I’m Anna Stevenson, the Word Watcher, and these are the words I’ve been watching.

What does the word “holiday” make you think of? Sightseeing and souvenir shopping? Lying on a beach? Actually, these days we’re finding all sorts of interesting ways to spend our precious time off. So let’s broaden our horizons in this post and look at some of the new types of holiday that have caught my eye recently.

For many of us, a few days’ holiday is all we can spare, but we still want to feel like we’ve been away. A microcation packs all the best things about a holiday into a short break. We can enjoy exploring, sightseeing, and relaxing, without the complicated planning or exhausting travel that a longer holiday needs. I’ve started to see a few references to microstaycation too – essentially the same idea but travelling by car or public transport to somewhere just an hour or two from home.

Short, spontaneous escapes are becoming the go‑to travel trend as more people seek quick, refreshing breaks without the heavy planning. Microcations offer the perfect dose of adventure and reset.
[firstpost.com, 27 March 2026]

For many travellers, a holiday is an opportunity to combine a different culture with their existing interests. Take the glowmad, for example. Passionate about all things beauty and skincare related, the glowmad plans a whole holiday around buying products and indulging in treatments that will make their skin glow and restore their inner and outer radiance.

Skincare routines and beauty rituals are not just for social feeds – Niamh O’Reilly speaks to three “glowmads” who put them at the heart of real-world holiday plans.
[independent.ie, 20 January 2026]

Tired of the daily routine and feeling burnt out by the 9 to 5? Perhaps a chronocation is the holiday for you. This is a trip where you ignore your normal schedule, pay no attention to what time it is, and do everything – sleeping, eating, exploring – according to when you feel like it. The idea is that your holiday should align with your natural body clock, enabling night owls and larks alike to sleep better and restore their wellbeing.

Instead of chasing time zones or cramming in landmarks, a chronocation asks one thing: what if you stopped living by the clock? … Jet lag, irregular meals, and screen time disrupt our internal clocks. Chronocations help realign them by removing those disruptions.
[chronocation.com, 26 January 2026]

Continuing the wellness theme, another trend for this year is neurosurfing, a type of holiday designed to benefit our brains or, more precisely, our brainwaves. The idea is to take part in a mix of activities that shift our brainwaves from one state to another, allowing us to move from pre-holiday stress to a place of enhanced calm and relaxation.

In a 2026 report, we identified the trend for “neurosurfing,” whereby people take on different activities – be it sound baths, painting, or cold plunges – to move between different brainwave states (Beta, Alpha, Theta, Delta).
[lufthansa.com, 14 May 2026]

Maybe a holiday centred on the local food is more appealing? Many travellers enjoy snackpacking, where they spend their time browsing supermarkets, sampling street food, perhaps doing a tour of bakeries and cake shops, and buying all sorts of local delicacies to enjoy at home.

Seeking out hyper-local snacks you can’t find at home when on vacation has officially become a travel trend. From fluffy egg salad sandwiches in Japan to matcha lava cakes in Thailand, “snackpacking” is taking over social media.
[forbes.com, 28 May 2026]

And on that note, make sure you check out my next post, in which I explore some new words from the world of food and drink!