If you want to see where family travel is heading in 2026, don’t look for stressed parents juggling passports and prams. Look for the grandparents, calm, organised, and quietly in charge, shepherding grandchildren through departure lounges with the confidence of people who have done this before. Because they have.
Across the Asia Pacific, grandparents are no longer tagging along on family holidays. They are leading them. And increasingly, they are travelling without their parents altogether.
It sounds counterintuitive in an age obsessed with hyper-parenting and tightly scheduled childhoods. Yet skip-generation travel holidays taken by grandparents and grandchildren have moved from novelty to norm. According to Hilton’s 2026 Trends Report, six in ten families across the region plan to take at least one skip-generation trip this year. More than four in ten expect to take two or more.
That is not a lifestyle quirk. That is a behavioural shift.
What is driving it is not wanderlust or novelty. It is something far more traditional: time, trust, and the desire to pass something on before it is too late.
Travel Without the Noise
Ask grandparents why they are travelling with their grandchildren, and the answers are refreshingly unbranded. They want to talk. They want to listen. They want to watch their grandchildren see the world without a screen in the way.
DoubleTree by Hilton Auckland Albert Street
Parents, meanwhile, are discovering that travel with grandparents often works better without them. Grandparents are less rushed, less distracted and far more tolerant of missed trains and late lunches. Children sense this immediately.
Hilton’s data suggests families are planning these trips with intention rather than impulse. Forty-two per cent of travellers across APAC typically book one to three months ahead, while more than half have already begun researching or reserving skip-generation holidays for the year ahead. In China, planning is even more decisive, with 53 per cent locking in trips well before departure.
That level of commitment reflects confidence. These trips are not experiments. Families know exactly why they are travelling and who the travel is really for.
Ben George, Senior Vice President and Commercial Director for Hilton Asia Pacific, says the change is impossible to ignore.
“As we enter the new year, we’re seeing grandparents and grandchildren shaping family travel in exciting new ways. With over half of APAC families planning skip-generation holidays and many already researching or booking multiple trips there’s a real opportunity to meet this demand.”
Where They Are Going And Why It Matters
Skip-generation travel does not gravitate toward novelty destinations. It favours places with stories, walkability, culture and breathing space.
City hotels near museums, markets and heritage precincts are proving just as popular as beach resorts and alpine escapes. Hilton’s 2026 openings reflect that shift, with new properties in Kuala Lumpur, Auckland, Bengaluru, Okinawa, Langkawi, Niseko and Cairns destinations that balance accessibility with discovery.
What these places offer is not spectacle but context. They allow grandparents to say, “This is why this matters,” and children to understand it.
Hotels, too, are adjusting their tone. The focus is less on family entertainment schedules and more on intuitive comfort, larger rooms, thoughtful layouts, easier dining and staff trained to notice who is travelling with whom.
Loyalty programs are quietly reinforcing the trend. With expanded Hilton Honours benefits, reduced qualification thresholds, and the introduction of the Diamond Reserve tier, families travelling together are finding loyalty easier to earn and more rewarding to use.
The Calendar Still Matters, But So Do the Moments
School holidays and cultural festivals remain anchor points. Lunar New Year, Golden Week and Diwali continue to drive bookings. But skip-generation travel is increasingly tied to family milestones rather than public calendars.
More than a third of respondents say they would travel together for weddings or reunions. A similar number are travelling to visit ancestral hometowns. These are not trips built around itineraries. They are built around memory.
Leisure remains the dominant motivator, particularly in Australia, where 76 per cent of travellers say skip-generation trips are primarily about enjoyment rather than obligation. Educational and cultural travel is also growing, reflecting a desire to show children not just how to travel, but why.
The Whycation, Not the Vacation
Hilton’s report calls this shift The Whycation, travel driven by purpose rather than postcode. It is a concept that would have made sense long before marketing departments gave it a name.
Across the region, 63 per cent of travellers say creating quality family moments is their primary travel goal. In Australia, that figure rises to 64 per cent. More than half see skip-generation holidays as uniquely effective at strengthening family bonds.
The benefits extend well beyond sentiment. Nearly nine in ten respondents say these trips help grandparents remain active, socially engaged and mentally stimulated. In China and India, the figures climb into the mid-90s.
Tal Shefer, Senior Vice President of Brand Management for Hilton Asia Pacific, puts it simply:
“Skip-generation holidays are transforming family travel in APAC. These trips keep grandparents active and socially engaged, while giving families moments that genuinely matter.”
Why This Trend Will Stick
Perhaps the clearest signal that skip-generation travel is here to stay is what families are choosing to give. Sixty-one per cent of APAC travellers now gift travel rather than objects.
That decision reflects something older than trend forecasting. It reflects an understanding that memories outlast possessions and that time together is the only luxury that cannot be replaced.
In 2026, grandparents are not just travelling with their grandchildren. They are teaching them how to travel slowly, curiously and with respect for what came before.
That is not a trend.
That is tradition, quietly reasserting itself.
by Christine Nguyen – (c) 2026.
Read time: 5 minutes.
About the Writer.
Christine’s journey is one of quiet courage and unmistakable grace. Arriving in Australia as a young refugee from Vietnam, she built a new life in Sydney brick by brick, armed with little more than hope, family, and a fierce curiosity about the wider world. She studied Tourism at TAFE and found her calling in inbound travel, working with one of Sydney’s leading Destination Management Companies, where she delighted in showing visitors the real Australia, the one beyond postcards and clichés.
Years later, when the call of the sea and a gentler pace of life grew stronger, Christine and her family made their own great escape. She turned her creative hand to designing travel brochures and writing blogs, discovering that storytelling was as natural to her as breathing. Today, she brings that same warmth and worldly insight to Global Travel Media, telling stories that remind us why we travel in the first place.
