For Gen Z, Travel Is the New Dating App

Everyone told Emma that she would meet the love of her life overseas, but she never believed them. That stuff doesn’t happen in real life, the 27-year-old New Zealander would say. Then at 25, she met 28-year-old Neil on a bus driving through Paris. The couple celebrated a year together this past August.

Sophie, 21, has a similar story: She met 26-year-old Ryan on a bus in London and found herself moving into his Perth, Australia, home seven months later.

True, falling in love abroad remains a fantasy for the vast majority. But dating-app fatigued Gen Zers are prioritizing experiences that get them closer to the fairytale — and travel companies are paying attention. Hotels, airlines, and travel agencies are dripping with predictions about what this next generation of their consumers will look like, including what’s motivating them, where they’re going, and what they’re doing there. Are they a generation of slow travelers? Sober travelers? Will they take the roads less traveled, or follow in millennials’ footsteps to the same highly Instagrammed destinations?

A lot of questions remain about their travel habits, but one thing is clear: Gen Z is ready to get out there — literally. At home, they struggle to meet new people organically, and for those who can afford it, travel fills the hole created by that social vacuum. The 2025 Priceline trend report found that in the US, Gen Z is 75 percent more likely than the average traveler to have researched the best “destination to meet new people.” In Britain, Hilton reports that 52 percent of Gen Z is embarking on “YOLO” trips after a breakup to mend their broken hearts and potentially meet someone new.

Past generations had ample opportunities to find love out in the real world, and app-weary Zillennials want in on the action. They’re stepping out of their comfort zones and off their screens, heading out in search of real-life romance in far-flung places. Reddit is full of threads from young users seeking advice on how to plan post-break-up trips and how to find love while traveling. Travel company EF, which offers a segment of tours for ages 18-35 called EF Ultimate Break, ran an “Ultimate Break(up) Tour” for Valentine’s Day last year that sent heart-sore and recently single travelers to Paris.

And while EF doesn’t design tours specifically to inspire romance, they do design them with Gen Z’s unique interests and challenges in mind (like padding itineraries with ample free time to check sites off a TikTok bucket list, or encouraging pre-trip chatter in dedicated Ultimate Break group chats, for example). From there, EF Ultimate Break president Heather Leisman tells PS that romantic connections tend to sprout organically. So far this year, the entire Ultimate Break team has been invited to two weddings.

“We really focus on creating those connections especially for a generation that grew up on their cell phones,” Leisman adds. “The whole [travel] experience forces you to learn a lot about people — you’re in stressful situations on tight timelines, and you’re tested in a way. It’s like an accelerated dating course. One trip with someone is probably worth two years of dating them in the same city.”

Sophie’s European tour with Contiki is proof. “I think if I met [Ryan] through a dating app or through friends, we wouldn’t have gotten past the second date,” she says. “But because we were with each other 24/7 for six weeks, we got to know each other very well. We saw the best and worst of each other.”

But of course there are ways to connect with strangers even if you’re traveling solo, without a group. Priceline’s consumer travel expert Christina Bennett tells PS that a shortcut to meeting people abroad is to “plan for connection.”

“This means choosing destinations and accommodations that naturally foster interaction,” she says. It’s best to seek out communal spaces, or what Bennett calls “social playgrounds,” like a lively lounge at a boutique hotel, or an all-inclusive resort with lots of on-site activities. “Think beyond the usual and consider excursions, events, or nightlife options where meeting new people feels effortless.”

Before Emma ventured out with Contiki, she had spent the last few years at home in Palmerston North dating without “much success.” She had joined Tinder a couple times but always got bored before actually meeting up with matches. But after just a couple days with Neil, she realized she couldn’t stop thinking about him. “He was just so carefree and had a great sense of humor and there was just something about him that I really liked,” she says.

She recalls calling her parents from Greece to tell them about Neil. They asked if it was just a fling. “I was adamant that it was the real thing, but I think a small part of me was scared that once the trip was over, that that would be it,” she says. She would later meet his parents via FaceTime at the Turkish border, and he would meet hers the same way in Istanbul.

At the end of their tour, the two tearfully split off in Amsterdam, after admitting to one another that they’d fallen in love. Neil was flying back to his hometown in Australia, and Emma was extending her European travels a bit longer. After a couple back-and-forths between New Zealand and Australia, plus daily FaceTimes in the interim, Emma decided to move to Australia, where she and Neil have been living together since June.

Leisman says that while there are differing opinions about the cause of the “loneliness epidemic,” Gen Z (and everyone younger) “just doesn’t have that same social circle that [other generations] had growing up, and they’re looking for ways to connect with other people of their own age, or even just other humans.” She adds, “The way they’re finding that is through shared experiences, and travel checks that box.”

Leisman wouldn’t go so far as to call EF’s tour directors matchmakers per se, and the same goes for Contiki. But the ultimate goal of a tour leader is to facilitate a crackling group dynamic, she says — especially among a demographic of travelers who might be more familiar with the sparkles emoji than the sensation of sparks flying IRL.

Emma Glassman-Hughes (she/her) is the associate editor at PS Balance. In her seven years as a reporter, her beats have spanned the lifestyle spectrum; she’s covered arts and culture for The Boston Globe, sex and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and food, climate, and farming for Ambrook Research.