Baby Boomers and travelers for the first time seem to be conducting a trend of “coolcations”, avoiding the maximum summer points of Europe in favor of colder climates such as the Nordic and Baltic countries.
The extreme heat of summer, combined with cost groups and overcrowding, are affecting where people choose to go on vacation.
For some, the appeal of reserving a trip to Mediterranean destinations such as Italy, Greece and Spain in July and August has lost its brightness.
Instead, a growing wave of tourists seems to be prioritizing summer trips to northern Europe to escape the scorching heat.
“If you return to post-pandemic, 2022 and also to the summer of 2023, we saw that South Europe just full of popularity,” said Trapid Travel CEO James Thornton, CNBC on video calls.
“He felt as if everyone had to return to the Mediterranean, Italy, to Greece, to Spain, because they had not had the opportunity for a couple of years to do so. What happened was that it was full of people, it was often expensive, and I was seeing several natural challenges, or as a result of climate change,” said Thornton.
“What we have seen in reverse is in 2024 and now in 2025, the demand for people who want to travel in the summer peak, in July and August, to which would traditionally be colder destinations in northern Europe,” he added.
The isolated Bay of Kvalvika in the Lofoten archipelago in northern Norway in the Norway Sea.
Image Alliance | Image Alliance | Getty images
For his clients from the United Kingdom, Thornton said that intrepid trips had seen a 50% increase in travel reserves to Iceland, Estonia and Scandinavia for the period of July-August, while reserves to southern Europe went to shoulder seasons.
Intrepid Travel reserves to Italy from April to June and September-Sesco-Octfre increased 16%, while Greece reserves during the same periods of respect increased 37%.
However, reservations to southern Europe for July-August fell 15%, said Thornton, added that he hopes that this trend persists in the coming years.
“On summer holidays in southern Europe they seem numbered,” said Thornton.
‘A conscious decision’
Notable, the two main pilots of this year’s coolcation trend were born in Baby Boomers between 1946 and 1964 and travelers for the first time from 18 to 35 years, said Thornton of Intrepid Travel.
“Growth comes from Baby Boomers in their 50 and 60 years. Therefore, children have left home, the mortgage is paid, more free time to leave and see the world and perhaps less affected by the cost of life pressures,” said Thornton.
“The second group is actually at the opposite end of the scale, which are travelers for the first time. Therefore, for thesis people, they are young people in their career, often driven by experiences about possessions and the reality of housing property … is less less less less.”
A gesture firefighter while coordinating the fight against a forest fire in the Grammatikos region in Attica on August 12, 2024.
Aris oikonomou | AFP | Getty images
Rome, Barcelona and Athens generally appear among the most popular summer destinations in Europe. But the suffocating conditions in southern Europe have reached the summer travel season.
Last year, Europe endured its warmer registered summer, and activists warned that record heat in March could feed the conditions for the toughest heat and forest fires in the coming months.
Jenny Southan, CEO of Globetrender, the world’s leading travel tendency agency, said she hopes that the coolcation trend will intensify as the effects of climate change worse and become more unpredictable.
“The trend of ‘coolcations’ reflects a conscious decision of a growing part of consumers to avoid the most intense summer heat and forest fires that are occurring in certain parts of the world as a basic annual,” Southan told CNBC.
“Instead of rejecting the critical points in the full MED, for example, they travel in spring and autumn, in July and August, they opt for places like Norway and Finland that are more temperate,” he added.
Who are the winners of this trend?
For northern European countries such as Sweden and Estonia, Burgeon Coolcations repeats an economic opportunity.
A marketing firm spokesman Visit Sweden said, while Coolcations It could be considered “a new driving force”, it is still difficult to say if they are the main reason for any rebound in tourism.
“There are many driving forces at stake when deciding on the type of vacation and the holiday fate. We have exactly numbers in the size of the trend or where they come from. The trend, if it continues, is still at an early stage,” said Sweden’s visit.
The sun is no longer something to worship.
Jenny Southhan
CEO or globetrender
For its part, the Tourist Board of Estonia said that “certainly welcomes” a growing desire among tourists to look for colder climates.
“We see this as more a lung table, he told CNBC.
LEPP said he does not expect to see a traveler’s mass movement looking for a traditional vacation to sunbathe on the beach to reserve a trip to Estonia, noting that the Baltic country “tends to attract those who are looking for more, hiking and adventurers outdoors in the open air.”
Desert wood jetty on a sunny day in the province of Smaland in Sweden.
Dutch | Istock | Getty images
Globetrender’s Southan said that one of the benefits of travelers looking for mild temperatures of the duration of the summer duration will put a detention for overcrowding in places that tourists have previously flooded.
“It will be an opportunity to restore and that the economies will reject their year so that they are not working without stopping for four months (as they do in Ibiza and in many Greek islands, for example). On the other hand, they will find ways to attract through income and exert less pressure on infrastructure,” Southan said.
In the coming years, Southhan said that people will seek to leave places that live when it’s too hot, noting that there are ares in Italy that have demonstrated this behavior for decades.
“The sun is no longer something to worship,” said Southan.