As always, the first couple of weeks of January have featured a flood of emails and social media posts hyping “travel trends for 2026”. The predicted trends include:
- “Astro-cruising“: Jumping on a cruise to a dark sky corner of the ocean to observe solar events such as the northern (and southern) lights and the solar eclipse of 2026.
- “Set-jetting“: Travel to the shooting location of a favourite movie or TV show to see the filming venues in person. For the more literary minded, the “Novel ideas” trip is a trend in which your entire book club visits the setting of novel chosen by your club.
- “Cool-cations“: Seeking out vacation destinations in cooler climates. (As Canadians who live most of the year in a top cool-cation spot, Canada, we probably won’t be jumping on this trend!)
- “Wellness travel“: Trips focused on wellness, whether mental (a digital detox), or physical (yoga, spa treatments, or organic cooking classes).
However the emerging trend that most spoke to us is one featured in a November, 2025 National Geographic article “This UNESCO travel trend is shaping how people see the world“. We’ve sometimes gone out of our way to visit some of the lesser known of the 1,248 UNESCO World Heritage Sites (whc.unesco.org/en/list); just Google “Phonsavan plain of jars” or read our post about Newgrange for some examples of UNESCO sites that are not exactly household names.
When planning our first trip of 2026, “Uruguay and the Amazon“, we had initially planned to visit the tiny nation of Paraguay on a day trip to the border town of Ciudad del Este (the entry point to Paraguay from Iguazu Falls). But then we found out that city is a chaotic hotbed of cheap (and often black market) shopping, and that by travelling just a few hundred kilometres further we could reach Paraguay’s one and only UNESCO site, the grandly named “Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue“. Our day trip to Paraguay gradually evolved into a 4-day tour taking us across the country from the capital of Asunción to a variety of cultural landmarks (including the Jesuit missions). And all because our interest was piqued by reading about a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
BTW, there is a travel trend (or perhaps an anti-trend now?) that we won’t be following: the use of AI for trip planning. Why anyone would rely on artificial intelligence to decide where to visit is beyond us!
Visit our Uruguay and the Amazon page covering our visit to Paraguay’s only UNESCO site.