Travel trends for 2026
Trending travel topics
Looking at the top trends for 2026 from the global travel brands is highly revealing where the latest buzz words paint a picture of what consumers really want from the act of travelling, host destinations and travel businesses.
To help get to the bottom of this year’s travel trends, I dipped into the world of Instagram with fascinating results:
Travel is a hot trending topic on Instagram with 793 million hashtags, across the entire traveller journey from inspo to posting once at home
Popular types of trips include #roadtrip 75 million with trip itself garnering 163 million mentions
Travellers love to get away from it all looking to enjoy nature, the beach and landscapes with 857 million, 310 million and 209 million respectively
Travel blogging is a true phenomenon, whether you’re on the road or the sofa, with 95 million hashtag references
Related activities like #photography and #picoftheday enjoy 1.1 billion hashtags each where consumers love to capture that special moment
Source: Inflact, All Hashtags, SocialRails, Instagram, ATTA
It’s easy to create a new buzz word, the standard approach is that you can prefix anything to ‘-cation’. The case in point is this year’s quietcation or pawcation for the age-old pet travel trend. There’s also the twist on nomad such as glowmads that are travelling for a makeover or there are the set-jetting and train-hopping suffixes. There is a dizzying array of creative terms to express travel aspirations and travellers’ interests.
My favourite travel trends for 2026 are AI vegans, astro-cruising, drycations and supermarket safaris.
What are yours? Take your pick!
“AI-vegan, astro-cruising, bi-generational, digital twin, fandom, farm-charm, glowmads, hushpitality, hypersonic, intentional, lifestages, mystery, nanovacation, off-grid, pawcation, purpose, quietcations, romantasy, set-jetting, social bathhouses, supermarket-safaris, train-hopping, wellth”
With slow travel enjoying 1.7 million hashtags, travel that is intentional, with purpose and authenticity is clearly making inroads into travellers’ psyche and more importantly behaviour.
Sources: Airbnb, Booking.com, Kayak, Expedia, Amadeus, Trip.com, Expedia, Skyscanner, Travel + Leisure, CN Traveller, BBC, Virtuoso, Hilton, Marriott