Travel trends 2024

Welcome to our predictions for 2024

"Sustainable travel has exploded into the mainstream this year, both in the industry and the hearts of travellers. Two in five UK holidaymakers would rather take flight-free transport and our 2024 predictions celebrate this accelerated shift towards sustainable and off-the-beaten-path travel.

With tourists rethinking their relationship with the earth and an increasing demand for slow travel options, our travel landscape is changing. Locations available to visit are becoming more varied, the window for travelling is expanding and travel is becoming as unique as we are. I'm particularly excited about the new sleeper train routes launching across Europe. We travelled in our PJs on the sleeper train from Germany to Lake Bled in Slovenia for our family summer holiday this year, and I’m already thinking about where to go next!

We all get excited by new places and new ways of travelling, but it’s also important we travel with the intent to make our planet a better place. All of our trends support the notion that slow travel not only benefits the traveller, but the communities we visit and the impact we leave behind, too."

- Cat Jones, CEO and Founder of Byway

How we’ll travel

In our pjs

Europe’s newest overnight rail links mean you can snooze in the comfort of an air conditioned sleeping car and wake up in a new country.

New Nightjet links for 2024 include Paris to Berlin, Warsaw to Salzburg, Berlin to Aachen, Erfurt to Brussels, Munich to Krakow, Brussels to Salzburg and Dresden to Budapest.

Off-the-beaten-path

The classic city-break – and the overtourism that followed in places like Barcelona, Venice and Amsterdam – was the product of the discount airline market. But rail travel, unlike airports, isn’t tied to Europe’s big cities.

So a stay in rural Piedmont in the Italian Alps nudges crowded Venice into the shadows, visiting chateaux in Hauts-de-France becomes the royal standard for a trip to France, and today’s savvy traveller will know that the Netherlands has canal cities beyond Amsterdam (hello Delft and Utrecht). No international airport? No problem.

On a cool-cation

Climate change means that Europe’s seasons are altered, perhaps forever. In 2023, the EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) reported that the “June-July-August (JJA) season for 2023 was the warmest on record globally by a large margin”, and this sparked newspaper reports of “Britons planning off-season travel following summer of extreme weather”.

Cool-cationers are holidaying away from heat hotspots and high seasons. We’ve written about why an extended summer means that the edge season is the best season to travel.

Flight-free Europe

In 2024, the Olympics will be hosted in Paris, and the Euros hosted in various cities across Germany. Millions of visitors from across the world will flock to Europe and Allianz Partners report that 80% of Americans heading to Europe plan to spend at least seven days on holiday.

42% of UK holidaymakers seek to go flight free, and we want to support travellers from across the world to take the train, bus or ferry around Europe instead of carbon-heavy short-haul flights.

To encourage flight free Europe in 2024, we’ve introduced carbon labelling for every trip so you can see at a glance how much CO2 your Byway holiday will cost, compared to going by plane.

See the average carbon footprint for “bucket list” Europe trips like our (Better than) the Bernina Express trip (with stays in Paris, Zürich, Arosa and Lecco), or our Bergen Line and Flam Railway trip (with stays in Hamburg, Bergen, Oslo and Amsterdam).

Slow and soft (life)

At Byway, we love that “soft life” is being discussed now – originating in a rejection of stress that comes with chasing mainstream status symbols, people are choosing their own path to enrichment and sustainable wellness.

We think this goes hand-in-hand with slow travel - both are about enjoyment on your own terms instead of doing what is expected of you (like sight-seeing and bucket list trips) and both also have roots in community connection and living sustainably (avoiding the stress of airports is a nice bonus).

Gen Z are the most likely to be making the switch to flight-free travel - 28% of 18 to 24-year-olds say they’ve taken a train, ferry or coach in 2023 for the first time, or plan to do so before December. So, we know that soft life and slow travel are trends that are here to stay in 2024.

Where we’ll go

For culture: Nordland, Norway

Bodø in Norway’s Nordland (North Land) shares the title of European Capital of Culture in 2024. The first city above the Arctic Circle to have been awarded the title, Bodø is reached by sleeper train from Trondheim and is a great jumping off point for journeys to the wild Lofoten Islands. Nordland’s indigenous Sámi culture is set to be incorporated into this year’s activities.

For beaches: Albania

In 2024, we’re very excited to add Albania to Byway’s ever-growing list of flight-free holiday destinations (2023 was Albania’s best ever year for tourism).

It’s an overnight ferry trip from Bari in Italy to Durrës in Albania, then a short hop by bus to the Modernist capital of Tirana. From here, Albania’s rugged coastline is accessible, and the ancient town of Vlorë on the underrated (and inexpensive) Albanian Riviera has some superb beaches.

For adventure: Tunisia

New for Byway in 2024, it takes less than 24 hours to travel from London to Tunisia (although our slow travel experts are always happy to recommend a few places to stop en route). On this long-distance overland adventure, flight-free visitors sail across the Mediterranean on the overnight ferry from Marseille, passing the ruins of the ancient city of Carthage before arriving at the Bay of Tunis.

Note: although there are some remote border areas that the UK foreign office advises against travelling to, our adventure trip will focus on those places on the comfortable inter-city train line that are easily accessible from Tunis.

For nature: Bosnia & Herzegovina

As overtourism and soaring prices are troubling neighbour Croatia after it joined the Euro in 2023, our eyes are turning to the impressive and lesser-known natural landscapes of Bosnia & Herzegovina. 2024 is the twentieth anniversary of the reconstruction of the iconic Stari Most bridge in Mostar, it’s the year that the Lonely Planet has included the city on its “Best in Travel” list, and the train journey between here and Sarajevo is our Balkans expert James’s top tip for 2024.

See the 14-day trip James designed to Croatia and Bosnia & Herzegovina. We couldn’t agree more with Lonely Planet – off season is a great time to visit.

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