Travelling at home and abroad had its challenges in 2024 to say the least. But we are staying positive on the travel desk and looking forward to 12 months of trips that offer something for everyone.
Here are the travel desk’s picks for destinations and experiences to try this year. Safe travels and have a wonderful time wherever you go…
Egypt and Nile cruises
The world’s greatest open-air museum and a very strong chance of wall-to-wall sunshine awaits on a Nile river cruise. Luxor, home of the spectacular tombs of the Valley of the Kings, Karnak temple, the mortuary temple of queen Hatshepsut and more, will be your joining point for a memorable week which will include fascinating and likeable Aswan – the most southerly city in Egypt – and the bird-rich waters of the First Nile Cataract plus the Agatha Christie Death on the Nile hotel.
And it’s even easier in 2025 with both TUI and easyJet Holidays offering seven-night sailings on five-star ships. Options for extending your stay with a Red Sea beach break are also available and bookings are strong for both brands, with TUI adding an extra ship next winter.
In the north of Egypt, we are hoping the vast Grand Egyptian Museum, by the Pyramids of Giza near Cairo, will finally fully open to the public. NT
Astro-tourism and natural phenomena
Travellers are getting starry-eyed for astro-tourism in 2025, with UK Google searches for stargazing rising by 74% throughout 2024.
More than half of Brits (57%) are considering visiting darker sky destinations with star-bathing experiences (61%), star guides (52%), once-in-a-lifetime cosmic events (59%) and constellation tracking (49%) topping the stellar adventure list, according to booking.com data.
The 2024 total solar eclipse and sightings of the Northern Lights across the UK sparked interest in natural phenomena, says Expedia.
Bioluminescent plankton of Vero Beach, Florida, the penguin parade at Phillip Island near Melbourne in Australia, synchronous firefly season in the Great Smoky Mountains of Gatlinburg, and starling murmurations over the Somerset levels are some of nature’s wonders that travellers want to see, says Vrbo. VL
Cambridgeshire Fens
This flat-as-a-pancake 200 square mile area of East Anglia is a lesser-known place of big skies, man-made drainage rivers, spectacular sunsets, rich birdlife, coarse fishing, rose-growing and soft fruit farming.
Ely Cathedral – the Ship of the Fens – is a mighty Norman building with parts dating to 1083. The west tower is 217ft high but the unusual Octagon Tower at 171ft is what dominates the skyline for miles. Welney Wash, partly in Norfolk, is the UK’s biggest man-made river flood storage area, covering around 4,700 acres, and in winter teems with up to 10,000 whooper, mute and Bewick’s swans plus pochard, tufted duck and mallard.
It also has the infamous Causeway road which floods regularly as the washes are filled and has caught out many an unwary driver who ignored the warning signs.
Market town and inland port Wisbech – dubbed the Capital of The Fens – offers fine Georgian buildings that have featured as TV locations in the likes of BBC’s David Copperfield and ITV1’s Micawber, plus the fiercely independent Elgood’s Brewery which dates to 1795 and offers tours of the historic site and fine gardens.
Fans of Thomas the Tank Engine might be interested to know that the character Toby the Tram is based on the J70 engine that ran on the Wisbech-to-Upwell Tramway, which opened in 1883 and ran for 83 years. Nothing of it remains, bar an old goods office. The link? Thomas author Reverend Wilbert Awdry was a local vicar in the 1950s and 60s.
The Fens aren’t really on the way to anywhere, so you have to want to go, and accommodation is limited, but you might just find that being in flatlands barely above sea level can be an uplifting experience. NT
No-fly getaways
Flight-free travel is heading for new heights, as tourists swerve departure gates for planet-friendly options of trains and ferries. Cat Jones, founder of flight-free travel company Byway, said: “2024 has seen the appetite for flight-free trips grow as people continue to discover the joys of overland travel.
“Travellers are becoming more thoughtful about how, when and why they travel. As journey-based trips become more mainstream, conversations about rail travel become more frequent, vibrant and inspiring.”
In ferry travel, 10 new ships have launched in the past three years, including the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company’s Manxman, P&O Ferries’ Pioneer and Liberté, Salamanca and Santoña from Brittany Ferries, Côte D’Opale from DFDS and Stena Embla, the last of three E-flexer class vessels for Stena Line on the Irish Sea. Modern interiors, new pet facilities, upgraded lounges and eateries on board give a more elevated experience.
There’s more innovation on the way as Brittany Ferries is trialling use of bio-LNG on its Spanish and Cherbourg routes to further cut CO2 emissions, and will welcome two new LNG-electric hybrid ships, Saint Malo and Guillaume de Normandie, into service in early 2025.
For domestic travel, Caledonian MacBrayne is bringing six new dual-fuel vessels into service in Scotland’s western islands in 2025, and in 2026 Isles of Scilly Travel will launch Scillonian IV, a ferry featuring increased comfort with anti-roll fins, a shortened journey time and improved facilities. VL
