Interviews / 29 January, 2024 / Leo Bamford
This month I sat down with Tom Barber from Original Travel to discuss the travel trends of 2024. Below are his top 3 picks for everything from family-friendly hotels to personal bucket lists to hotels on more of a budget.
Top 3 Travel Trends Of 2024
Top 3 family-friendly hotels:
Soneva Fushi in the Maldives for the Den, hands down the best kids club (although they hate that phrase!) in the world
Borgo Egnazia in Puglia, Italy, which is pretty amazing on all fronts but great for young families
Ant’s Hill and Ant’s Nest in South Africa, on a beautiful safari reserve with no predators, so you can take the children out riding (even beginners, like us!) and get up close to giraffes and zebras. really amazing experience)
warning: none of these is what you’d call ‘affordable’!
Top 3 last hurrah destinations:
a ‘bush and beach’ East Africa safari trip, so either to Kenya or Tanzania and combining safari with time on the coast. Stay in private safari lodges and beautiful villas on the beach and enjoy lots of shared experiences
Peru is a great place for luring 20-something children thanks to its combo of adventure and culture and some very spoiling hotels as well
Rajasthan works brilliantly with older children. Tiger safaris, shopping, cultural tours, palace hotels, glamour, cricket and all paid for using the Bank of Mum & Dad!
Top 3 personal bucket list:
Japan! Works for couples, families with tweens and teens, you name it. Genuinely the most ‘other’ and rewarding destination on Earth, in my humble opinion
Italy. Nobody does it better
Egypt. The ultimate ‘original’ destination and even better when done from aboard our boat, Steam Ship Sudan, the only surviving steamer from the old Thomas Cook fleet, and the boat on which Agatha Christie sailed to inspire her to write Death on the Nile
Top 3 hotels for a budget:
Aldeia de Pedralva: low-key former village turned into a charming and very good value hotel near a glorious beach. Definitely NOT swanky
Masseria Montelauro is a better value option than many in Puglia
Villa Nomade is a good value riad in the heart of the ‘real’ medina in Marrakech, off the beaten tourist path
Top 3 destinations for real foodies
Oaxaca in Mexico. Traditional Mexican food is one of very few national cuisines recognised by UNESCO as having cultural significance and Oaxaca is at the heart of this foodie scene
San Sebastian in Spain. The innately competitive Basques are as eager to win when it comes to cooking as sport, and the secretive gastronomic societies in San Sebastian keep taking the city’s culinary creations to new heights. Even better, even the cheap street eats are sensational
Ho Chi Minh City (or any other city, for that matter) in Vietnam. We can arrange a moped tour of the various food markets to learn about the produce before eating delicious streetfood from various stalls around the city
Original Travel
Original Travel specialises in bespoke, tailor-made holidays, crafted by destination experts and supported by local concierges. Original Travel’s ethos is that “Life is in the Detail”, knowing that it’s the small touches that can make a holiday: whether it is knowing the spot for sleeping under the stars in the Namibian desert or where to find the Greek Islands’ most secluded hidden coves.
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