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6 Thrilling Travel Trends To Experience In 2026

Es Cubells, Ibiza, Spain

With Dry January and Blue Monday firmly in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to re-engage your wanderlust. This year’s travel trends will see a shift away from bucket lists and Instagram hotspots and towards something more personal and intentional – think nostalgia, literary fantasy and family reconnections. NATASHA BIRD unpacks the trends that are set to define our future vacations – and highlights some of the best places to begin experiencing them

Lifestyle
Rebecca Nardi shares her insider’s guide to Florence’s most nostalgic spots @mayberebecca_

The past-port renewal

A past-port vacation taps into a more emotional way of traveling, allowing you to return to places that have meant something to you before, rather than endlessly chasing novelty. In 2026, nostalgia trips are about revisiting locations that have shaped who you are, to see them with fresh perspective or to build on fond memories. Perhaps that means returning to Florence, retracing a formative year of shared apartments and late-night trattoria-hopping in your twenties, but instead staying in a palazzo and seeing the Uffizi before the doors open. Or a pilgrimage back to the Balearics, where Ibiza’s wild all-nighters have become so many people’s canon event. This time, though, booking a gorgeous villa on the cliffs of Es Cubells, spending lazy days swimming, reading and being altogether more rested and uncomplicated. Elsewhere, travelers are retracing first solo trips, early career postings or their family’s genealogy.

The travel AI-tinerary

Asking ChatGPT to plan aspects of your life is not a new phenomenon, but this year our AI usage stands to mature a little bit. While we’ve leant on favorite online travel hubs to use AI for great flight or last-minute hotel steals for years, what’s changed is how confidently we’re now issuing the commands. Forget simply asking for a few city-break suggestions. In 2026, the brief is tight. We’re asking for a long weekend with a sea view, a climate in the 70-80 Fahrenheit (22-28 Celsius) range, with moderately steep hill hikes to explore and a stellar bakery that regularly sells out by 10am. We’re no longer expecting AI to simply play travel advisor; we want ultra-focused, totally personal plans and the ability to recalibrate on a dime, should the weather turn or our needs change.

Guests can delight in preparing their preferred cuisine while staying in one of Les Roches Rouges’ kitchen-equipped suites
At Stockholm’s most stylish boutique hotel, Ett Hem, communal cooking is on the menu

Food for thought

For some, the thought of having to play chef is the ultimate holiday no-no. Feet-up relaxation requires someone else to prepare every meal. For others, who love a bit of culinary art and craft, a recent rise in everyday epicureanism sees the local market or deli become a must-visit spot. So, in 2026, the well-appointed kitchen has become part of the romance of a room. Think marble worktops stocked with local olive oil, a knife that actually cuts and a view that rewards a morning-coffee ritual. For classic French inspiration, Les Roches Rouges, between Cannes and St. Tropez, has residence-style rooms with kitchens, framed by sea and sky; while Villa La Coste in Provence includes a series of art-filled villas with kitchens that feel architectural rather than domestic. And for wannabe Swedish chefs, Ett Hem in Stockholm is more private house than hotel, with relaxed but Scandi-chic communal cooking areas.

The White Lotus season three unraveled on the paradise island of Koh Samui, fueling luxury and wellness tourism in Thailand

Screen to scene

By 2026, our favorite movies, TV shows and books aren’t just for existential escapism. They’re inspiration for very literal escapism, too. After The White Lotus’ impactful third season aired last year, the hit show inspired an 88% surge in searches for Koh Samui destinations and a 44% rise in hotel reservations on the Thai island. And what about LA? A perennial hotspot, certainly, but satirical HBO comedy I Love LA made us all the more keen to hang out near Colorado Street Bridge or take a trip out to Capri Club. Hat tip also to BookTok: from Evelyn Waugh’s leafy quads of Oxford to Diana Gabaldon’s Scottish Highlands, readers ravenous to live out their literary fantasies are hopping to it IRL.

At the base of Gemsstock Mountain, in the Swiss Alps, stands the magnificent chalet-style hotel The Chedi Andermatt

Salvaged stays

If the circular economy is inspiring to you beyond vintage Alaïa, this trend will help you to enjoy the poetry of reuse in the way you vacation, too. For 2026, some of the most desirable addresses have spirited former lives: harbor buildings, converted train carriages, mills and other industrial relics, restored with an artful eye and careful restraint. A couple of days in former freight yard (now ultra-luxe alpine retreat) The Chedi Andermatt, perhaps. Or the Warehouse Hotel in Singapore: a meticulously restored 19th-century shipping repository, reimagined as a 37-room boutique hotel. These are places where architecture does the storytelling and the luxury experience is defined by archival depth, as well as gloss.

Villa-plus-hotel hybrids

Collective trips used to be the preserve of child-free good-timers, looking for cocktail-drenched late nights and a handful of stories to relive in the group chats. These days, many of us are choosing bigger, often multi-generational friend-and-family vacations. This means a dramatic shift in our accommodation requirements. The most sought-after stays for these sorts of larger decampments abroad are not traditional hotels, but villa-plus-hotel hybrids and multi-suite clusters. The sort of places with a healthy stack of amenities for kids, pets, nannies and grandparents galore – but with a degree of seclusion, too. Your loved ones can gather on a shared private terrace for breakfast, but you can peel off later to make use of the hotel’s spa.

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