There’s been growing anxiety among people who love to travel about the carbon footprint their adventures leave behind.
Consider that the average plane flight spews 53 pounds of carbon dioxide per mile into the atmosphere. Or look at it this way: Even a short two-hour flight from London to Edinburgh produces more carbon in that single flight than one person living in any country produces during a whole year.
Thus, a growing trend for traveling in 2021 is finding a way to do so in a less carbon-intensive way. Millions around the world took notice when Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg crossed the Atlantic in a solar-powered sailboat that resulted in zero emissions.
Traveling like Greta may not be an option for everyone, but dyed-in-the-wool travelers may be seeking similar options. Another way travelers are reacting is to buy carbon offsets for every mile. They are also working with travel agencies that have sustainability policies and seeking out hotels or hostels that use renewable energy sources to power accommodations.
Another travel trend for 2021 is going where few have gone before. This might be a remote African village, a glacier in an Arctic region, or someplace deep in the Amazon jungle. This kind of travel is for those willing to endure hardships and even danger. Even so, more people are tired of visiting the same old tourist trap or an “out-of-the-way” village in Europe that turns out to be not so isolated after all.
Heritage travel is expected to increase in popularity during 2021. Heritage travel is when a person is seeking his or her roots by traveling to where their parents or grandparents came from. This can be a Polish American person who was born and raised in Illinois but knows his grandparents came to America in 1910 from the small town of Zomsc, Poland.
Heritage travel is most popular among African Americans who seek their roots by visiting locations in Africa where their ancestors may have been absconded by slave traders centuries ago.
A final travel trend for 2021 is an expected increase in “digital nomad” travel. This is when a person hits the road while holding down a full-time job through connected technology. Instead of remotely working from home, they remotely work from any place on the planet.