2025 Travel Trends Shape Better Family Vacations

Plan for better family vacations in the year ahead as 2025 travel trends influence mainstream family holidays.

The 2025 travel trends we’ve been watching originated with Gen Y and luxury travelers. Among them, we’re talking about vanlife (RVing), a yearning for wellness and bucket list adventures. In many cases, these trends overlap to make even better family travel experiences. Let them guide you how to plan a family vacation in 2025.

Let’s look at how we got here and how these new ideas are poised to influence better family travels in the year ahead.

Escape Is Among Top Family Travel Trends For 2025

The disastrous year of 2024 was the last straw for many families. Many parents dreamed of being able to turn off screens and shield children from the frightening world around them.

That’s when family vacations stopped being a luxury. Instead, affordable family vacations became a necessity to escape the daily grind.

Many young parents fought the stress by reading about vanlife and the digital nomads who made the road their home. Instagram reels and Tiktoks featured young influencers, celebrities and entrepreneurs who pulled up stakes, sold their homes and flew to Thailand.

Another post pandemic trend? Families fortunate enough to work from home (#wfh) realized they could work from anywhere (#wfa). Both homeschooling and worldschooling – which Scientific American now calls “smack dab in the mainstream” — have skyrocketed in popularity.

2025 Trends Forecast A Year Of Campers And Family RV Travel

If visiting all the national parks is on your bucket list, you know RV travel is the easiest and most comfortable way to go. It’s more than sustainable travel, too. RVing is both eco-friendly travel and exciting adventure travel at the same time. In fact, an RV rental company even won Good Housekeeping’s 2025 Family Awards in the services category.

That company, RVshare, makes RVing a possibility for any family with their sharing network. (Think: Airbnb for motorhomes.) The RV Industry Association says 45 million people traveled by RV and camper last summer, but that doesn’t mean you have to go far.

Only 5 Steps To Plan The RV Trip Of A Lifetime

Before you sell all your possessions, try out an RV family vacation. Vanlife – sharing a tiny space and stretching your legs outdoors — is fun for families, even in campgrounds.

It takes five simple steps.

1. Go to RVshare.com, which connects you to RV owners in your local area, or at your destination.
2. Be confident. They make it easy by vetting renters and owners.
3. Search their easy to use site for campers and RVs, from luxury motorhomes to cozy camper vans.
4. Choose one near to home, either parked in a local campground or available for a weekend getaway.
5. Book with assurance. RVshare verifies accounts, provides rental protection and 24-hour roadside assistance. (We still recommend travel insurance, but if you get a flat tire, there’s always help.)

Find the Perfect Insurance Plan for Your Trip.

True! Our family has slept and showered in RVs parked at campgrounds up and down the East Coast. We’ve built sand castles during tropical winter getaways and played Bingo together at night. We predict more families will try it in 2025 as hotel and restaurant prices increase.

Prefer to skip the rental and go full vanlife? Read Lindsey Scot-Ernst’s clear-eyed look at life while RVing with partner, child, dog and cat.

Family Wellness Travel Means Healthier Family Vacations

Wellness vacations are one of the top 2025 travel trends. GWI research shows that from 2020 to 2022, wellness trips grew 30.2% annually with about 819 million wellness trips last year. What’s new is that this type of vacation, once available only to the luxury traveler, has become more affordable and more mainstream.

Today, family wellness travel ranges from yoga retreats for teens to family fat farms. Active families opt for survival training and extreme sports camps, both nearby and in exotic destinations. Even tropical, all-inclusive family resorts get the focus on family health. Several offer kids’ mani-pedis, family massages, team games at kids’ clubs, and more adventurous activities than Marco Polo at the pool.

Join The 2025 Family Travel Trendsetters And Get Healthy

In Europe, popular and healthy family vacations feature thermal bath resorts where healing waters are pumped into vast pools – some with waterslides. Green Pearls is a great site to search for sustainable, family-friendly resorts that promote family wellness. One property, the ADLER Spa Resort Sicilia in Sicily, is the latest in a line of ADLER spas to promote thalassotherapy – hydrotherapy with seawater – to families. Children as young as 6 years use the thermal pools and make brief visits to the sauna with parents to build lifelong habits.

The Rodavento Hotels Group in Mexico run five properties. Casa Rodavento, about two hours from Mexico City, is in a lush forest sculpted into activity zones. Families – even pets are welcome – come for the zip lines, rock climbing, rappelling, horseback riding and the spa’s outdoor hydrotherapy circuit. You don’t need to splurge on a massage treatment for little ones. The Rodaventuras.kidsclub assists ages 4-11 with zip lines, kayaking, rappelling and standup paddleboarding. Or, share a hammam and hot tubs with teens to teach them the healing benefits of water. The celebrated restaurant wows kids with organic Mexican and international specialties, produce they picked themselves, vegetarian pizzas and more.

Bucket List Adventures Include Younger Travelers

Remember the 2007 film, “The Bucket List?” In it, seniors Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman hit the road to live their dreams before they ‘kick the bucket.’

What’s new with bucket lists – often very expensive, once in a lifetime adventures – is that parents now include children. Another of the 2025 travel trends we love is that you don’t have to book a polar expedition, safari or Grand Canyon raft trip. Amazing experiences that fit the “once in a lifetime” billing, and are more affordable, are widely available. 

Trending Bucket List Family Vacations Range From Alaska To Disney To Napa

Seeing Alaska is one good example. These days, families choose whether to hike, drive, bike or even jump onto a salmon fishing boat to see the 50th state. In response, mass market cruises have rolled out bucket list shore excursions. How about watching your cubs meet orphan bear cubs in Sitka?

Disney knows that parents will splurge on theme park vacations before their kids grow too old to enjoy them. Now, a tech-infused Walt Disney World is trending as one of the country’s top multi-generational family vacations. The glamorous European style of the deluxe new Disney’s Riviera Resort Hotel attracts large family groups. All ages enjoy the “Hey, Disney!” voice assistants throughout, whether “camping” in a studio or enjoying a three-bedroom villa.

Even a day’s outing is a great way to conquer a bucket list item. Consider the Napa Valley Wine Train. This domestic version of the famed Orient Express offers a legendary, gourmet wine and dine experience aboard exquisitely restored antique rail cars. Sample the luxe luxe life in Santa’s Cookie Car or aboard the Gourmet Holiday Express.

The Best Family Travel Trends for 2025

We see blue skies on the 2025 family travel horizon. There are not only more affordable options available to RVers, wellness enthusiasts and extreme adventurers; there are more engaging, close-to-home escapes, too.

We believe this is the year when adults will answer the call of the open road with wellness in mind and start knocking items off their bucket list.

These days, you can rent an RV near Disney World for only $50 per day and take family yoga classes. Or hit the road in your own RV and drive there.

In fact, that combination may make for the best family travels in 2025.

This blog post looking at the 2025 travel trends that impact family vacations is sponsored by the RV rental company, RVshare. Opinions expressed are those of the author.