There’s a quiet shift happening in family travel. Grandparents are packing their bags, grandchildren are tucking in their passports, and parents are staying home. Not because something went wrong, but because something went very right.
This arrangement has a name now: the “skip-gen” trip, short for skip-generation travel. It’s when grandparents travel with their grandchildren without the parents in tow, thereby skipping a generation. What was once a gentle curiosity has grown into one of the most talked-about movements in family travel, with data, travel companies, and families themselves all pointing in the same direction.
The Numbers Are Hard to Ignore
The growth in skip-gen travel is no longer just anecdotal. According to a 2025 survey from the Family Travel Association, roughly more than a quarter of respondents had taken a skip-gen trip in the past three years, and more than a third were planning to take one in the next three. Those are substantial figures for what was, not long ago, a niche idea.
According to the 2025 U.S. Family Travel Survey, conducted by the Family Travel Association in partnership with the NYU School of Professional Studies and Good Housekeeping, nearly three quarters of grandparents typically take at least one multi-day skip-gen trip each year. That frequency suggests this is no longer a once-in-a-lifetime gesture. It’s becoming a regular rhythm.
Nearly half of all travelers were opting for multigenerational or family trips in 2025, surpassing all other types of group travel and rising roughly one fifth compared to 2024. The broader wave is real, and skip-gen sits comfortably at its crest.
A Trend Built on a Pandemic Realization
What is notable is that interest in this style of travel did not fade the way other pandemic-era habits did. Rather, the skip-gen travel trend continues to gain momentum, largely thanks to the grandparents who either fully or partially fund the trip. The COVID years gave families a sharp sense of how quickly time slips away.
After COVID, families received a reminder that time together is finite. Children’s school breaks are numbered, and those precious windows shrink faster than anyone expects. The urgency families felt in 2020 and 2021 did not disappear. It became a lifestyle shift.
Multigenerational travel is now booming, fueled in part by the roughly 70 million grandparents in the United States who want to spend more time making memories with their families. That is a large and motivated demographic, and the travel industry has clearly noticed.
Grandparents Are Driving the Bookings, and Paying for Them
About three-quarters of today’s grandparents plan and organize their skip-generation getaways, and the vast majority pay for the entire experience. This financial dimension is genuinely important. It removes a major barrier for many families who might otherwise delay or skip travel altogether.
One quarter of all leisure travelers are grandparents who, on average, take four or more trips per year, and more than a third of those trips are multigenerational. Grandparents are not just occasional travelers. They are active, consistent, and increasingly adventurous ones.
Travel Market Report’s Distribution Outlook for 2025 showed that family and multigenerational travel is the second-leading travel category sold by U.S. and Canadian travel advisors, with the share of advisors selling it rising significantly. Advisors are following demand, and that demand has grandparents at the center of it.
The Connection That Only One-on-One Travel Can Create
According to the 2023 U.S. Family Travel Survey, grandparents choose to take a skip-generational trip primarily to bond with their grandchild. That motivation might sound simple, but in practice it produces something rare: sustained, undivided attention between two people who genuinely want to know each other better.
Without parents in the middle, the dynamic shifts completely. Grandparents report that connection feels closer because conversations go deeper when fewer people are present. There is less noise, fewer logistics to negotiate, and less parenting to observe or participate in. Just time.
Parents and grandparents alike believe skip-generation vacations are an excellent way for grandparents and grandchildren to forge closer bonds, spend extended time together, and make lasting memories. The consensus across generations is genuine, not just marketing language.
The Health Benefits Are Real on Both Sides
An AARP study found that nearly nine in ten grandparents derive mental, social, and physical well-being from spending time with their grandchildren. That is a striking figure, and one that reframes the skip-gen trip as something beyond leisure. It functions almost like preventive care.
Strong support from grandparents has been shown to positively influence children’s emotional well-being, while caring for grandchildren may provide cognitive benefits and even increase lifespan for grandparents. Research also indicates that a greater affinity between grown-up grandkids and their grandparents can reduce depressive symptoms in both. The direction of benefit genuinely runs both ways.
For grandparents, quality time with grandchildren is the most valued part of travel, pointing to how multigenerational travel can benefit both emotional and physical health. Thoughtfully designed stays that include wellness amenities and senior-friendly services are becoming essential in ensuring that older generations can travel comfortably while reaping those benefits.
What These Trips Do for Grandchildren Specifically
In the Family Travel Association survey, grandparents reported that after taking a skip-gen trip, they felt their grandchild was more adventurous, and that the trip had helped their grandchild become more flexible and adaptable. These are durable qualities, the kind that outlast the trip itself.
Multigenerational travel is an excellent way to build and strengthen bonds through shared experience. These trips provide a platform for a valuable exchange of knowledge and traditions. Grandparents can share their wisdom and cultural heritage, while the younger generation can introduce new perspectives, enriching the experience for everyone.
Since many grandparents live farther away from their grandchildren than ever before, geographic distance can make it genuinely difficult to spend as much time together as both sides desire. A dedicated trip dissolves that distance in a way that a holiday phone call simply cannot.
Parents Benefit Too, Even from Home
These trips offer an added benefit: giving parents a break so they can enjoy time on their own. According to a recent AARP survey, nearly a third of grandparents have taken at least one of their grandchildren on a skip-gen trip. For parents navigating demanding careers and the relentless pace of modern family life, that breathing room carries real value.
Survey data from Beaches Resorts reveals that roughly half of parents polled are now swapping solo trips for multigenerational options, with about half preferring a multigenerational vacation over a trip with just their own children. Parents are not being left out. They are choosing to step back, at least temporarily, as a way to strengthen the wider family.
The Travel Industry Is Reshaping Itself Around This Trend
Hotel chains like Hilton now emphasize skip-gen travel in their marketing materials, while the nonprofit travel company Road Scholar offers more than 50 trips catering specifically to grandparents and their grandkids, ranging from chocolate-tasting in Switzerland to sailing in Maine. The industry pivot is visible and accelerating.
Road Scholar also offers dedicated skip-gen programs designed specifically for grandparents and grandchildren traveling together, as part of its broader mission of educational travel. The organization recently launched intergenerational programs including a journey through the history of the Civil Rights Movement, designed to provide an enriching experience with a special emphasis on fostering intergenerational dialogue and understanding.
Studies by Virtuoso and Forbes show that multigenerational vacations are now among the fastest-growing segments in all of travel. Suppliers ranging from cruise lines to safari operators are actively reformatting programs to accommodate grandparent-grandchild pairs.
The Trend Is Global, Not Just American
A skip-gen holiday is a trend seen among roughly six in ten Asia Pacific travelers, according to Hilton’s 2026 Trends Report, which found that grandparents and grandchildren are increasingly traveling together, often without parents along. The underlying motivations – connection, memory-making, shared discovery – are not culturally specific.
The trend is particularly strong in China and India, where cross-generational travel has deep cultural resonance. Even in markets where family structures and travel habits differ considerably from Western norms, the skip-gen model resonates.
According to a report from Virtuoso and Globetrender, in 2025, seven generations were traveling simultaneously for the first time in history. The world of travel has never been more generationally layered, and skip-gen sits at the heart of that remarkable moment.
Milestone Moments Are Fueling Itineraries
Many families tie their skip-gen getaways to milestone birthdays, such as a grandchild turning a certain age. A trip at age ten or thirteen becomes a rite of passage, something a grandchild carries into adulthood as a formative memory rather than a fading holiday snapshot.
Beach vacations remain the top destination choice for multigenerational travelers, with a significant share of grandparents planning a beach trip in any given year. Italy, Spain, and Thailand have also joined the list of most popular international destinations, alongside Canada, Japan, and Mexico. The range reflects how personal and varied these trips can be.
Group tours, heritage tours, safaris, cruises, and ranch stays are all among the popular options for skip-generational travel. The format is flexible enough to suit a seven-year-old discovering Yellowstone just as comfortably as a teenager navigating Rome with their grandmother.
What Makes This More Than Just a Travel Trend
Skip-gen travel holds something that most travel trends don’t: a genuine emotional logic that runs deeper than the destination. It acknowledges that grandparents and grandchildren occupy a kind of parallel universe within families, one where the urgency of parenting does not stand between them.
Skip-gen travel is steadily holding its place as one of the top travel trends for families, and the style has become so popular it has even acquired its own nickname: “gramping.” Names stick when something has truly arrived.
The families leading this movement are not chasing novelty. They are responding to something honest about time, distance, and the value of knowing someone you love across the full width of who they are. A shared journey offers that. A holiday card rarely does.
AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.