It’s still a wide world out there. Sarah Tucker explores some of the top travel trends for 2019...
Lost Horizon, the musical version of James Hilton’s famous novel, says it best. ‘The world is a circle without a beginning,’ one song memorably insists. ‘And nobody knows where it really ends.’
In the storyline, a group of travellers blunders into the mystical Shangri-La after a plane crash in the Himalayas. Here is a paradise of eternal sunshine where the inhabitants look, feel and act younger; where mind, body and spirit work as one; where each person becomes kinder and gentler for the experience.
Sounds like the perfect destination for 2019: an Edenic refuge from the neverending car crash of the world around us. Check out the latest travel trends...
1. 'Bucket List' destinations
2019 is a year for ticking off bucket list destinations. Millennials are doing it because they can’t afford a home, while their homeowning elders are keen to travel their way through the midlife crisis.
Canada and New Zealand sit at the top of the destination tree. Home from home, New Zealand is the England we all imagine once existed, while Canada has phenomenal wilderness and wildlife and some of the most seductive cities in the world. Bold and beautiful, Quebec City was listed as one of the three most romantic urban magnets on the planet by the magazine Conde Nast Traveller.
Iceland is another popular pull, due to the accessibility afforded by budget airlines, the excellent nightlife in Reykjavik, the geothermal wonders of the Blue Lagoon and the probability of seeing the Northern Lights and whales. It’s also a safe place to travel solo.
2. Natural habitats
We want to see the animals. Madagascar, the Galápagos and South Africa lead the way – although, with recent reports suggesting that the planet may have lost around 60% of its wildlife in the past 40 years, any exhortation to ‘see it before it goes’ is fast becoming redundant. In all too many cases, it has already gone.
In Madagascar, at least, it isn’t hard to see why. On a visit several years ago, I found myself confronted with a vision of Tolkien’s Middle-earth: huge swathes of decimated rainforest, where the rich red earth had been mined to produce bricks for houses or dug for semi-precious stones. It looked as if the land were bleeding.
If you wish to save wildlife as well as search for it, turn to Explorers Against Extinction (explorersagainstextinction.co.uk), a small charity that works to protect iconic species and their habitats – or, to put it more crudely, to find the poachers before they find the prey.
Good wildlife holidays are also available from responsibletravel.com and nationalgeographic.com.
3. Exploring the undiscovered
It’s the Baby Boomers – now frequently reinvented as empty nesters – who are setting the pace in this oxymoronic category. It was they, after all, who were in at the birth of the package holiday: now they want ‘authentic’ and ‘immersive’.
Of course, authenticity is a double-edged sword. If most tourists were to experience certain destinations warts and all, they would end up like Dr Foster on a trip to Gloucester – they’d never go there again. Immersion is a much better idea. Essentially it means targeting places of manageable size – you can’t ‘immerse yourself’ in the Mekong Delta in a day. Not metaphorically, anyway.
For the best immersive holidays, choose companies with knowledgeable guides. Tour operators such as explore.co.uk and exsus.com are right on the button.
4. On the move
In flagrant contradiction to the ‘immersive’ trend, some travellers just want to keep going, rather than remain anywhere for a long period of time. If that’s you, a ‘highlights of’ tour would be the one to choose.
Emerging destinations that lend themselves to this type of travel include Namibia, Costa Rica, Slovenia and Finnish Lapland. And don’t ignore the Arctic and Antarctic, as tour operators and airlines are making them increasingly accessible. Try oneoceanexpeditions.com, adventure-life.com or cruise operators such as the excellent Mundy Cruising (mundycruising.co.uk).
5. We want to be alone
A recent survey by Lonely Planet (appropriately) suggests that more of us want to travel solo. In my view, we feel less alone on the solitary move than we do when we’re home alone. Yet tour firms continue to penalise solo travellers financially.
Still, if you have the cash and the courage, it’s certainly possible to go it alone, with conservation holidays (realworldtraveland conservation.co.uk) among the most attractive options.
6. Practising wellness
Finally, remember that a journey is only ever as good as the way it makes you feel. Spas once found themselves eclipsed by yoga retreats – now the conquering yogis are giving way to mindfulness holidays, where partakers learn to become centred, gentle, compassionate and immune to road rage.
My personal favourites include Moinhos Velhos in Portugal (moinhos-velhos.com) – an affordable juice retreat with spirit. And check out healthandfitnesstravel.com.
Or simply follow Fleetwood Mac and go your own way. You never know: you might even start a trend...
