As I pen this intro, my Victorian terrace house rental in South East London has, for the fifth time in the last couple of weeks, reached 33 degrees. You live on the top floor of an old flat at the height of summer, what did you expect? Someone could say. But trust me, never had I ever experienced so many consecutive days of full sunshine, clear skies, and, yes, boiling hot temperatures over the past five years in the British capital. If anything, I have previously been battling with frost. And while, as an Italian expat in the UK, part of me inevitably rejoices, both the weather forecast and experts agree: climate change is really here.
This is, of course, nothing new. Nor is the rise of the so-called 'coolcations', or holidays to cold places to visit in summer to escape the heatwaves of the season, a growing phenomenon we covered extensively at the start of the year in our travel trends 2025 report. Deeply entwined with the surge of nocturnal tourism ('nocturism'), which centers around experiences and activities that take place at night, thus transcending the crowds as well as the hotness-induced discomfort of daytime, coolcations see more and more globetrotters prefer places with milder summers, like Scandinavia and the Alps, to more usual southern Europe hotspots.
