05-07-2025
Why I find the latest travel trend so horrifying
I am a holiday completist. If I'm heading somewhere new I want to come away feeling like I've 'done it' — ticked off the main sights, explored every neighbourhood, drunk and eaten at the hottest openings. Boning up on the geography and cultural landscape of a destination before visiting it is one of the things I love most about travel. Getting a good deal is also part of the fun. Nothing is left to chance — hotels and flights are booked early; days planned to the minute.
So I struggle to get my head around the trend of super-last-minute booking. Data from the camping and glamping website shows that 1 in 20 of those who booked through its site last month — or more than 15,000 travellers — did so after 1pm on the first day of their holiday, while nearly 4,000 reserved after 5pm.
And it seems that spontaneous travel isn't limited to campsites. Google Trends data for the first half of this year shows that searches for 'Spain flights today' were up 75 per cent from the same period in 2024. The luxury operator Elegant Resorts, meanwhile, reports that nearly a fifth of the inquiries it received in June for 2025 summer holidays were for those beginning that same month. The nonchalance! The financial recklessness! The generosity of annual-leave-granting bosses! I'm impressed and appalled in equal measure.
Some kinds of trip definitely lend themselves to this level of spontaneity, though. They're not my thing, but if you can be flexible with your dates and fancy lazing around somewhere hot, I can see the appeal of a last-minute package deal. Tour operators such as Tui and Jet2holidays often flog their holidays at knockdown prices a few weeks before departure — a colleague of mine once nabbed a week in Greece for £200 all in.
And there are certain moments in life when spontaneity is an exciting novelty. Two of my favourite trips — hiking in the French Alps and beer and Beatles history in Hamburg, both organised weeks beforehand — were in that joyous, no-responsibilities window that exists after you've left a job and are waiting to start a new one. The spreadsheets, it turns out, can be assembled mid-flight.
But when it comes to a city break, my favourite holiday genre, the months of research, timetabling and Google Maps curation are always worth it. I was glad to have not been invited on a friend's recent 'extreme day trip' to Valencia, booked a fortnight before. He went straight to Gatwick from a night out in Brixton, slept on the flight, walked around the city's science museum, hit up some vermouth bars then flew home. Again, impressed and appalled in equal measure, but I can't help but think that he could have found a slightly less obvious museum or perhaps a classier vermouth bar (plus an extra night or two in a hotel) had he put in a little more thought beforehand.
• Last-minute getaways just got better with these 12 great deals
My next big holiday is a multistop cycling holiday around the western islands of Estonia. In this instance, too, I am not leaving anything to fate. I am not risking being without a roof over my head. I am not getting stranded on Muhu (population about 2,000). And I am not resorting to a subpar marinated fish sandwich — only the best will do for me.
Saying all that, though, there is one other scenario in which I might consider injecting a little more spontaneity into my travels. The thermostat in my top-floor London flat read 34C during the heatwave last week and, even at £140 for a basic room, the air-conditioned Travelodge in Peckham was very tempting indeed.
Are you a holiday planner or a spur-of-the-moment traveller? Let us know in the comments below
