Written by Alexandria Hilton
Also referred to as micro-travel, this trend is becoming more and more common as our pace quickens, as the traveler gets younger and as work demands more of our attention more of the time.
What does this mean for travelers?
If you need something to shake up your routine, consider planning your next getaway around your next 3-day weekend! Take an extra day on either side of Labor Day or Memorial Day for a short reprieve.
A shorter trip is a great opportunity to pop across the pond to somewhere like the Cotswolds or to head south for a Caribbean adventure! You can always opt to leave you passport at home and still manage see something you’ve never seen before, guaranteed.
The popularity of micro-travel booking is on the rise because while time seems more limited than ever, travel is more valuable than ever. Rather than taking one big vacation each year, spending your allotted and precious PTO in one place, you can split your calendar into three or four segments, your periods of work split into manageable chunks with the help of micro-cations.
Fewer over-nights and less time to meander are sure to result in less money spent — on fancy accommodation or impulse buys — whatever your guilty pleasures may be. (we don’t judge!)
A micro-cation makes a great case for why you should use a travel advisor. If you only have 4 full days, for example, it is imperative you have (at least) a general idea of what you’d like to see in those three days!
If you go to the grocery store without a plan, or, goodness-forbid, on an empty stomach and without a plan, you’ll end up buying things you don’t need and throwing out three days of rotten iceberg lettuce at the end of the week.
If you go to Costa Rica starved of surf and without a lesson scheduled, you run the risk of spending your micro-cation in the tourist traps, getting ripped off, and sitting on the plane home wondering if it was all worth it…
What does this mean for travel professionals?
We know that the less time you have to spend in a destination, the more important it is that you get the most out of each and every last drop of your trip.
For many reasons, we are craving purposeful, intentional travel. Unfortunately, we have less time to make that happen. Right now, the general consensus among humans beings is that we simply don’t have the time to waste.
Most of us have opted to live our day-to-day in and amongst a society that affords us the ability to have whatever we want at the wave of our hand, the tap of our screens. Assuming you have chosen to participate in it, this culture of immediacy requires that the world of travel adapts.
Those who do not have the time or money to spend on a 14-day cruise still want to see the world! It is up to us as travel advisors to make the world accessible to as many folks as we possibly can.
There are some destinations we will almost always advise against short trips; it is not uncommon that our travelers spend an entire 24 hours or more to get to their long-awaited African safari or to finally explore Southeast Asia. But destinations closer to home are ripe with opportunity for a short stay!
Even Europe is becoming wildly accessible. With new flights being added (seemingly every day), sought-after destinations like Italy and Spain seem closer than ever before. And I’m not just talking to talk, here! I’m putting this trend to the test: I have just put together an itinerary for a 5-night hosted journey into (and out of) (fingers-crossed) the Dolomites for late 2025! Not too far away now, in both time and space, this trip has all the ingredients required to be considered a micro-cation; all that’s left to do is market the mixture the right way! I have officially left my comfort zone. Wish me luck!
