With a pandemic ravaging the planet in 2020 and 2021, the travel trends are shifting. The current situation has dramatically changed how we spend our leisure time, as well as how and where we work.
In this article, we will take a closer look at 5 travel trends in 2022.
- Domestic travel
- Local experiences
- Off the beaten path
- Sustainability and eco travel
- Workcations
Domestic travel
Despite vaccine roll-outs and borders opening up for travelers around the world, there are still considerable uncertainty and anxiety surrounding the safety of going abroad.
When the world closed down in March 2020, getting on a plane was close to impossible. And while international travel is picking up speed, most people are not ready to jump on a flight out of the country yet.
Therefore, this trend continue for 2022 and the various domestic destinations will still be seeing the majority of their visitors from the domestic market.
While you can still get some pretty good hotel deals due to the decreased demand from the foreign market, many travelers actually prefer to stay out of the big cities and away from the crowds for safety reasons.
The popularity of, and demands for RV’s is at an all-time high and it does not seem to be slowing down any time soon.
According to Google and Exploding Topics, the search term “Covid campers” has exploded 3400% over the last 2 years.
It is time to camping folks!
If you are looking to rent the perfect RV for your next adventure, check our inventory here: https://www.hightenedpath.com/rv-rentals
Local Experiences
In line with limited options for international travel, the trends tell us that local experiences are in high demand. Already before the pandemic, the trend was clear, people want to have more local and authentic experiences.
People are tired of the “mass-produced” offerings and want to see and experience something real, new, and different.
It only makes sense that local experiences are on the rise when you see the rest of the trends in this article. Most of them are closely related to each other.
Sustainability and eco travel
There is an overall rise of awareness around the environment and what we humans are doing to the planet.
If you have ever stayed in a hotel the last decade, you will have seen how the hotels encourage you to not change your towel daily and help reduce the chemical load on the environment. The amount of detergent used daily by hotels is staggering.
Another thing the hotels are doing is removing single-use plastic containers from the rooms.
InterContinental Hotel Group was the first hotel brand in the world to remove all miniature toiletries. With over 800,000 rooms in their portfolio, that amass to a huge amount of single-use containers a year!
Actually, by 2023, all hotels in the State of California will no longer be allowed to provide single-use toiletries in plastic bottles.
The demand for products and services which are eco-friendly will continue to grow as people become even more environmentally conscious. A study from GreenPrint found that 64% of Americans are willing to pay more for sustainable products.
Google Trends (the search trends in Google) confirms this development with the search term “sustainable travel” growing over 92% over the last 5 years.
Once again we see how the trends converge. People want to spend their money on sustainable experiences that do not require flying to, or which support the small local communities or keeping the money in the American economy.
Off the beaten path
Yet again we see a trend related to both the pandemic situation and the local experiences- or the sustainability trend.
Travels off the beaten path is something you very easily can achieve with a campervan. They make it easy to stay at safe distance from other people, or completely away from them if you so wish.
Outdoor activities like hiking, mountain biking, and climbing/bouldering are growing subtrends within the megatrend of getting outdoors and off the beaten path.
Hiking is not only a great way to exercise and stay in shape when the gyms are closed down it is also a fantastic way to see and experience the areas inaccessible for an RV or a 4×4.
The trend of getting away from people, off the beaten path, makes sense in the current climate as people want to feel safe while traveling and having experiences with friends and family.
There are no better ways than renting a campervan to get outdoors and drive away from it all!
Work from Anywhere – Workcation
Probably the largest of the travel trends in 2022 (and the two previous years), is working from anywhere. For most people “anywhere” means from the kitchen table at home, but that seems to be changing rapidly.
The pandemic forced this trend on humankind. It basically became the catalyst for its popularity. However, work from anywhere, workcation, and bleisure (business + leisure) were concepts that were becoming popular already before the pandemic hit.
Bleisure is the concept of combining business travels with leisure time before or after a meeting/business trip. Today, most people who work in an office environment only need a laptop, a phone, and an internet connection to do their work.
Workcations are combining vacation and working. When the employer (or the situation) allows you to stay away from the office while doing your work, you can (and should?) combine that with being somewhere else. You work during the daytime, and enjoy the sights with friends or family in the evenings.
What’s next?
The pandemic has in many ways disrupted how we live, travel, and spend our leisure time. Maybe now is the perfect time to live your best life combining work and leisure in the most balanced way possible?
Whether you are after mountains and hiking, camping, water experiences, sun, snow, climbing, biking, fishing, diving, and more, you will find it all here in America.
Where do you want to go next?
Article written by-
Thomas Sorheim
Founder, Leisurehiking.com
