Explore Worldwide’s global Travel Trends Report is out, showing how we’ll be travelling in 2025, with top trends pointing to cooler destinations.
Explore’s experts delved into search data, booking patterns and customer queries to provide an adventure travel outlook for the year ahead and here are the top trends.
The rise of the cool-cation
With repeated record-breaking temperatures over the last three years, Google Trends has shown a 300 per cent increase in searches for ‘cooler holidays’ in the last 12 months. Traditionally colder destinations – like Iceland, the Baltics and Scandinavia.
European walking tours are also predicted to places like Northern Ireland and Donegal, and the Faroe Islands. While festivals like the Sapporo Snow Festival in Japan is also expected to prove popular.
Set-jetting
Another emerging travel trend for 2025 is ‘set-jetting’, with travellers visiting a destination because of a book, movie or TV series they’ve enjoyed.
This has been inspired by ‘Paddington in Peru’ and ‘Gladiator 2’ to ‘White Lotus Series 3’ to ‘Letters From Everest’ by George Mallory and Tom Newton Dunn.
The radical sabbatical
This comes off the back of fewer young adults taking a Gap Year before or after university, and because of the more flexible working environment. It means we’re expected to see more mid-lifers opting to take extended breaks from work in the middle of their careers to travel.
Workers in search of a radical sabbatical might consider a three-week adventure with Explore that combines the Baltic States with Slovenia’s Alpine Lakes to visit the medieval towns and UNESCO World Heritage-listed sites in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, before soaking up the glacial lakes of Solenia.
Astrotourism
Seeking out the Northern and Southern Lights are predicted to be a top trend for 2025. Iceland, Finnish Lapland and Canada are destinations offering great chances to see the Northern Lights, where you can also have a cultural experience, like immersing yourself in the rich Sami culture.
Desert camps in Jordan and Oman are another way to experience stargazing opportunities given the lack of air pollution.
Change
We know that changing our routine can be as good as a rest, but in this world of busy schedules, ‘always-on’, overthinking brains and seemingly endless newsfeeds of doom, finding time to relax and reflect isn’t always the tonic we hope for.
Instead, engaging in something completely removed from our day-to-day routine can enable us to break free of unhelpful thinking patterns and leave us feeling refreshed and reinvigorated. It might be a food exploration in Turkey or an active Sri Lanka holiday, but people are more likely to step out of their comfort zone.
Elevated experiences
Australians are increasingly seeking accessible luxury in their holidays, reflecting a desire for meaningful, high-quality experiences. As well as bucket list sights and life-affirming experiences, you can now also have it all with premium accommodation providing extra comfort at the end of each day’s exploring.
For more information, see Explore Worldwide.
