Travel in 2026: what a turbulent decade taught us – Image: Greentripper.org
In just one decade, travel went through more change than the previous fifty years combined. A pandemic that paused the industry. Climate events that reached destinations once considered safe. Fuel prices that rewrote the economics of flying. Each felt like an isolated disruption. Together, they mark a turning point. We trace that shift, and what it means for how we travel from here.
Before 2020: Flying for the price of a pizza
A weekend in Lisbon used to cost less than a meal out. Low-cost carriers turned distant cities into impulse purchases. Fast, cheap and easy. The climate impact? A concern for activists. Not something the average traveller thought about.
2020–2021: The years the skies went quiet
Then 2020 arrived. Within weeks, airports and skies were empty. Aviation emissions dropped by nearly 60%. We rediscovered travel close to home. Bikes sold out. Campsites filled up. Hiking trails came back to life.
It was an imposed stillness. But something unexpected emerged from it. Slowing down felt good. The journey turned out to be part of the experience.
2022–2026: A changed traveller
Once restrictions lifted, the planes filled up again. But not every traveller came back the same.
Heatwaves scorched Greece and Spain. Floods swept through Belgium and Germany. Climate change was no longer something happening somewhere else. It was disrupting the trips people had been saving up for.
Then came the price shocks. Since 2022, kerosene prices have climbed sharply and repeatedly. By 2026, they hit a record high, driven by ongoing tensions in the Middle East. Every disruption confirmed the same reality: flying is fast and efficient, but it is also the mode of transport most sensitive to the world around it.
The Greentripper.org-team in Brussels, Belgium – Image: Greentripper.org
Resilience becomes a travel value
Choosing a transport mode less dependent on kerosene is choosing a journey less vulnerable to last-minute cancellations and unexpected costs. More certainty. Less stress. Holidays that actually happen as planned.
Climate impact is becoming a factor in travel decisions too, alongside cost, comfort and time. Tools like Greentripper (www.greentripper.org) make that consideration concrete. Not just with CO₂e figures, but with comparisons and everyday equivalents that land.
A Brussels to Barcelona return flight emits 445 kg CO₂e. The equivalent of 1.5 years of vegetarian meals, charging your phone 1,072 times, or nearly 7,000 hours of streaming. By train, emissions are 6.5 times lower. Combined with rising ticket prices, that gap is beginning to matter.
We are not stopping travel, we are travelling differently
Much has changed in ten years. Not just how we travel, but how we think about it. We ask questions we never used to ask. Not from guilt, but from curiosity. How do I get there? What does it really cost? What do I leave behind?
That is not the end of travel. It is the beginning of something richer. Travel as a force for positive change, where every place visited is left a little better than it was found.
Give back to nature with Greentripper
Greentripper was founded in December 2018 with a mission to preserve our ability to travel while taking action on the carbon footprint of travel. Since then, we have raised awareness among thousands of travellers who have calculated and compared their impact and contributed to climate projects.
Greentripper was built on a simple observation: the travel industry keeps growing, and so do its emissions. Those emissions are routinely underestimated, even as climate change reshapes the very destinations and communities that travellers come to discover.
The goal was never to make travellers feel guilty. It was to give them the tools to travel more consciously. With a real impact on climate, local economies and the communities behind every destination.
Today, Greentripper helps individuals and businesses understand their travel footprint and act on it. Through carbon tools, training, consultancy and certified climate projects.
Curious about the footprint of your next trip? Calculate it for free at www.greentripper.org. Discover ways to reduce your carbon impact, and if you want to go further, you can support climate projects that benefit nature, local communities and economies around the world.
NAN/Greentripper.org 29-07-26
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