Land Snorkeling? Townsizing? A User's Guide to the Latest Travel Lingo.
For your next trip, have you considered townsizing? What about choosing a detour destination? And instead of forest-bathing, maybe it's time to give land snorkeling a try.
If the terms sound odd, you might need a travel translator. Agencies, online platforms and sometimes travelers themselves have been flexing their creative language skills by labeling trends in travel — some new, some tried-and-true (like bleisure, a trip that combines business with leisure time).
The following guide will help you keep up with the lexicon of travel.
Last year's destination dupes became this year's detours in Expedia's 2025 trend report.
Detour destinations are 'less well-known and less crowded than tourist hot spots,' according to the report. They can be destinations on their own or side trips from a bigger target. Examples include pairing Reims with Paris, in France, and Santa Barbara, Calif., with Los Angeles.
This practical two-for-one trip concept bundles an appealing neighbor with the closest major airport destination.
If there were awards for Wordsmith of the Year, consider Priceline for its addition of townsizing. Your next vacation is townsized if instead of big-city buzz you opt for small-town vibes in easygoing destinations.
Popular townsizing destinations at the online agency include Stowe, Vt., Mackinac Island, Mich., and Carmel-by-the-Sea, Calif.
Think of forest bathing — slow, mindful walks in the woods — and remove the forest and you have something like land snorkeling. Coined by the Montana-based artists Clyde Aspevig and Carol Guzman, land snorkeling in the context of a walk (which could even be in a city) is paying attention to where you are, not necessarily where you're going. It encourages a focus on minute details, the way you might hover over a reef when snorkeling to view the comings and goings of tropical fish and the current's effect on sea fans.
'When you snorkel, you don't go with a destination in mind but go with the water and let the visuals take over,' said Ms. Guzman.
'You wander and you wonder,' Mr. Aspevig added.
Mr. Aspevig and Ms. Guzman have both volunteered with American Prairie, a nonprofit conservation group that is building a preserve in central Montana, where land snorkeling might focus on the movement of prairie grasses.
How to fight FOMO, or fear of missing out? Change your point of view with JOMO — joy of missing out — by embracing a vacation that prioritizes relaxing and ditching your phone.
The vacation rental company Vrbo proposed this mindset switch, citing 85 percent of respondents to a company survey who declared an interest in taking a vacation to unplug. Pitchup.com and Campspot, two platforms that offer camping bookings, also celebrated JOMO as a digital detox method.
In its 2025 trends forecast, the travel news site Skift came up with 'live tourism' to refer to the increase in the number of people booking trips around live events in entertainment, sports and natural phenomena.
In 2024, few events were bigger travel motivators than the Taylor Swift Eras Tour, the Paris Olympic Games and the total solar eclipse. Some live tourism patterns are perennial, such as the Coachella music festival and the Super Bowl.
The next total solar eclipse is expected to pass over Iceland, Portugal and Spain on Aug. 12, 2026. Start planning now.
The magic of mystery tours, according to operators, lies in surrendering to the unknown and avoiding the quandary of choice.
The high-end agency Black Tomato has a Get Lost service that offers clients journeys to unspecified destinations and the opportunity to find their way out of the wilderness (under a safe watch from afar, they say). The company has organized mystery trips — which are fully customized, but tend to run five to seven nights — in Mongolia, Morocco, Norway and Guatemala.
EF Go Ahead Tours launched its Mystery Tours last year and said it sold out within three hours. Past trips have included Bali and Java in Indonesia. The 2025 slate of unspecified trips are on sale now (from $2,199 for an eight-day tour).
If it's a travel adventure you have at night — from swimming in phosphorescent bays to stargazing — then it's also known as noctourism.
While it's hardly new, trend forecasters are finding renewed interest in after-dark activities, sometimes as a strategy to beat the heat. Booking.com cited noctourism in its 2025 forecast, noting that 54 percent of travelers surveyed in a recent study planned to increase their nighttime activities to avoid daytime temperatures.
'No matter the outing, the cover of darkness adds a sense of adventure and mystery,' said Stephanie Vermillion, the author of the new book '100 Nights of a Lifetime: The World's Ultimate Adventures After Dark.'
Noctourism activities she covers include night tours of Alcatraz prison, catching 'moonbows' or lunar rainbows seen through a waterfall's spray at places like Victoria Falls in southern Africa, seeing a lava flow in Indonesia, and browsing night markets in Taiwan.
Separate natural phenomenon from live tourism and you have phenomenon chasing. Black Tomato cites rising interest in natural events like the northern lights and solar eclipses among travelers willing to go far and wide to see them in person.
'In a world that can feel overly digital and predictable, there's something incredible about witnessing a rare natural event,' said Rob Murray-John, the head of special projects at Black Tomato. 'These moments let us strip away the noise and immerse in something that feels both intimate and vast, like you're a small part of something much bigger.'
Follow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2025.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Associated Press
4 hours ago
- Associated Press
Los Angeles unveils compact, athlete-friendly venue plan for 2028 Paralympics
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Every venue for the 2028 Paralympic Games in Los Angeles will be within a 35-mile radius, and athletes will be housed together, on the UCLA campus, for the first time since the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games. LA28 announced an updated venue plan Tuesday following approval from the International Paralympic Committee's governing board. The Paralympics will run Aug. 15-27, 2028, about two weeks after the the Los Angeles Olympics end. The majority of sports will be held in Los Angeles, with the downtown and Exposition Park sites serving as the main competition hubs. The Los Angeles Convention Center will host boccia, para judo, para table tennis, para taekwondo and wheelchair fencing. Adjacent to the Convention Center, Arena will host wheelchair basketball. Across the street, Peacock Theater will host goalball in an acoustically optimized setting. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will host para track and field, as well as the closing ceremony. The nearby Galen Center will host wheelchair rugby and para badminton. Venice Beach on the city's westside will be the site of para triathlon and the starting point of the marathon. The Dignity Health Sports Park complex in Carson will host para archery, wheelchair tennis and para track cycling in the velodrome. Climbing will make its Paralympic debut in 2028, with four men's and four women's events in the parking lot of the Long Beach Convention Center. Para swimming will be on the same site in a temporary pool. Sport shooting will be inside the convention center at a temporary range. Long Beach Arena will host sitting volleyball. A temporary arena at Alamitos Beach along the Pacific Ocean will be the site of blind football. Para rowing and para canoe-sprint events will be held at Marine Stadium. Para equestrian events will take place at Santa Anita racetrack in Arcadia. ___ AP Olympics:
Wall Street Journal
5 hours ago
- Wall Street Journal
The Rise of the $500-a-Night Airport Hotel
SAN FRANCISCO—The welcome ad from Lyft popped onto my phone minutes after my flight landed. 'If you need a ride home, to your hotel or anywhere else, tap to see ride options.' For once, I didn't need a ride anywhere. My hotel was in the airport, a glorious luxury my expense account and vacation budget rarely afford. And for good reason: The Grand Hyatt SFO was charging nearly $500 for a one-night weekday stay in late May.
CBS News
5 hours ago
- CBS News
When a U.S. senator's husband landed on a travel watchlist, a phone call had him removed
A U.S. senator's spouse was placed on a government watchlist in 2023 after a surveillance program flagged his travel profile, but he was removed after the senator back-channeled with administration officials, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News. Shortly after New Hampshire Democrat Jeanne Shaheen met with the Transportation Security Administration about her husband, William Shaheen, TSA officials removed him from a list of people subjected to additional scrutiny under TSA's "Quiet Skies" domestic surveillance program. William Shaheen, an Lebanese-American attorney active in the Arab-American community, was then placed on a different list, which excluded him from any future advanced screening, including random checks at airport TSA checkpoints, two of the sources said. File: Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) (R) and William Shaheen arrive for a State Dinner in honor of former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mrs. Sophie Trudeau at the White House on March 10, 2016, in Washington, DC. Photo by Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images The episode took place in a heightened security environment in October 2023, days after Hamas attacked Israel and killed more than 1,200 people. TSA's surveillance efforts have long attracted criticism for tracking U.S. citizens not suspected of any crimes. The circumstances that land an individual on a list — or what gets them removed — have been mostly concealed from the public. Quiet Skies, which began in 2010, employs analysts and undercover air marshals to monitor people in airports and during flights, using outstanding warrants, facial recognition software, identification of suspicious travel patterns and behaviors and other data to try to prevent terrorist attacks. Some Americans undertake exhaustive efforts to get themselves removed from the Quiet Skies enhanced screening list — with some even engaging in protracted legal fights. Republican Tulsi Gabbard spoke out in 2024 after she was placed on the Quiet Skies list and subjected to searches and monitoring by federal air marshals. Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and Democratic member of Congress, has since been confirmed as the director of national intelligence. Shaheen's husband, according to sources, was removed from Quiet Skies two days after she contacted David Pekoske, then the TSA administrator. Pekoske served in the post under both Presidents Trump and Biden. The decision to then shield the senator's husband by putting him on what TSA calls the "secure flight exclusion list" marked an unusual step in a system meant to operate outside of political interference. A spokesperson for Sen. Shaheen told CBS News on Tuesday that she contacted TSA after her husband was subjected to several extensive, invasive and degrading searches at airport checkpoints – and was seeking to understand the nature and cause. Sources told CBS that in July 2023 William Shaheen was pulled aside for extra screening at the Boston airport ahead of two flights. Officials said at the time that the security agency randomly selected travelers for additional screening, and William Shaheen had been randomly chosen. Three months later, William Shaheen was flagged by the transportation security agency because his travel companion on two flight reservations was a person listed by the FBI as a "known or suspected terrorist," or KST, a broad designation that covers a wide-ranging risk profile. A federal air marshal was sent to covertly travel near them on a flight on Oct. 18, 2023, one source said. Sen. Shaheen spoke with Pekoske to ask about the situation regarding her husband. On Oct. 20, 2023, her husband was added to the "secure flight exclusion list," a VIP list that exempts a traveler from the security agency's vetting and surveillance programs, including random screenings. An order from TSA headquarters was sent to make sure the safeguarded status for William Shaheen was signaled when his future boarding passes were presented at airports. The spokesperson for Sen. Shaheen said she wasn't aware that her husband had been monitored under the Quiet Skies program, or that he had later been given preferential treatment by being specifically excluded from enhanced screening, The person William Shaheen traveled with, whose identity could not be confirmed by CBS News, was removed from the FBI terrorism watchlist later in 2023, sources familiar with the matter said. It was not clear why the person was placed on the list, though a host of factors including visits to hostile countries, certain suspicious travel patterns, or contacts with designated terror suspects can all contribute to the listing. The spokesperson for Sen. Shaheen declined to identify her husband's travel companion other than to say the person was an Arab-American attorney. The senator was not given any indication the person was designated as a known or suspected terrorist, the spokesperson said. William Shaheen was recently removed from the list of people excluded from any enhanced surveillance, a Department of Homeland Security official told CBS on Tuesday. Mr. Trump has criticized what he refers to as the weaponization of state power and the use of government levers to go after political opponents, but since his reelection, has sought to settle scores with those he perceives to have wronged him. Sen. Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of Mr. Trump and his policies, has announced she will not seek reelection in 2026. Her eldest daughter, Democrat Stefany Shaheen, is running for a seat in the U.S. House.
