How will we holiday now? The long and short (haul) of it

How  and where  women  travel for pleasure is – like everything else – undergoing a radical shift. So where to next, asks  Stylist’s  Susan Riley  

Holiday planning is one of my  big  joys  in life. Or  it certainly  had  been  up until now.  This year, however,  I have  so far procrastinated  more than I have plotted.  Texas, which has long been on the map for me to explore, is out as I have  zero desire to holiday in the States right now. An Easter break in Abu Dhabi  was, understandably,  exchanged for one in Spain  and  now  I’m feeling cautionary ahead of summer, with  nothing concrete planned.  Covid 19 aside, this is new terrain.  Where  to now  has taken on a different energy.  Let’s call it a  new found  mix of responsibility and  trepidation, and it’s slowing me down in a good way.    

My 20s  coincided with the  budget airline boom,  forming  the travel habits of  a  generation  used to boarding planes like buses  and taking  multiple  mini breaks  a year.  The upside  of the EasyJet  evolution  was the democratisation  of travel. The downside?  International travel becoming so accessible that  quality gave way to  quantity – a where to  now,  rather than why.  Think about Facebook’s ‘How many countries’ challenge  a few years back; a public declaration  of  escapism  as opposed to enrichment.       

And  now we’re  here:  2026. A world where frequent flyer miles  are  close  to  looking  wildly out of touch and  our relationship with  overseas travel is  shifting  with every passing month.  How we move about the world is in flux. 

Fuel prices and global uncertainty  obviously  sit at the forefront.  According to a recent Think Stylist  survey,  35% of women are  worried about an impending jet fuel crisis this summer and  1 in 10 have already changed their holiday plans because of it. Travel-associated caution and planning stress is  on the up  when what we’re  craving  is  certainty and control.  Travel  should be  anticipatory  or  spontaneous, not  fraught with risk management.  Delays and chaos around the  EU entry-exit  system (EES), a digital border scheme  launched by the European Commission, is doing nothing to make movement  feel  easier  six years on from a global lockdown.    

Yet even before the fuel price hike, fare increases and  airlines cutting  routes  as  the  America/Iranian  unrest  continues,  our  travel habits have been  quietly  evolving.  

One in 5  UK  women  now  fly less internationally than they used  to and  the same number  prefer  to take trains over flights.  This  long-haul-less-often  approach shows  travellers  seeking to  justify  long-distance tripping  as opposed to just  enjoying  it,  and  the rise of  hybrid  journeys  demonstrates a  desire  to  sacrifice  convenience over conscience  as our  carbon footprint awareness  grows.  And that’s before we even get  into the cost, with financial realism very much needed in the travel realm.  

Closer has  also become cooler,  with  travel less about distance and more about depth. European explorations are back in fashion and  20% of women  prefer  to  holiday in the UK.  That doesn’t mean the fly and flop is dead,  only  that  escapism  has been overtaken by immersion  and intentional self-investment.  Booking a holiday  has become  more emotionally driven than ever  and,  as women seek out  routes to  wellbeing, connection and active movement, she  is  focusing  just as much  on “how do I want to feel?” as “where do I want to go?”. This is travel with a different kind of destination.  

For me, this shift to a slower travel mindset – making our travel more about the internal journey we’re taking as opposed to the external one – is  not just about us soothing our nervous system during a turbulent decade. It’s us  realising  that  how we’ve moved about  the planet for the last few decades is unsustainable,  and  we’re  feeling out  a new way  that makes  sense  for the  reality we’re in.  And so less  is  becoming more. Long-haul  is  regaining its status as  a  sporadic  luxury.  Air miles  are being  earned, not amassed.  And  women  are  being far more thoughtful  about where  we  want to go next in life.