Some wealthy travelers are replacing their hot summer trips with 'coolcations'

29.10.2024 - 17:07 / insider.com / Misty Belles

Few summertime Instagram posts are as FOMO-inducing as the perfectly posed candid in front of the Eiffel Tower or Sagrada Familia, complete with a perfectly dewy makeup look.

But as global temperatures continue to rise, that glowy finish could more likely be from sweat than a shimmery highlight.

The summer of 2024 was the hottest on record in Europe. Heat waves soared beyond 100 degrees in countries like Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain — all while the tourist-beloved destinations contended with record levels of travelers.

Likely, no vacationer wants to spend their precious summer break wading through sweltering heat waves and throngs of sweaty crowds.

Thus, the growing preference for "coolcations" — a portmanteau of "cool" and "vacations" — is born. And with it, a 44% increase in bookings to the milder-weathered destinations of northern Europe and Canada from the summer of 2023 to 2024, according to luxury travel agency Virtuoso.

Move aside, wet, hot American summer. Now, it's all about cold Finnish summers.

"The stifling hot places you don't think of as being really hot and muggy have become that way," Jackie Roth, a travel manager for Scott Dunn Private, told BI, calling out examples like Rome, Paris, and the UK.

Roth has planned summer trips to the latter. But if the timing coincides with a heat wave and her client's hotel doesn't have air conditioning, they "absolutely panic," she said. "Americans are used to a bit more pampering."

A growing number of travelers are pushing their "Euro summer" trips to the fall to beat peak summer crowds and temperatures.

Others are opting for cooler-weather getaways to destinations like Scandinavia.

Misty Belles, Virtuoso's vice president of global public relations, attributed the trend to two global warming-related factors: the increasing intensity of heat waves and recent wildfires in Maui, Hawaii, Greece, and Spain.

The latter "really rattled" people," she told BI.

Europe, as a whole, endured a sweltering summer. However, some western European countries — specifically Iceland, Ireland, and parts of the UK and Norway — experienced cooler-than-average summers.

Previously beloved for wintertime aurora borealis hunting, more travelers (especially those who've already done classics like Italy and France) are realizing these destinations' midnight sun, crisper weather, and smaller crowds could make for a fun summer getaway, too.

"You get a lot of people saying, 'I went to Italy or Greece in the height of summer, and it was too hot, so where can I go now that's not so hot?'" Julie Durso, a Scott Dunn Private travel manager, told BI. "It's one thing to be in a place with that heat, but to have it with a lot of crowds as well."

The "Scandi style" fashion aesthetic,