From apitourism to agritourism: 7 unusual ways to travel ethically in 2025
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Could specialist travel be an antidote to mass, fast tourism in 2025? Eloise Barker discovers how seeking out beekeepers to venturing along pilgrim paths makes for more meaningful travel experiences. What’s the antithesis of 2024’s scenes of overtourism, where we found ourselves in crowds and queues at every turn? Well, how about a more niche holiday? These more unusual travel ideas give you a special focus, a more meaningful experience – and they are often better for the nature and communities you visit, too.
![[Swapping luxury spa retreats for hot springs allows you to delve into social histories]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/07/16/newFile-13.jpg)
Find your new niche for a new year, with seven unusual travel experiences for 2025…. Be a hot spring tourist… from Japanese onsens to Icelandic lagoons, to the hot springs that fill the bath houses of Budapest and Eastern Europe – your cup runneth over.
![[Visiting beekeepers, or apitourism, helps lift up rural areas]](https://static.independent.co.uk/2025/01/07/16/newFile-15.jpg)
Read more: These destinations are giving visitors rewards for being ‘good tourists’. Slovenia has the most beekeepers per capita in Europe. In the 2010s, apitourism became a buzzword as Slovenia harnessed its famous honey power to draw tourists into the forests – visiting beekeepers and their beautifully painted traditional hives, going honey tasting, and even trying apitherapy (spa treatments using bee products). Apitourism seems niche, but the humble bee can connect you to local producers, to a living cultural heritage, and to the wider natural world. Plus, apitourism helps combat the decline of rural areas.
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