Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus (A GeoEx eBook)

Wanderlust in the Time of Coronavirus

The Future of Travel: Six Emerging Trends

3. The Wonders of the Wild A third trend will be a new focus on wilderness and wildlife. Post-pandemic, people who have been sheltering in place too long will yearn for wide open spaces and wild places; they will want to reconnect with the healing, restoring, inspiring power of nature. I expect adventure trips will surge in popularity—safaris, hiking and trekking adventures, excursions into the remote reaches of places from Alaska and Antarctica to Patagonia and Mongolia. The beauty and balm of pristine nature will be prized more than ever. 4. Off-the-Beaten-Path Adventures A fourth trend will be off-the-beaten-path travel. I believe that people will want to set their travel sights on lesser-known destinations, areas where they can immerse themselves in the local culture away from groups of other travelers. This trend will marry the search for cultural and experiential authenticity with the desire to avoid large crowds. One trip that GeoEx has just launched, Algeria’s Shifting Sands, is a great example of this. The trip begins by tracing the Mediterranean coast, then travels inland through the Tell Atlas Mountains into the heart of the Sahara Desert. Along the way, the group visits five magnificent off-the-radar UNESCO sites and enjoys rare insider experiences such as a Tuareg cooking demonstration and a private meeting with a local Imam. 5. Bucket List Trips The fifth trend will be bucket list travel, the once-in-a- lifetime dream trip. Having been denied travel for a year or longer, and having been made aware of the fragile nature of our world, many travelers are going to opt to take that once-in-a- lifetime dream trip now rather than postpone it to a precarious future. We are already seeing this phenomenon at GeoEx, with many of our more ambitious, bucket list-type journeys

selling swiftly; these include venturing to the North Pole and Antarctica, riding the Trans-Siberian Express, and tracking mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s Parc National des Volcans. A number of our travelers have contacted us recently wanting to create private, customized journeys, saying they are ready to make that dream trip come true, now. 6. Travel with a Purpose I believe the pandemic has underlined for many of us how intricately interrelated our world is, and has made us more aware of the social, economic, and environmental impacts of our travels. In recognition of this, I think the sixth defining trend will be travel with a purpose—travel that combines relaxation and education with some form of community service or other “giving back” activity, such as wildlife conservation, preserving the environment, archaeological research, and village restoration. GeoEx’s Congo & Central African Republic: Wild Heart of Africa is one such trip. While exploring the remote rain forests and wild savannahs of the rarely visited Republic of Congo and Central African Republic, travelers will also participate in a pioneering eco-tourism project involving tracking Western lowland gorillas. These are six trends that I think will emerge as hallmarks of travel in the future. Of course, at this moment, we still don’t know exactly what path this recovery will follow, but we do know one thing: For many of us, one of the most profound lessons of 2020 has been just how important travel is to us, how exploring, celebrating, and engaging with the diverse wonders of our planet reinvigorates our spirits and nourishes our souls. When we begin to travel again, I believe our wanderlust will be even keener than before, and more deeply cognizant of the precious possibilities the wide world holds in store.

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