North America’s Top Luxury Travel Trends for 2017

Luxury Gap Years

Courtesy of Go Girl Guides

Why limit your wanderlust to your vacation day allowance when you can travel all year long? According to Go Girl Guides – the premier travel guidebook written specifically for women – “everyone wants to spend time abroad, but not everyone wants to do the legwork to secure it all themselves. We are seeing companies like Be Unsettled and Remote Year filling this gap, and we expect to see this trend increase with more offerings on the luxury end, catering to digital nomads and business professionals.”

Luxury Private Home Rentals

Courtesy of Go Girl Guides

Five-star hotels are often seen as the crème de la crème of luxury living. However, many travelers are opting to live more like a local, albeit a very well-heeled one. “Over the last couple of years with the boom of Airbnb we've been seeing the trend of solo travelers renting private accommodation in lieu of big resorts, but solo women don't want to rent out a room in a shared house. We are seeing more women splurge on luxury home rentals and we expect to see this continue.”

Life-Altering Travel Experiences

Courtesy of Dana Johnson, Director of Marketing & Sales at Southwind Adventures

While sometimes your body and soul need nothing more than a nourishing beach vacation, many luxury travelers are seeking deeper meaning from their travels. According to Dana Johnson of Southwind Adventures, “a current trend is travelers seeking life-altering experiences. Transformational and experiential travel bring people out of their day-to-day stupors and can impact them on a meaningful, spiritual and psychological level. Travelers return home not only with new vigor and great photographs, but with a deeper understanding of themselves and the world around them.”

Personalized and Specialized Travel Agents

Courtesy of Dana Johnson, Director of Marketing & Sales at Southwind Adventures

How do travelers go about finding these life-altering experiences? In recent years, we are seeing a resurgence in the travel agent: although a highly specialized one. “If you’re looking for a transformative vacation, be on the lookout for a Travel Specialist who really gets to know you. This combined with deep destination knowledge will bring you the trip of a lifetime,” explains Ms. Johnson. “Travelers need to spend time with the local people of the destination. They need to get their hands in the proverbial dirt and feel the arts, history, crafts and foods to make a deep and noteworthy cultural connection.”

Luxury Tented Camps Go Global

Courtesy of Sam Highley, CEO of All Roads North

The “alternative accommodations” and “life-altering experiences” movements join forces for our final trend: the luxury tented camp. According to Sam Highley, CEO of luxury travel company All Roads North, “African safari operators have been mastering wilderness camps for centuries. We predict that in 2017, luxury tented camps will firmly establish themselves on the global travel scene. Tented camps provide access to incredible landscapes that bricks-and-mortar hotels can't and from an environmental impact standpoint their footprint is minimal. Here in the U.S., we're seeing camps established as extensions of luxury resorts, such as the stunning River Camp at Dunton Hot Springs, as well as more temporary experiences, like the wilderness camp this summer at Zapata Ranch.”