Travel Trends 2025 #2: Astro Adventurers  (according to Skyscanner)

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Every year, Skyscanner releases its Travel Trends report.

For 2025, the platform identified seven imaginative, hybrid, and often surprising ways people will travel next.

In this series, I take a closer look at each trend through the lens of tourism innovation, experience design, and destination strategy.

Source: Skyscanner Travel Trends 2025 > https://www.skyscanner.net/travel-trends/astro-tourism

“Astro Adventurers” Trend Overview

What is “Astro Adventurers”?

Astro Adventurers are travelers who look up—literally.

Skyscanner defines this trend as a surge of interest in travel experiences connected to the night sky, space, and celestial events.

From Northern Lights chasers to stargazing safaris and eclipse tourism, these travelers are guided by the cosmos.

Why is it emerging?

We’re living through an age of cosmic curiosity:

  • Renewed excitement around space exploration (thanks to private companies like SpaceX or the Artemis missions)
  • A desire to unplug and reconnect with the universe, especially in dark-sky locations
  • Social media’s visual fascination with nightscapes and auroras
  • A growing awareness of light pollution and its effects on health and ecosystems

Who is adopting it?

Skyscanner notes interest across age groups, but especially among Gen Z and Millennials seeking awe-inspiring, once-in-a-lifetime moments.

It also intersects with “slow travel” and “eco-minimalism” communities who prioritize sustainability and natural wonder over consumerism.

Where and how does it show up?

From dark-sky parks in Northumberland and Lapland to luxury desert camps in Jordan or Chile’s Atacama, astro-tourism is becoming a niche market with growing appeal. Popular experiences include:

  • Astro-photography tours
  • Guided meteor shower viewing
  • Accommodations with transparent domes, glass roofs, or remote observatories
  • Cultural interpretations of the sky (e.g., mythologies and indigenous knowledge)

Implications for Destinations and Tourism Operators

What does this trend suggest for tourism professionals?

“Astro Adventurers” exemplify a powerful shift toward experiences of perspective—those that reconnect visitors with nature, time, and cosmic scale.

For tourism developers, this trend:

  • Offers a rare fusion of science, nature, and storytelling
  • Encourages nighttime programming (a traditionally underdeveloped timeslot)
  • Requires low-impact, high-sensitivity design strategies

Practical applications and challenges

Opportunities:

  • Activate rural or remote areas that suffer from depopulation but benefit from low light pollution
  • Create seasonal packages around celestial events (eclipses, supermoons, meteor showers)
  • Integrate local cultural astronomy and folklore for depth and differentiation

Challenges:

  • Nighttime safety, access, and infrastructure (especially in winter or desert climates)
  • Managing peak demand for rare events (e.g., total eclipses) without environmental strain
  • Avoiding over-commercialization that undermines the “sublime” appeal

How could this be localized in different contexts?

Astro-tourism thrives in remote, underlit areas with a strong connection to nature, culture, and storytelling. Some possible adaptations include:

  • Develop astro-hiking routes in mountainous regions, where travelers can trek from hut to hut and enjoy guided stargazing under clear alpine skies
  • Promote dark-sky villages in low-density inland areas, where minimal light pollution meets local hospitality—ideal for small observatories or night-sky retreats
  • Collaborate with academic institutions and amateur astronomy groups to create citizen science experiences, sky interpretation walks, or seasonal astro camps
  • Weave in cultural astronomy, drawing from ancient myths, indigenous sky lore, or historical figures of science to deepen the storytelling around constellations and cosmic events
  • Design four-season astro itineraries—from desert moon-watching in winter to high-latitude aurora safaris in spring—activating non-peak periods with night-centric programming

The night sky becomes a stage, inviting travelers not only to look up, but to wonder well.

Conclusion

“Looking up” might just be the most profound form of escape.

For tourism professionals, the Astro Adventurers trend sparks strategic reflection:

  • Can we create experiences that generate awe, not just amusement?
  • How might destinations become guardians of dark skies and stewards of wonder?
  • What forms of night-time design and storytelling are still unexplored?

In a hyper-connected world, the night sky may be one of the last true frontiers.

Only a truly intentional design approach—one that starts from the real needs and desires of people—can create active experiences that are authentic, sustainable, and memorable. It’s time to move beyond labels and standard packages: destinations need a new kind of direction, able to integrate movement, storytelling, and a sense of belonging.

It’s not enough to follow trends: we need to anticipate and interpret them in a unique way, adapting them to our own identity and the needs of travelers.

If you’d like to explore how to turn emerging trends into real opportunities for your destination, get in touch for tailored advice or new ideas.

And what about your experience? Which experiences or activities are working well in your destination, or what would you like to experiment with?

Share your thoughts in the comments—fresh perspectives are always welcome.

***

Sources

Report: Skyscanner Travel Trends 2025 > https://www.skyscanner.net/travel-trends/summary

Astro Adventurer trend page > https://www.skyscanner.net/travel-trends/astro-tourism

Image: Andrea Rossi with Dall-E

Series Navigation

This is post #2/7 in the blog series “Travel Trends 2025 (by Skyscanner)”

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