Astro treks, cowboy tours: How Aussies are using travel to find their tribe

Astro-adventuring and going abroad to find "cowboy core" are two ways Australians will travel in search of connection in 2025.

Skyscanner's 2025 Travel Trends shows how the search for community is reshaping travel behaviour in a socially-fractured world.

The organisation's head of destinations APAC, Jarrod Kris, said 2025 was all about "the collective adventure".

"If we look at the types of connections that travellers look to make, we've started to see that they look for these experiences where they can sort of share like-minded purpose," Mr Kris said.

"Things like garden fanatics or art connoisseurs or hardcore gamers, there's conventions, and places where they can meet and adventure through parks and different sort of experiences ... "

Skyscanner's data shows a third of Australian travellers using the travel search engine plan to travel either domestically or internationally to see a sporting event in 2025.

Botanical breaks are also blooming, with almost three-quarters of people visiting a garden when they go abroad, suggesting Aussies have a growing desire to return to nature.

"So whether that's a botanic garden or a national park, that's quite a common thing to partake in. So the outdoor experience becomes pretty important," Mr Kris said.

A third of Aussie travellers are fans of cowboy culture or "cowboy core" as cowboy-inspired series rise in popularity, inspiring travellers to explore the wild west. The top-trending horse-riding destinations for 2025 are Argentina, Montenegro and Albania.

Mr Kris said TV series like Yellowstone were inspiring travellers to experience ranch life and go horseback riding when they travel.

Other popular reasons people want to travel are to visit gaming conventions, to see art, and to experience stargazing and dark sky tourism (known as "astro-adventuring"), including eclipses where people travel to vantage points to watch the sky with others.

"It's interesting to see these shifts and again aligning to passion points that resonate with people and resonate in group environments," Mr Kris said.

The Skyscanner report showed the top five trending destinations for 2025 were Siem Reap in Cambodia, Krabi in Thailand, Busuanga in Philippines, Daegu in South Korea and Rovaniemi in Finland.

A report from Globetrender and Ibis - called Go Get It: How Gen Z/Y Will Travel In 2025 - identifies "tribe travel" as one of the main motivations for Millennials travelling in 2025.

The report says the search for belonging was driving tribe travel, a trend that taps into "that fundamental human desire for both communion and community - drivers that are particularly relevant in an era marked by rising loneliness among Gen Z and Millennials, despite being more 'connected' (online) than ever."

Whether people are attending a comic convention, volunteering with friends, or embarking on a girls' getaway, opportunities for "togetherness" will continue to be high on the agenda, the report said.

The report surveyed 9,000 Millennials across Australia, UK, US, Brazil, France, Germany, India and China.