] http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/05/meadowlands_ski_par...

tl;dr: this is a short article about a book of photos of indoor resorts, such as indoor skiing halls in Dubai, or indoor pools with tropical island decor. Not particularly "bizarre" IMHO

Thanks for the TL;DR. I abandoned after the first paragraph because Wired throws up a modal when using an ad blocker. The lead wasn't interesting enough to disable the modal.

Edit: uBlock Origin blocks the modal, AdBlock doesn't.

My tldr could have been a little more helpful, actually. The OP direct links to an online gallery of some of the photos on the photographer's homepage: http://www.photography.at/_fake_holidays.html

Odd that the authors biggest takeaway was environmental related.

>“I am not sure what is better: going to the Alps, knowing that the skiing industry destroys nature in the mountains, or going to a skiing hall built in Dubai, in the desert.”

Compared to the mining practices that creating the enormous tailings piles at the former Molycorp mine adjacent to the Red River, the ski area farther up the valley is very low-impact, and it's an impetus to clean up the Molycorp site.

While the pictures are beautiful, I don't quite get the article. There's nothing particularly bizarre about those destinations, it's just a different way of experiencing certain things.

Rather than sit in a plane for 7 hours to get to the alps once a year, why not stay in Dubai and go skiing every afternoon? Apart from the environmental issues, that sounds quite reasonable to me.

Air travel is pretty bad for the environment too

I guess the author is unfamiliar with Epcot.

Oddly, the article addresses Disney, but does so by saying that the photographer says there a difference. Except the difference is something about being indoors? Surprise twist, there's actually no difference, but the man has to sell books, or he won't be able to keep taking international vacations!

Recall, recall, recall.

"Here's the thing about ad blockers [...]"

Ugh; deleted.

I'm on android, no ad blocker. The gallery was unusable for me because the photographs appeared in a modal that had a banner ad in the top, kicking the description off-screen after reflow, with no way to scroll. Had to switch to desktop view and zoom in on the photographs individually.

If you don't want people to use ad blockers, try taking UX seriously. Ads on sites like these are notoriously abusive to the users. I have no sympathies for their complaints about people blocking this crap.

Use uBlock Origin. Works fine here. Not sure what you are using.

I'm using AdBlock and I saw the modal too. I'll give uBlock Origin a try instead.

Or shown them how their content is not worth exposing your browser and brain to ads to.

Sign me up! I spend enough time trapped in this hell, enduring the satanic trials of lost television remote controls and blinding optical mouse lasers that any slim delusion is a breath of fresh air!

  *sob!*

Oh, scheduled DVR recordings of Game of Thrones, you're my only friend!