Step back from the carousel: My (unrealistic) travel wishes for 2025

It’s almost a ritual at this time of year to come up with predictions for the next 12 months in travel. This destination will be popular, this style of travel will be in vogue, this pair of pants will become the must-have travel item.

Predictions are fine. But what about what we really want from travel? What about the fantasies that will probably never come true, but which are nice to consider anyway?

Just take a step back so everyone can see their bags arriving. It’s not hard.Credit: Alamy

The following are my wishes for the travel world in 2025, the things I would really love to come true, even though it seems highly unlikely that any of it will ever happen. At this magical time of year, we’re allowed to dream.

Everyone will take two steps back from the baggage carousel

This is the easiest wish to grant, and the one least likely. Unless you’re in Japan. Please everyone, you don’t have to ram your trolley right up against the baggage carousel when you’ll probably have to wait another 15 minutes for your giant suitcase to roll past. If everyone hangs back, we can all see our bags coming, and step forward at the right time to grab them.

Hotel rooms will all have easy-to-find master light switches

How amazing is it when you check into a new hotel, jump into bed, reach across to the wall next to you and hit one button, and all the lights go out? It’s magical, and it sure beats the more common experience of wandering around the room searching the walls and the floor for various buttons that control everything from the air-con to the blinds to the tiny strip-light along the foot of the bed.

Digital arrival cards for all

As reported a few weeks ago, Border Force is trialling digital incoming passenger cards (IPCs) for arrivals into Australia, bringing us into line with, I dunno, pretty much every other developed country on the planet? Right now it’s only for Qantas passengers who use the Qantas app – maybe in 2025 we could have a dedicated app available for use by all incoming passengers?

Australia gets high-speed rail

It’s a federal election year in 2025, which means we will have our ritual promises of high-speed rail in Australia – surveys carried out, holes dug, budgets totted up – and the equally ritualistic disappearance of those plans a few months later. Sure enough, a High Speed Rail Authority office has recently opened in Newcastle, and exploratory drilling has taken place to establish a Sydney-to-Newcastle route, the first step of a high-speed rail network that will one day link Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Um … right?

Qantas goes back to proper meals

Even now, after all this time, it’s a surprise to me when I fly Qantas and it gets to meal time and a single container of food is placed down in front of me. Like, this is it? A full-service international airline? Australia’s flagship carrier? And we don’t get a proper meal? The food is tasty, don’t get me wrong, but the style of service feels stingy compared to the industry leaders.

Border Force sorts out its SmartGates

It feels like every time I arrive at Sydney airport these days, there’s a new system for passport control. First the SmartGate kiosks are down by passport control, then they’re strewn around the arrivals area with people barking at you to use them, now they seem to be back down near passport control but the system is completely different. Can you just find one decent approach and stick with it?

Border Force needs to sort out its SmartGate system at Sydney Airport.

I will magically be able to turn on all hotel showers

I will never understand why so many hotels install showers that are so difficult to turn on. Sometimes hot and cold aren’t even marked. Sometimes you have to twist one knob and then pull another out. Sometimes you think you’re turning on the top shower but instead you’re turning on the little handheld one that for some reason is pointed right at you and blasts you in the face with cold water (just me?). Maybe next year I’ll be able to figure them all out.

Everyone will ditch one flight

We love to travel, but we need to fly less. It’s a conundrum for Australians, who really do need to fly to visit another country. We can, however, still cut down on the number of flights we take, and my simple desire for 2025 is that everyone cancels just one short flight and replaces it with a train journey or even bus ride. Every little bit counts. And while we’re at it, maybe some business travellers could just use Zoom?

Everyone will ditch one overcrowded city

Crowds in Kyoto’s bamboo forest. Japan had a record number of tourists this year.Credit: Getty Images

Again, it’s tricky: popular cities are popular for a reason. They’re great. Barcelona is amazing. Amsterdam is the best. Kyoto is gorgeous. You can’t expect tourists to just not go to these places. But maybe you can skip one. Maybe you can ditch one overcrowded destination and replace it with somewhere off the beaten track. Or just stay longer in fewer places.

Americans will do away with tipping

The tipping system in the US is the worst: who do you tip, how much do you tip, how do you even give the tip – all these things are total mysteries to outsiders. Travel to the so-called land of the free would be a whole lot better without it.

“Green” hotels will actually be green

“Green-washing” in the hotel industry is definitely a thing. Everyone is looking for eco credentials these days, so plenty of hotels just tell you they have them, even if they’re doing very little to lessen their impact. My wild fantasy for 2025 is that hotels and tour operators and airlines and everyone else in the industry who claims to be making an effort will actually be doing it.

The Australian dollar will strengthen (and interest rates will dive)

Cozzie livs is biting hard right now – that’s “cost-of-living” for those of you who probably don’t have to worry about it – which makes any sort of travel difficult, and beyond the reach of many. Adding to that is the weakness of the Australian dollar against major currencies like the American dollar and the euro. Here’s hoping, in 2025, that those currencies become more like the very affordable Japanese yen – and that the Reserve Bank brings down interest rates.

I will use my frequent flyer points to book a flight

Another simple wish, but an important one. All these frequent flyer points, but no available flights to spend them on.

Airports replace pointless luxury stores with useful facilities

Does anyone actually buy things in these places?Credit: iStock

No one ever goes into the Louis Vuitton stores, the Prada, the Gucci. They’re glorified billboards, space-eating advertisements. In my ideal world, airports would ditch them all and replace them with facilities that are different to anything on offer right now, places that allow you to move, to experience, to do something other than just shop. Let passengers hit golf balls, or play musical instruments, or play VR games, or tinker with amazing pieces of tech. I would spend my money on that.

There will be lasting peace in Syria. And Palestine. And Ukraine

That we even get to think about travel at this time of year is an immense privilege. This entire article reeks of privilege – though these are the travel pages, so that’s what we talk about here. My real fantasy for 2025, however, is that the fragile peace in Syria holds, there’s a ceasefire in Gaza, and the war in Ukraine draws to a close. These places could be the mainstream travel destinations of the future. But right now, desperately, they need peace.

Happy holidays everyone – see you in the new year.