Flight-free travel to grow in 2024

Flight-free travel company Byway has discovered the sustainable travel trends for 2024, explaining there has been an ‘accelerated shift towards sustainable and off-the-beaten-path travel’.

It also revealed that two in five UK holidaymakers would rather take flight-free transport.

Cat Jones, CEO and Founder of Byway, said: “With tourists rethinking their relationship with the earth and an increasing demand for flight-free options, our travel landscape is changing. Locations available to visit are becoming more varied, the window for travelling is expanding and travel is becoming as unique as we are.”

The five trends Byway has noted are:

• In our pyjamas – “Europe’s newest overnight rail links mean you can snooze in the comfort of an air-conditioned sleeping car and wake up in a new country.”
• Off the beaten path – “Rail travel, unlike airports, isn’t tied to Europe’s big cities.”
• On a ‘cool-cation’ – “Cool-cationers are holidaying away from heat hotspots and high seasons.”
• Flight-free Europe – Byway wants ‘to support travellers from across the world to take the train, bus or ferry around Europe instead of carbon-heavy short-haul flights’.
• Slow and soft (life) – “This goes hand-in-hand with slow travel – both are about enjoyment on own terms instead of doing what is expected.”

Jones concluded: “We all get excited by new places and new ways of travelling, but it’s also important we travel with the intent to make our planet a better place. All of our trends support the notion that slow travel not only benefits the traveller, but the communities we visit and the impact we leave behind, too.”