The year was 1904, and Bessie Anderson Stanley wrote a poem that tried to pin down a good life. One single line, “lived well, laughed often, loved much,” escaped the page and went roaming.
Decades later it resurfaced on mugs and mantels and by the late ’90s—especially the 2000s—big-box aisles and Rae Dunn–style script turned “Live, Laugh, Love” into a home-goods juggernaut. By 2025, the once-coveted signs are stacked in thrift stores, and younger audiences on TikTok poke fun at them with affectionate disbelief. That shift doesn’t make the phrase bad; it just means culture moved on like it always does. Most trends crest and eventually overstay their welcome. That’s why they’re trends.
Tourism has many versions of that arc. Take “Live, Work, Play”—originally a community-development framework, not a visitor promise—and its cousins like “Something for Everyone,” “Find Yourself Here,” and descriptors like “Vibrant Arts Scene.” They’re all useful ideas that, once mass-adopted, drifted into generic marketing. But when every destination wraps itself in the same blanket, you can’t tell one place from another. If your copy could be pasted onto any town’s website, travelers will treat it like background noise.
This post is about moving past generic messaging. Not because warmth and welcome are wrong, but because vagueness doesn’t help anyone get interested. We’ll name the phrases that flatten you, show how they got there, and swap them for language that actually moves a trip forward. Because these days, most of us can’t afford not to.
First, a little grace. I want to be clear that phrases like vibrant arts, quaint downtown, or even live, work, play aren’t villains; they’re just generics. But ultimately, it's important to remember the point of all of this work is to convert.
A destination’s goal is visitors, which means every tactic, down to the most basic line of copy, should have a job.
Travelers aren’t looking for “everytown.” They’re looking for a place with a point of view and somewhere they can picture themselves, today, doing something specific.
This is your chance to show who you truly are. The one thing that nobody else can be.
Here are some of the first places you have to influence people’s perception of your destination.
A tagline is often one of the first true branded encounters someone has with your destination. It's your one shot to give people a quick taste of your personality. Keep it short, specific, and unmistakably you.
These aren’t “bad” in principle, however, they are indistinguishable. They don’t tell me anything about your destination, and honestly, who wouldn’t expect to “experience,” “explore,” or “make memories” on any trip? That’s table stakes. When your tagline promises the bare minimum, you brand yourself as the bare minimum. Aim higher: say one thing only you can say. Anchor it with a local noun, a weekly rhythm, or an ownable contrast—something a neighbor couldn’t copy without sounding wrong.
The best taglines hinge on an ownable truth, imply a clear benefit, and are portable (they work on a billboard, a tote, a mic intro). They say a lot with a little. There are no laundry lists, just one sharp idea you can prove everywhere else in the brand.
Let’s take a look at some popular examples:
What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas
100% Pure New Zealand
Pure Michigan
Ethiopia: 13 Months of Sunshine
What to take away from these
Another early place you influence perception is your offerings, including the way you frame what to see, eat, and do across your site and guides. These lines usually show up as the first sentence on your website sections—Things to Do, Eat & Drink, Events, Plan Your Visit—and in visitor guides and social bios. Their job isn’t to list everything; it’s to frame the category with a unique point of view.
When it comes to offerings, sometimes you’ve got room for a sentence; sometimes you’re squeezing a few words into a description, and sometimes you genuinely only have one word that will fit on a button, in which case “Architecture” is fine. You don’t want to be confusing. However, when you have more space, use it wisely. The general rule is: If you can’t explain why it’s “vibrant,” “historic,” or “convenient,” at some point, you’re probably losing the reader.
Here are some ways to tackle it:
When you only have a few words:
Use place nouns and, when possible, a number, era, day, or landmark.
When you have a sentence (section intros, guide blurbs):
Don’t add fluff: name a place, add one fact (a count or time), and hint at the vibe.
When every word earns its keep, you don’t have to shout. Say less, mean more, be unmistakable.
People are done with generic. What they want is personality, proof, and a highly curated point of view. Give them all three, and your place stops blending into the scroll and starts becoming the plan.
Don’t know where to start? At Kick Push, we blend storytelling with data-driven strategy to turn destinations into must-visits. We partner with destinations to craft the right stories around what you already have, and we use data (search behavior, click paths, booking signals, user intent) to surface opportunities you might not even know are there. Our job is to help you stand out in the best way possible: clear, specific language that moves people to visit. Ready to take the first step? Reach out and let’s turn your “nice vibe” into a must-visit destination.
