The Future of Travel: Where Will 2020 Take Us?

By Jackie Caradonio - 23rd May 2018

Chad, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan are all on the brink of tourism booms. Who’s coming with us? It wasn’t long ago that 2020 sounded more like the title of the next science-fiction blockbuster than a year we’d actually live to see. But as the 21st century’s teenage years begin to wind down, we find ourselves wondering: Where will 2020 take us? We’re not talking professionally, or even personally—but literally.

As the world gets smaller and travel continues to bypass material consumption as the indulgence of choice, the hunger to uncover the next unspoiled destination gets ever stronger. So we asked a travel expert to look into their roving crystal balls and predict where in the world we might find ourselves in the next century. Here, they weigh in with a surprising set of next-generation destinations that prove the future is indeed right around the corner.

Chad

“Without a doubt, Chad is the next go-to destination on the African continent,” says Nicola Shepherd, founder of the UK-based Explorations Company. “Zakouma National Park is nothing short of mind-blowing—it’s probably the best national park I have visited in Africa!”

Such an endorsement is significant coming from Shepherd, who has been taking clients on wild journeys into the African bush since launching her company in 1989. Come 2020, she’ll be among the first to bring travelers to Zakouma, where they’ll stay at the bohemian Camp Nomade, a Bedouin-style tented camp surrounded by the park’s wildlife-rich floodplains and pans.

“The most incredible thing about this place is that it feels like Africa of yesteryear—around 100 years ago,” Shepherd says. “The plains are teeming with lions and leopards and herds of elephants, yet there are no other tourists. Where else can you experience that?”

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