Travel Trends Report 2025: Frontier Travel

In this last article on Travel Trends for 2025, I write about frontier travel and the impact of looking for untouched environments for the thrill-factor.

Once the sole activity of intrepid explorers only, frontier tourism—or going where no one (or, in reality, hardly anyone) has gone before—is on the rise. National Geographic explains the trend as one that is more likely to see people wanting to visit remote destinations (rather than finding places no one has actually ever been). It links frontier tourism to one of 2024’s defining cultural trends of ‘cowboy core’. “Thanks, in part, to the Yellowstone TV series and Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album, ‘cowboy core’ has found its way firmly into the travel market. Skyscanner even added a ‘horse riding’ filter into its search engine last summer, reporting that a quarter of its users listed ‘eating around a campfire’ and ‘sleeping under the stars’ as the experiences they were most excited about for 2025.”

In Lemongrass Marketing’s Travel Trends Report 2025, frontier travel, however, is described in its truest sense, as “an exclusive and extreme form of adventure travel”. “From the deepest depths of the seas across the polar regions to the highest mountains and into outer space, if a place exists, it is now fair game for tourism,” says the report. “Frontier tourism, however, is prohibitively expensive for most people, the only benefit being that it feeds the ego.”

“This trend hasn’t gone unchecked. In fact, it’s sparked important conversations about whether people should actually be visiting these places at all. Take Antarctica and the Arctic, both of which have experienced increased traffic in recent years. Yet the uptick in travel to the ends of Earth has a detrimental impact on the environment, further exacerbating the impact of the climate crisis on fragile ecosystems. Considered from a different angle, though, interest in places that weren’t previously on tourists’ radars can be beneficial. Travel companies ISHKAR and Wild Frontiers, for example, are setting a positive example by facilitating trips to destinations like Pakistan and Tajikistan. While these often misunderstood destinations might attract travelers seeking ‘novel’ experiences, the companies emphasise the long-term economic importance of tourism to impacted communities while encouraging travellers to have intentional experiences. So long as these types of frontier holidays are organised with the host communities and nature front and centre of mind, they are a good thing. Like so often in life it’s not the what, it’s the how.”

In Lonely Planet’s Best in Travel 25, the trusted travel brand reveals its pick of 30 must-see destinations across the globe for the year ahead. Topping the country list is Cameroon, followed by Lithuania, Fiji, Laos and Kazakhstan—all countries which are lesser-explored destinations and can be considered off the main tourist trails.

Journeys with Purpose, the conservation travel specialist, is seeking to do good from the trend by marrying travel to remote spots with some of the world’s most advanced conservation projects. Its new collection of extraordinary journeys focus on top conservation milestones to experience in 2025. The idea is that by making these trips, travelers can make a positive impact on the environment, local communities and wildlife across the globe. The collection, all new for 2025, celebrates the achievements of some of the world’s most ambitious projects and the breakthroughs they’re expecting to realise in the next 12 months.

Venetia Martin, managing director of Journeys With Purpose, says: “Our guests lives in a world where anything is possible. As a result, they seek more fulfilment and richer experiences. We facilitate meaningful connections in wild destinations that catalyse authentic immersion and learning. Our guests encounter extraordinary people and places that force them to break out of their comfort zone and engage with the environment in ways they could not have imagined. These experiences leave guests deeply inspired, with a new appreciation for the promise of the natural world, so that they may become lifetime advocates and change makers for the planet.”

As part of the offering with Journeys With Purpose, guests can traverse the northern great plains of Montana with American Prairie Reserve in what will become the largest national park in the contiguous USA; join Earthshot Prize winner, Acción Andina, in the restoration of one million hectares of rainforest in the Peruvian Andes; contribute to the recovery of the native Chiricahua leopard frog population in New Mexico; and chart the return of the lynx to Spain’s Iberian Peninsula. It’s giving new meaning to wild adventures.

Coming up next: my Wellness Travel Trends series will be published in January.