Summer Travel Trends to Know About

Summer Travel Trends Final

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[00:00:16] Nasreen: Welcome back to another episode of Time to Talk Travel. Today we're going to chat about summer travel trends. Some of the trends that we're going to try to touch on are things like coolcations, a rise in homes as destinations that have extra outdoor amenities, destination dupes, which are also falling into set jetting that we're going to jump off with.

One trend we covered last time. And that was tech free travel. We're not even going to probably touch on that one because that was enough time talking about no cell phones for me. But set jetting is obviously a really popular one with us. We love talking about where movies take place.

The trend itself is destination dupes. Where are you going to go that is going to look like somewhere with the vibe and the trend that everyone's going for, but it may be less expensive or less crowded, easier to book?

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They are hitting lots of lesser known spots in Scotland. And that one sells out every time. She does it twice a year and people eat it up. When I hear destination dupes, I'm hearing, instead of Barcelona, what is it?

I like Budapest. I think someone similar or Chicago instead of New York City. Those are some of the more popular destination dupes that I read about that I thought that's interesting. And Montreal instead of Brussels, I never would have thought they would be similar.

But, when I think about it, I think St. Augustine, Florida instead of Europe, because it gives the same vibe without needing a passport kind of thing. But those are the ones that come top of mind for me.

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Connections, costs, Hawaii's expensive, hard to book. A lot of people out here may go to Azores- how do I say that? Azores? Okay, I'm like sitting there going, I'm not confident in how I'm saying it now. Same kind of feel, less expensive, much shorter flight, much more affordable flight.

If you live on the West Coast, Hawaii is probably an easier time for you.

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So they were hitting Cabo. I thought that was super interesting.

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I, I don't know if it's Azores or Azores, which is, the funny thing is my family is from there. I have lineage from there, but it's the black sand beaches, where else are you getting those black sand beaches like that?

What about Quebec city? That is a destination that I have been to on the East coast that I just was surprised and blown away by how much it felt like you were in Europe.

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I used to go to Montreal a lot when I lived in Vermont and it does have a very different feel. French is the main language there. So it does have that different feeling without necessarily a flight based on where you are located.

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And this is all Taylor Swift, man. I have so many friends who have now gone to Paris and Madrid, and they're just following her around Europe because they couldn't get the tickets here in the States. And so when she booked a European tour, they just made family vacation out of it. I have so many friends who went to Paris and one that's in Madrid went to the concert just last night. They're just over the moon because they're seeing Taylor and they're seeing Spain.

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It was fascinating, but the other ones are we're gonna see the Olympics this summer and Paris, but that is shaky right now if you're watching the Tik Toks, like the Parisians aren't happy about it. There's a lot of plans to not make it a smooth process. It sounds like it could be an interesting trip if that's one you're doing.

The other ones that came up were things like cricket tournaments. There's a big cricket tournament that people are traveling to. Some of the top countries

were Albania. which apparently is a travel dupe for Croatia, but also a tiny part of me is like, something else must be happening there. It jumped in the top 10.

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It was like, so it was just like a random crazy thing, but a friend of mine was doing a road trip up the coast through Albania. Through Montenegro and to Croatia. my cruise ship had been diverted. We were supposed to stop in Corfu but we went to Montenegro instead and it was just like random happenstance. My friend was driving through Montenegro that day. We met up in Montenegro and she told me all about her travels in Albania. I saw the pictures and I can see why. It's so cheap if you're a little bit intrepid it's really gorgeous.

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[00:06:24] Ciaran: Yeah, they're the early adopters of new destinations for sure. Here's a trend that I saw that kind of hits on all of your trends, Naz. It's not entertainment in terms of movies, but in terms of books. I read an article in a farm magazine about how mystery books are leading the charge for people's destination planning and specifically Scandinavian mysteries, cool Cations destinations that aren't quite as hot in Europe are a big trend right now.

People are planning. Trips to Norway and Sweden based on these Swedish mysteries. And I'm not a big mystery reader either. I've never been so uncool. Because I don't read, I don't read mysteries at all. I'm not a Swifty. Like I just like to go to places.

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Essentially, it's driven by global warming. People are having hotter and hotter summers. So people are selecting to go somewhere where they can spend time outdoors, but the climate is going to be more moderate for them.

I know that when we were in Texas, I would be psyched to come up to New Hampshire every summer because I might have to put on like a little windbreaker at night and be cold. Virtuoso, which is a study, they're a magazine and travel service geared towards luxury travelers, that 75 percent of travelers were looking to go somewhere more moderate or cooler than where they currently were located during the summer that they wanted to have a coolcation, which I got to admit, I saw a coolcation when it was first written and I was like, but it's like shades and we're like super hip or but It's traveling to beat the heat a little bit.

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So I'm with them. I'm, I'd be all for Iceland right now,

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It was just us bushwhacking from location to location. And it was like one of our best family vacations ever. And we were never hot. Never. Nobody was complaining about being too hot on that vacation. If anything, we had to buy some warmer clothes because it was quite chilly and we were there in August.

So that really says something.

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[00:09:12] Ciaran: Those trips like the Greek islands and destination dupes, there's a lot of places you can go in Greece that are less crowded and I recommend it because you'll be able to actually get in the water as opposed to just being squished like a sardine. In Santorini in summer, it's not fun.

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C., just trying to melt and survive. If I go somewhere cooler and that same thing happens. I'm comfortable. I'm not like

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So if you are thinking about worst case scenarios, if you're planning a trip To a landlocked area in Europe during the summer, think about how you're going to stay cool if there is a random heat wave, cause it can happen and it is brutal.

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[00:11:02] Nasreen: I grew up in New Hampshire with no AC. We don't have AC in our house in New Hampshire right now. We have window conditioners that we put into the rooms and we've got concrete floors on the bait on the first floor.

So it's very cool, but we don't have a central AC. Check the amenities, that goes into another trend that Airbnb put out which is this whole trend of their play category, which has the fun houses, the ones that have a bowling alley inside of them, or maybe a full mini golf course in the backyard or a water park, that category on Airbnb more than doubled over the past year.

And in that same thread, people are looking at these Houses as destinations. Right now, spending is going up for baby boomers and they're planning more extended family trips. People are looking for these houses that are a destination in and of themselves because they have so much cool stuff in them.

And that's a trend that's fun because it doesn't rely as much on everything outside of it. It's time with your family. And a really cool house.

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And I actually even looked at renting one or two of them after my house sells and my kids are all home from college. I think that it would make a lot of sense because we want family time but It's really hard to have family time when you're downsizing.

You don't have a place where everyone can stay comfortably. So this idea that everyone can be comfortable and everybody can have fun, but you're not in this resort or cruise ship where you're all going to disperse. Like you can have family time as if you're at home, but way better is just so appealing.

I totally get it.

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[00:12:53] Des: , that's an interesting trend. Also, I don't know if you've seen it on Airbnb, they have an icon tab now where you can book different experiences and one is stay in the up house. And I feel like there was one that was, I just saw

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When I first saw

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[00:13:18] Nasreen: yep. That one as well was a big one. Yep. And they have the Barbie Dream House in Malibu.

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I'm like, okay, are these for real or are these just like fantasy houses?

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This is the new way brands are doing this. These pop ups and these special houses and all of these things are becoming more and more of a way for a brand to partner with a destination and for them to have this cool experience for consumers, but it's an ad, it's all a giant ad spend for them. My son wanted to drive to New York, a three hour drive on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, we did not do it because they had a pop up Cheez In diner in Woodstock, New York. It was an activation with this whole Cheez It themed thing. Same thing, like Shrek's Swamp in the Highlands. It looks awesome, right? It says you're hosted by Donkey. And there's earwax candles, but I guarantee you if we look further into this, there's someone sponsoring this.

Des: I think it's super cool a trend that’s growing for summer are last minute. vacations, where people typically book six to nine months out and now because there's more flexibility working from home, last minute trips are becoming more and more popular.

Those are easy to find. Now I live for that stuff. I love it. Those are great and fewer solo trips. And I can see that as well, more and more people. It's so easy now to find Facebook groups where people have common interests. I joined one last week. It had 182, 000 members of women only who like luxury travel that are just looking for friends to travel with.

They don't want to go by themselves . Oh, what a treasure trove of people. It's just these women who have these amazing stories. I've already talked to probably 20 of them over the weekend. Before I hopped on here, I was having a zoom call with one of them. She oversees marketing for the lesser known Italian villages.

And her job is to try and pull people from Rome and Venice and get them into these little tiny villages that are beautiful that no one goes to,

That's a trend too. So that hits on two trends, right? Because there is a trend of this quiet travel that they're calling it, where you're going to get away from it all.

Your life is too much. There's a lot going on. So you are going to go to a little village, a rural area, the woods, somewhere quiet. And you're going to just have a quiet family vacation. And then the other one was You said solo travel, and that's so funny because that one is very age specific.

Solo travel is going down for those of us who are getting a little older. However, in the younger groups, it's not going down, it's increasing. But a lot of times, those solo travel trips, involves staying somewhere where you're going to meet other people or you're going to be in a co working space while you're there and see other people and you're meeting up once you get there with other people who are solo traveling, but it's an interesting kind of breakdown in the age ranges for that one.

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They're doing amazing things. They're just super interesting people. You don't have to travel solo anymore. There are so many easy ways to find these groups. And it's my jam now. She used a term. The pen, I'm going to say the wrong one. It starts with a P, but in Italian, it means bridge.

She is the Pinto Ponta. I have to look it up. But she's the bridge that connects people. I love that term. I want to be a bridge. I feel like I'm a bridge. As a podcast, we're the bridge. We're the people that tell others about places they should go, where they could go, and hopefully inspire ideas, but I love it.

These lesser, off the beaten path kind of places. That's where you meet real people and go to the real restaurants. That's how I felt about Arco Spain when I went last year. We only went there because it was my boyfriend's ancestral village, and he just wanted to see the altar that somebody in his family donated 300 years ago. We flew into Seville and then rented a car to go to this little city, Arco, Spain, which I honestly was like, it's going to be two days wasted. I'd rather just get on up to Amsterdam. It was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip.

It's just this very quiet, quaint, white painted village that made it feel a little like Santorini. It's just perfect. It's so small that you can't help but meet all the villagers. And you walk up the hill, they walk up every day and then you see how they're in great shape because that hill is brutal.

I love the off the beaten path places now,

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You can just rent a car and just go there on your own. Food was so much cheaper. We got fantastic boutique accommodations. I think it's become a little more popular, but I don't think we heard anybody speaking English the whole time we were there. There were no American tourists, but it was just like this charming village.

When we were in Italy, we went to Lerici and Poets Bay. We went to Copalbio and Argentario on the Tuscan coast. All of these places, the food was fantastic and we were not fighting with other tourists and people were genuinely welcoming to us because we were a novelty to them, but also there were Italian tourists there.

We weren't the only tourists, but it was not as crowded and they weren't angry about all the Annoying, rude, ugly Americans who were ruining it for everybody. You go to the big cities and there's a lot of ugly Americans out there really trampling on destinations. So it's nice to get away from the pack.

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It was just so neat to see that somewhere else. I always love looking when I go places. What looks like somewhere else to me Oh, that is so weird. You'd think you'd see that here. And I just always look for those little details, but definitely seek out some of those quieter, unique destinations and really get immersed.

The immersion travel is a big one. People want to feel connected to where they're going. Hotels are doing things like bringing in an artist in residence or someone to talk about the local area. And we've seen that increasing over the years and I think people are really Looking for that when they're picking somewhere out.

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I have to go relax at the spa between this hour and this hour when the facials are half price and then I have to go to this activity and then I have to be at this restaurant for dinner. That is not relaxing. And a lot of us, our vacation time is our time to reset and relax.

So when we went to Nafplion, specifically, I spoke to some friends who are Greek travel experts and I said, where can I go where there's a lot of things to see and do? But if I don't do them all, if I skip five of them, I'm not going to regret it for the rest of my life and feel like, Oh, I missed out.

That was my one chance to see whatever. I think there's really something to be said for a trip where you can have enough to do, but not too much

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[00:21:47] Des: It's interesting it hits you that way, Ciaran, because I see that, the cruise thing, and I'm like, Oh, something for everybody. I don't feel in any way obligated to do all the things.

My butt's on the lawn chair, the lounge chair . I don't think I've ever done the spa on a cruise. , I'm just like, who waits to get their nails done on the cruise? I remember my best friend did get a facial on a cruise once.

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[00:22:11] Ciaran: I have to say, I used to be that way on cruises, but now I've been on enough cruises that I'm like, yeah, that's not for me. I find my spot on the ship and I'm like, I'll be there. But Norwegian has a phenomenal hydro spa with different cold plunge and hot plunge and hot stone lounges.

And you can just get a day pass and totally worth it if you're going to do a spa on a cruise. That one's great.

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And I think in a lot of cases, some of the more official ones are not as correct. If I look at Deloitte study on vacation travel for the summer, I don't think they nailed it. I think that they made some assumptions and that they weren't correct. Sorry, Deloitte. Not sorry.

But Pinterest on the other hand, they'll go through and talk about what they're seeing people pin as they're planning. They have that insight into the planning process and they also have the insight into What people are trying to push. When we're writing articles, we're trying to put stuff out how many months in advance to make sure it takes hold on Pinterest and gets pinned.

So Pinterest summer trends are again, the quiet life, travel, sword searches went up 530 percent in and like quiet places, calm places, but also experiences like travel journal pages, wellness retreat aesthetic, cabin in the mountains, forest walk, like national parks, things like that went up, and village vibes, which is hilarious because that goes back to the whole Italian village thing, but also at the same time, an increase in adventure travel up 45%, but it's things like Trekking, adventure camping, caving, hiking trail, again.

There is this kind of getting back to outdoors or more intimate experiences, maybe? Maybe we had COVID, we went through the pandemic, we missed people, we got back out, we saw them, we remembered that it wasn't that bad without them, and now we're like, let's just do stuff with people we like.

That's my assessment of the world right now.

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[00:24:49] Nasreen: The ones you like and go to a village with them in Italy. There are unsung villages and Desiree can let you know where those are.

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We can put it in the comments, but they have a whole guide. And, it's massive . I'm at a place in my life where, Ciaran knows this, I spend 30 minutes a day looking at the Italian villas to buy so that I could just move off to Italy.

I can't yet. I had to pull myself back in and say, okay, that's the 10 years down the line plan. Not the today plan. The today plan I have to restrain myself.

There's a lot going on and I like these summer trends. I think they're fun and different and

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Something for everyone.

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There are multiple studies and trends that show that Gen Z is now getting into road tripping and that is like a big emerging trend for them. Welcome. It's better. Don't sit in an airport this summer. Get a car with your friends and make some memories.

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[00:26:05] Nasreen: But you'll very firmly establish who you want to remain friends with and who you won't. Yeah. And

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They had a long weekend. But they had the best time and I will tell you those kids planned every second of the trip. Who was driving? What snacks they were bringing. They made a playlist. They had every road stop between here and there mapped out. They stopped at all these fabulous kitschy places. So yes, Gen Z, there is hope they're doing it.

They're picking up that torch that we lit.

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I love it. I'm so excited that's a trend for them because road trips are. Unsung, underrated, like all, I love road trips.

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The other was a 10 hour drive there and back for a three day stay, two nights. And then the last one was an eight and a half hour drive for a three night stay and there and back. And I would not have gotten through without podcasts. Road trips are such a different experience for me. I put on some Mel Robbins and that woman builds me up.

I put on our podcast and I get to listen to about going to travel them. It helps pass the time so much. And it was funny this last one. My boyfriend came along with me to Florida and he goes, Please tell me we're each listening to our own thing.

And I'm like, fine. You don't have to hear Mel Robbins all morning. Her and another podcast, if after you're done listening to ours, that I'm hooked on is Julia Louise Dreyfus The Wiser Than Me. Oh gosh. That is just. Gonna say quiz.

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And if you pass, then you can listen to your own thing.

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Always a win.

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[00:28:49] Ciaran: astronomy, not astrology. Astronomy.

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[00:28:53] Ciaran: Really? Huh.

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[00:28:58] Ciaran: No, I saw astronomy, like

places to go where you can watch the night sky.

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Look into that one further. We didn't do both.

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[00:29:17] Nasreen: it astro,

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[00:29:20] Nasreen: Oh, yeah. Figure out what your constellation is and then go stay right underneath it.

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[00:29:26] Nasreen: Let us know what you're doing this summer, if you're following any of the trends, or if you're doing anything that's the complete opposite of them, because as we've learned, studies aren't always right.

Thank you for joining us. And of course, subscribe!

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[00:29:46] Nasreen: jump in and do something. Please. If you say you like us, if you say you like our podcast, if you're like, Oh, you girls are killing it or like boss babes or something else in a Facebook comment ever. And you haven't left us a review yet. Please. Thank you. That will make your astrology smile on you.

Is that how I'm saying it? Okay. Good karma. So let us know where you're going this summer after you leave us a review. Thank you for joining us until next time. Happy travels.

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