Admittedly, baby boomers and Gen Z have never really seen eye to eye on how to live their everyday lives
However, throw them together on a trip away and that gap becomes impossible to miss. From the minute you start packing a bag to the way you order dinner in a local restaurant, the two age groups approach holidays with totally different playbooks.
While the internet loves to turn every difference of opinion into an excuse for name-calling, the reality behind how both groups travel is far more interesting than just trading lazy complaints. Certain habits keep causing friction between younger travellers and their older counterparts, but digging into the reasons behind them shows that each generation’s quirks actually make a lot of sense once you understand where they’re coming from.
The main character phenomenon at tourist sites
Picture arriving at a famous landmark, ready to soak in centuries of history, only to round a corner and find a crowd with their backs turned, filming themselves rather than the monument behind them. This has become such a recognisable scene that it’s earned its own label.
The explanation ties back to how Gen Z grew up. By the time this generation reached school age, smartphones and social media had already reshaped daily life, and reduced face-to-face interaction left many feeling isolated. Building a curated online persona became a way of coping with that loneliness. Older generations often see this as missing the point of travel entirely, turning the camera inward rather than experiencing a place. But for most young travellers, it’s less about vanity and more about staying connected to friends and family back home.
Planning trips through social media and AI
Travel guidance has evolved dramatically over the centuries, from ancient manuscripts documenting sea voyages to Victorian-era handbooks for the newly mobile middle class. The core idea has always stayed the same: learning from people who’ve already been somewhere.
What’s changed is the delivery method. Platforms with billions of active users can now send a location viral overnight, creating sudden tourist surges that older generations never experienced growing up. But overcrowding at popular destinations isn’t a new phenomenon invented by apps. Anyone who visited Venice decades ago can confirm that boomers have been contributing to overtourism for just as long, if not longer.
Flying without any distractions
A newer trend involves enduring an entire flight, ideally long-haul, without watching films, listening to music, reading, or in some extreme cases, eating or drinking anything at all. Supporters frame it as a test of mental endurance; critics see it as little more than a bid for attention.
There are real health considerations here, though. Medical experts point out that going without water for extended periods raises the risk of dehydration, and staying still for too long can contribute to deep vein thrombosis, a risk made worse by that same dehydration. That said, smoking used to be permitted on flights not so long ago, a habit considerably more dangerous than skipping the in-flight movie.
Paying for travel through debt
Wanting to project an exciting, well-travelled image online comes at a real cost, and not everyone can comfortably afford it. During a period of rising living costs, funding an Instagram-worthy lifestyle remains out of reach for plenty of people, yet stepping back from that pressure doesn’t feel optional for a lot of younger travellers.
Recent figures show younger generations spending more on travel than ever, with a substantial portion willing to take on debt specifically to make trips happen, compared to a noticeably smaller share of boomers doing the same. But framing this purely as recklessness misses some nuance.
Younger travellers tend to favour short-term saving habits over long-range financial planning, prioritising present experiences, though that’s a different problem from spending carelessly. Using credit to fund a holiday isn’t remotely new, either; delayed payment for travel has existed for as long as modern retail has.
Splurging specifically on concerts and events
Younger travellers love a bargain overall, but they’ll happily abandon that frugality for one specific category: must-attend events. A majority of Gen Z Americans say they plan to travel more this year, with many aiming for multiple trips annually, yet spending extra typically only happens for something considered genuinely unmissable.
Roughly half of all travellers plan trips around festivals or concerts, and that figure climbs noticeably higher among younger generations specifically. What’s more surprising is the distance people are willing to cover for it, with a meaningful share happy to travel over a hundred miles, and some considering journeys of several hundred more.
Locals near major venues might reasonably blame this influx for rising prices and crowding, but ticket touts have existed since long before modern concerts, dating back even to Charles Dickens’ public readings.
Skipping landmarks in favour of atmosphere
Choosing to spend an afternoon at a photogenic café rather than ticking off a famous monument might look like wasted opportunity to some, but younger travellers tend to plan trips around a completely different set of priorities. Straying from typical tourist routes isn’t really about rejecting history, it’s often simply about value.
Picking a less obvious city over its more famous neighbour, cheaper, less crowded, arguably better food, isn’t dismissing the bigger name, it’s a practical choice. There’s also a growing pattern of people deliberately revisiting places from their childhood, seeking out familiar comfort rather than something entirely new.
Environmental awareness plays a role too, with a substantial share of younger travellers saying climate change concerns them directly, and a striking majority willing to travel during off-peak periods specifically to ease pressure on overtouristed spots.
Keeping favourite spots off social media
Viral locations tend to follow a familiar pattern: a hidden gem gets discovered, shared widely online, and within weeks becomes overrun. It might seem like younger travellers deliberately hide locations purely for personal bragging rights, but that assumption doesn’t hold up particularly well.
Location tagging is a built-in feature on most social platforms, offering GPS-accurate details of exactly where a photo was taken. It’s a useful tool, but it comes with real downsides. Sharing live location data raises obvious privacy and safety concerns, something older relatives often flag with good reason. Beyond personal safety, viral posts can trigger sudden tourism spikes that harm both locals and the destination itself.
Roughly half of younger travellers do share their trips online, and plenty pick locations partly based on how photogenic they’ll look, but choosing to withhold a specific spot’s exact whereabouts often comes from wanting to protect it rather than any desire for exclusivity.
Choosing budget-friendly alternatives over famous destinations
Premium destinations have dominated travel wish lists for generations, from Mediterranean beaches to European Christmas markets. However, an increasingly common alternative involves picking a similar destination that costs considerably less.
The term used for this carries an implication of dishonesty, as though people are pretending to be somewhere grander than they actually are. In reality, there’s little evidence of deliberate deception, and plenty pointing simply toward thriftiness. Younger travellers already show a strong preference for bargains, so opting for a similar experience at a fraction of the price hardly counts as scandalous.
Choosing the Black Sea coast over the Mediterranean, or a South American city with Barcelona-like charm but smaller crowds, isn’t new behaviour, it’s just smart budgeting dressed up with a catchy label.
Working through a list of countries
With a finite number of countries to visit, some travellers deliberately treat each trip as ticking another one off their personal list. It’s an approach that can sound impressive at a dinner party, though it inevitably means less time spent deeply exploring any single place.
This tendency does invite some scepticism from older generations, favouring breadth over depth. Research from a major UK travel survey found that more than half of younger British travellers deliberately pick a brand-new country each time they go away, often at the expense of returning somewhere already loved.
Whether this comes down to competitiveness with peers or simple curiosity about the wider world, it’s worth remembering that boomers proudly recounting their latest cruise destination aren’t operating on entirely different motivations either. Younger travellers are simply earlier in their own journey of exploring the world, and a bit of eagerness at the start of that process is hardly something to hold against them.
