This year’s trends take stock of a changing world – and the changing landscape of travel. But they also get to grips with our emotional landscapes, and how travelers are feeling their way through the world. Future-friendly and future proof, our trends for 2025 reflect the new world that sits just outside our door. Let’s take a walk.
01
Gen Z and Alpha are the future of travel; and they’re already beginning to shape it. We’re hearing first-hand that younger audiences are craving mindful, regenerative travel experiences that speak to their values and interests. After all, it’s out in the world that young people will fuel their futures and find their passions.
Teens are looking to social media to make sense of their world. Increasingly, this means discovering places, hotels, and experiences through TikTok, where the platform’s video-style storytelling and in-depth reviews are replacing Google as the go-to.
We like to get the whole family involved right from the early stages of planning at Black Tomato. For example, one client’s trip to Japan was influenced by her daughter’s love of Studio Ghibli’s beloved films, while another client’s son requested they stay in the sustainably-minded properties that he’d researched for their winter trip to Switzerland.
Through our service, The Rider, families can share their travel fundamentals to ensure everyone’s preferences are catered for. These essentials – whether that's having Nutella on hand for snacktime or a note of the kids’ favorite books – sit in a “living document” for our Travel Experts to keep on hand when planning future trips. It really is a family affair.
02
Travel as a healer is nothing new. Making an “Eat, Pray, Love” style break for it has become something of a modern remedy. And it can do a whole lot of good. But we’ve heard repeatedly from clients – especially recently – that our travel planners provide a proverbial port in the storm; hearing clients’ difficulties and challenges, and crafting deeply personal experiences to inspire reflection, learning, and personal growth.
As travel takes on a larger role in helping us get through tough times, we're seeing a renewed interest in our Bring it Back service – which harnesses travel as a tool to answer some of life’s biggest questions. Our clients walk away from these trips with clarity, insight, and learnings that can be integrated back into everyday life.
Following a difficult divorce, one Black Tomato client recently set out solo to Rwanda to track wild gorillas and chimpanzees. Her time in the presence of these magnificent beings, equal parts thrilling and humbling, brought a fresh perspective to the period of change she was going through.
03
In 2025, we’ll be thinking just as much about the “when” as the “where”. Whether it’s spotting elusive wildlife on nocturnal safaris or soaking up quiet stillness during a sunrise visit to Taj Mahal, exploring a place outside of conventional times of day (or year) can invite a different – and deeper – engagement with one's surroundings.
Being more intentional about timing is not only a way to see a place through a new lens; it can also mean avoiding crowds and escaping rising temperatures during hotter seasons.
During winter in the Southern Hemisphere, Black Tomato travelers can join an expert astronomer to chase the lesser-sought Southern Lights in New Zealand’s South Island – home to the world’s largest International Dark Sky Reserve. Or, in Cambodia, they can hike at moonlight to a secluded pagoda to receive a spiritual blessing from an elder monk at sunrise.
04
Challenge-based travel is going to be big in 2025. In an age of on-demand access and instant gratification, we’re seeing rising numbers of travelers coming to us for epic, bold trips that challenge them – leading to a sense of accomplishment and earned reward.
With this trend, there has been continued enthusiasm for our Get Lost service, which has increased in delivery year on year by over 39% with an ever-diversifying clientele. All about finding inner steel, it challenges our travelers to navigate their own path through some of the most remote corners of the world.
Our See You in the Moment service, which anchors group trips around a carefully curated moment in time, also encourages travelers to embark on a challenge together. That might be cycling down from the summit of sacred Mount Kenya, rafting the pulsing white-water rapids of Peru’s Apurimac River, or hiking the Via Francigena – an ancient Italian pilgrimage route. It’s your Everest; your world.
05
The trend we’ve coined “bare witness” is picking up steam for the year ahead, as travelers seek out the world’s rarest, most soul-stirring natural phenomena. Planning a trip around these once-in-a-lifetime sights is all about feeling a small part of something much greater.
This trend is rooted in a recent increase in opportunities to view solar eclipses, with over a million travelers visiting Texas for the April 2024 spectacle. One of our latest eclipse trips took a group of Black Tomato travelers to Argentine Patagonia, where they stayed in one of our customizable luxury Blink camps – complete with a private chef, on-site astronomer, and much, much more – taking a boat journey along Chimehuin and Alumine rivers to reach their private eclipse viewing location.
Beyond the solar eclipse, there are other extraordinary wonders to witness. Like in Thailand, where travelers can kayak under the stars through glowing bioluminescent plankton, towards a private dinner in an enchanting cave.
06
This one really does what it says on the tin. Across 2024, we saw huge numbers of our travelers looking to turn down the ceaseless soundtrack of modern life – and to find calm in the soundscapes of the “real” world. Whispering wind, rolling waves, the song of birds. And this search for serenity is going to make an even bigger (albeit quiet) splash in 2025.
This year, there’ll be a fresh desire for finding stillness not only solo, but alongside others. For many families, this looks like leaving home for extended, often month-long resets; favoring the simplicity of unhurried days together over packing in as much activity as possible.
Moving towards a slower, more conscious pace of things, we’re finding peace in places as diverse as the Slovenian Alps, Lake Tekapo in New Zealand, Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains Morocco, and the salt flats of Bolivia – but equally in locations closer afoot, such as the magnificent National Parks of the US.
07
When we talk about regenerative travel, we’re talking about making sure a trip has a positive impact on local communities and the environments they call home. This way of traveling is at its most powerful and productive when connections are maintained over time and, in 2025, we’re endeavoring to revisit communities and engage in projects for months and years after our first meeting.
At Black Tomato, we’ve been working with an organization in Morocco’s Atlas Mountains called Afoulki pour les Femmes. As a company, we helped the rebuilding efforts of the local village following an earthquake, while supporting the development of travel programming and a guest house in situ. Our co-founders Tom and James have both been back several times since with their own families, building up strong friendships with those living there and gaining insight into further ways we can provide lasting support.
Embracing other families all over the world fosters education, understanding, empathy, and humility. We’ve been hearing from many of our clients about the deep connections they’ve formed on their travels, which have grown into friendships in places that they repeatedly return to.
