2024 Summer Travel Trends

It may be early spring, but now is the time to start making your summer travel plans. Naturally, you want to have the best possible experience and get the most out of your vacation investment. It helps to know which trends have gained the most steam for the warm weather season. Check out these summer travel trends for 2024.

Culinary Travel Evolves

Culinary travel isn’t new. Foodies have been seeking out new food experiences through travel for decades. What’s new(er) is the way that people are approaching culinary travel.

Today, food-centered vacations are all about understanding and respecting cultures. People are as likely to seek out authentic foods created by indigenous people as they are to visit 4-star restaurants where top-tier chefs serve their gentrified versions of the same foods. 

Focusing on Sustainability to Balance Travel Impacts

Global tourism is bad for the environment. That’s difficult to reconcile with the cultural and experiential benefits of seeing the world. So, many travelers are seeking balance by prioritizing sustainable options when they see the world.

This includes adopting environmentally friendly practices, like avoiding single use plastics. It also involves taking steps to protect cultural places and natural sites, and choosing accommodations that are as climate friendly as possible. Many people also prioritize making travel choices that benefit local communities.

Taking Advantage of Shoulder Season Travel

Shoulder season is the time right between a places peak tourism season and the off-season. Budget-minded travelers are discovering that there are great deals available to them if they travel during these times. Also, unlike the off-season many of the attractions are still fully open for business. 

Cultural Immersion

Culinary tourism is just one example of the trend towards cultural immersion in travel. This includes:

• Choosing locally owned and operated accommodations
• Staying with a host family
• Attempting to learn and communicate in the local language
• Walk neighborhoods and interact with people
• Visit local markets
• Take public transportation
• Go to local fairs, sporting events, or celebrations
• Make a list of things to learn and accomplish

It also helps to make a dedicated effort to meet and spend time with locals. There are tourism services that connect residents with travelers. You may even be able to find your perfect date on your vacation.

Passion-Focused Travel

You’re ready to go on a much-needed vacation. So, you pick a place, and then you find what might be interesting to see and do. That’s a very standard approach to travel, but what if you reversed things? Passion-focused travel is all about knowing what you’d love to do, and then finding amazing new places to do that.

This is a great way to uncover some undiscovered locales that you may not have considered otherwise. For example, if you focus on great places to go snorkeling, you might find a hidden gem in a place that wouldn’t have been on your radar if you were just looking for popular tourist destinations.

Film And Television Inspired Travel

Set jetters are people who travel the world to visit famous movie locations. This unique approach to tourism is becoming more popular than ever. Have you ever dreamt of visiting the lush lands of New Zealand to see where Lord of The Rings was filmed? What about the famous Stanley Hotel from The Shining? You aren’t alone!

Authenticity is The Key Focus

If you review these travel trends and others, one theme emerges. That’s authenticity. Travelers want authentic experiences and interactions. And to preserve these, they understand that they must change the way they travel to be more respectful and less intrusive. Hopefully, these “trends” will gain traction and simply become the gold standard for tourism.