How People Are Travelling in 2026 — and What It Means for Your Villa Trip

Every year the travel industry publishes its trend forecasts, and every year most of them evaporate by spring. But watching our own booking calendars across Los Cabos and Vancouver Island, a handful of 2026 shifts are showing up in real reservations — not just press releases. Here's what's actually changing, and how to use it when you plan.

The multi-generational trip is now the default group trip

Roughly a third of travellers this year are planning trips that mix generations — grandparents, parents, and kids under one roof. We see it in what gets booked: our five-bedroom-and-up villas fill earliest, and the questions that come with those bookings are about cribs, ground-floor bedrooms, and chefs who can feed twelve people three nights running.

If this is your 2026-27 plan, the practical advice is simple: book the big house first and build everything else around it. Large villas with the right bedroom mix are the scarcest inventory in both of our destinations, especially over holidays and March break.

Nature leads the itinerary

Interest in nature-led travel keeps climbing — whales, national parks, dark skies, empty beaches. In Los Cabos that means the December-to-April whale season is no longer a nice bonus; it's the reason people pick their dates. On Vancouver Island it's the same story with storm-watching season and the rainforest trails.

The upside of planning around nature: the best of it often happens in what used to be shoulder season, when rates are lower and restaurants have tables.

The 'readaway' is real

• A quiet villa, a stack of books, and nowhere to be — bookings built around rest rather than activities keep growing.
• Guests increasingly ask about hammocks, shaded terraces, and hot tubs rather than nightlife.
• Slow mornings mean private chefs and grocery stocking are the two most-requested concierge services this year.

Stays are getting longer

More travellers are combining remote work with travel, or simply staying ten nights where they used to stay five. Villas suit this better than hotel rooms — you get a kitchen, laundry, workspace, and room to spread out. If you can travel outside the peak weeks, longer stays also unlock meaningful nightly savings.

Whatever shape your 2026 trip takes, the pattern behind all of these trends is the same: people want space, privacy, and a place that fits the trip they're imagining — not a room number. That's the whole reason we do villas.