This year’s summer travel trends favor a personalized approach to vacation and bring once-in-a-lifetime moment trips into sharp focus. Here are 2019’s top summer travel trends to watch for.
South America’s Solar Eclipse
Whether you’re having serious regret of missing out regarding 2017’s solar eclipse or simply think there’s no time like the present! Mother Nature gives you another chance to make your eclipse-watching dreams come true in South America this summer.
Chile and Argentina both await July 2 for their privileged spot on the list of places to feature totality. The eclipse will pass through some of the continent’s best dark sky preserves, which means you can follow up the incredible solar spectacle with some unbeatable stargazing.
Genealogy or DNA Travel
Many of our ancestors traveled far to get us to where we are today. Another one of the growing travel trends is to make reverse journeys to discover our family origins. Ancestry travel (sometimes called DNA travel or genealogy travel), is as popular as it’s ever been and travelers are finding all sorts of ways to rediscover their roots.
A trip to explore some of the destinations represented in the family tree is a natural fit for anyone who has been bitten by the genealogy bug. For curious newbies, there are plenty of easy ways to figure out how to connect ancestry and travel. Get started with traveling through your family tree with this overview of how to use a DNA test kit to travel.
Travelers can get expert help in crafting genealogy travel and find tours like ones offered by Ancestry.com group tours). Ancestry.com has partnered with Go Ahead Tours to launch heritage-geared tour offerings, led by an expert genealogist and based on your own DNA test.
Stopovers
Using stopovers to add additional destinations to your vacation is nothing new. What’s different this summer though, is the expansion of airlines offering the perk.
Longtime stopover providers include Icelandair, Hawaiian, Emirates, and TAP. New programs from Brussels Airlines and Swiss recently added even more great options for stopover possibilities.
These programs offer perks like packages that include hotels and rail passes; free access to tourist attractions; etc. That means you don’t have to spend extra time planning. You simply land, explore, and continue on your journey.
Pop-Culture Travel
With the last season of Game of Thrones in full swing, and the hotly anticipated opening of Disneyland’s new Star Wars themed Galaxy’s Edge land, pop-culture is inspiring destination travel more than ever.
Game of Thrones fans got a treat in Las Vegas with a twice-nightly fountain show at the Bellagio (watch it here). And GOT filming locations like Northern Ireland and Croatia have seen a huge upswing of visitors seeking a real-life peek at the show’s incredible backdrops.
Star Wars fans look toward Southern California as they await the May 31 opening of Galaxy’s Edge, Disneyland’s interactive wonderland of all things Star Wars. As more attractions debut throughout the year, visitors will get the chance to fly the Millennium Falcon, join the Resistance, build a custom lightsaber, and design a droid to name a few.
Cruises That Put the Destination First
Five years ago—no one would have called the cruise industry particularly environmentally or culturally conscious. But recently, there has been a big push to become more environmentally.
This summer, Celebrity Cruises debuts the Celebrity Flora, a 100-passenger superyacht built specifically for the sustainability of the Galapagos. This small ship was built with the local ecosystem in mind. The Flora will be one of the world’s most eco-friendly ships. It includes features like anchorless positioning to protect the seafloor, reduced fuel consumption, and offers guests in-room water filtration systems to eliminate a need for plastic water bottles.