Multi-generational travel bookings rose 52 percent in one year. The Adriatic, with its thousand islands, ancient stone villas, and waters that have remained unchanged since Roman times, may be the perfect place to understand why.
In wealthy families, there is an important conversation that the generation that built that wealth has been putting off for years. It’s not about inheritance, tax structures, or asset distribution. It’s about when they will finally take a trip together. Grandparents who dedicated decades to building businesses and portfolios. Children who grew up in the shadow of those achievements. Grandchildren who are growing up quickly, and whom the grandparents do not know well enough. This issue looms at every family dinner, the unspoken urgency of time passing. Increasingly, families are deciding: we are renting a villa on the Adriatic.
The Number That Changes Everything
According to Butterfield & Robinson, multi-generational travel bookings increased by 52 percent year-over-year in 2025. This is not a small shift in preference; it’s a significant change in how luxury travel is defined.
The 2025 Global Travel Trends Report from American Express found that 58 percent of Millennial parents planned to travel with their extended family. According to Campspot’s 2026 Travel Trend Report, 85 percent of families plan multi-generational trips. Of those, 82 percent say a desire for connection strongly shapes their travel plans. Yet, statistics only scratch the surface. Beneath these figures lies a compelling story about changing values.
What Is Actually Being Purchased?
For decades, luxury travel was primarily focused on individuals or couples. You would go as a pair, alone, or with friends of a similar age, interests, and pace. Multi-generational travel is a distinct category. It’s not just about traveling with kids, it has to cater to a five-year-old who wants to see dolphins, a forty-year-old who craves fine dining, and a seventy-year-old who struggles with rocky beach access. This complexity is not a challenge to overcome; it’s, paradoxically, the point.
“Family travel, more extensive and multi-generational than ever, is evolving into ‘Multi-Spoke Itineraries.’ Families spend less time together but feel a stronger sense of connection,” explains Mark Hanson, Managing Director of Audley Travel. “In 2026, the real value of luxury travel is time.”
“Privately guided travel is effective because families can pursue different activities based on their interests or abilities, then come together to share experiences,” says Scott Avera, president of Alexander + Roberts.
This defines the new family travel experience. Not everyone on the same beach at the same time. Instead, everyone shares an experience, just each in their own way.
Why the Adriatic Is the Answer Nobody Expected?
Travel advisors repeatedly name Croatia as one of the top international destinations for luxury travelers in 2026, alongside Italy, Greece, Japan, Portugal, and France. However, the reason Croatia consistently appears on these lists is deeper than its beautiful scenery, even though that’s truly remarkable. It has a unique geography designed for this kind of travel long before tourism existed. A thousand islands. Each one different and only accessible by water. Each providing a unique version of the same essential experience: stone, sea, silence, and dining under a fig tree. For a family with a grandmother who seeks calm, a teenager who craves excitement, and two parents needing both, this archipelago is a logistical solution wrapped as a beautiful landscape.
The Villa as Multi-Generational Infrastructure
The trend leans heavily towards private villas and exclusive-use properties. Privacy has become a highly valued commodity. Renting a large villa lets families be themselves, without dress codes or scheduled meals. You receive all the services of a five-star hotel – private chefs, housekeeping, concierge – in a comfortable, home-like atmosphere. Many of these villas are historical or uniquely designed homes that provide a strong sense of place. On the Adriatic, this isn’t a trend; it is how people have traditionally lived.
The stone houses perched above Dalmatian bays were built for extended families, with multiple generations sharing one roof, a common kitchen, and a communal connection to the sea. The idea of the multi-generational villa was integrated into the local architecture centuries before luxury travel became a focus.
Today, the finest restored properties along the coast – in Istria’s hill towns, on the islands of Korčula and Vis, and in the stone villages of the Pelješac peninsula – offer something no new luxury resort can replicate: spaces designed for communal living. This includes wide corridors, courtyards, terraces facing the evening light, and large kitchens for three generations to cook together. And, of course, private access to the sea. Always, on the Adriatic, private access to the sea.
Who Is Paying and Why?
“Baby Boomers currently hold significant wealth and are ready to use it,” says Patricia Hajifotiou of The Olive Odysseys luxury travel company. “After a lifetime of saving, many are shifting from accumulating wealth to enjoying it, choosing to spend their retirement funds on meaningful travel experiences.”
This economic reality drives the entire trend. The generation that created the wealth is now entering their seventh and eighth decades. And increasingly, the question shifts from how to grow the portfolio to how to spend it on experiences that can’t lose value. A Rolex may lose value. A property’s worth may fluctuate. But a week on a private yacht sailing the Dalmatian islands with a grandfather who taught you to read the wind? That maintains its value forever.
“Travel is the one investment that always grows in value,” says luxury travel expert Patricia Castoro. “What my clients want most is not just a destination. It’s a lasting story.”
The Skip-Gen Phenomenon
An unexpected aspect of this trend highlights a cultural shift. Families are engaging in “skip-gen trips” – travel between grandparents and grandchildren without the middle generation. These trips remain popular for promoting strong bonds across generations.
Skip-gen travel to the Adriatic has a specific appeal. When a grandmother takes her grandchild to Dubrovnik, just the two of them, without parents mediating, something special happens that cannot occur in any other setting. A unique conversation between two people sharing a family connection and curiosity but nothing else. They discuss what the world was like when the grandmother was the age the grandchild is now, what has changed, and what remains the same. They explore what is worth keeping and what can be let go.
These conversations – on ferry decks between islands, during leisurely meals in ancient cities, or on boat trips to unnamed bays – are what families with means are really buying when they book a multi-generational trip to the Adriatic. Not the villa, not the private chef, not the yacht. It’s the conversation.
Why Now?
A question hangs over this entire trend: why now? Part of the answer lies in demographics – Baby Boomers with resources are now in their late sixties and seventies. Economic factors contribute, wealth is being transferred between generations at an unprecedented scale. There’s also a psychological component, the pandemic has left a lasting impact on our awareness of the fleeting nature of time with loved ones. But there’s a deeper reason. Children are older and more curious. Grandparents want to travel while they can fully participate. Parents are selecting trips that prioritize connection, time, and shared memories over status and show.
Shared memories. That’s what remains when everything else is gone, the wealth, careers, properties, portfolios. Families who recognize this – that a week sailing the Adriatic with three generations onboard is more valuable than anything from a luxury boutique – are making a new kind of investment. An investment in the relationships they will eventually cherish. These families have discovered a new form of investment. An investment in the people to whom they will eventually leave everything else. The Adriatic has been waiting for them. It has been practicing this kind of living for two thousand years.
Source: worldluxurychamber.com/impactwealth.org/go-health.net/oliverwyman.com/bspk.com/openpr.com
