Main image: Courtesy of Furtenbach Adventures
High-friction travel
A new wave of travelers is actively seeking out friction to shock themselves back to reality.
Ditching comfortable vacations for intense physical and psychological trials, some travelers are testing what happens when comfort, predictability, and control are stripped away.
VML Intelligence identified this shift in The Future 100: 2026, tracking travelers who combine vacations with physical and psychological challenges, from open-water swimming to ultramarathons. Globally, 56% say vacations are an opportunity to challenge themselves, while 88% believe travel has the potential to change or help them grow as a person. Among generation Z, 67% see trips as an opportunity to challenge both body and mind.
The trend also extends an idea VML explored in The Future 100: 2023 through “Dark Zones,” when travelers were beginning to visit places associated with conflict, disaster and other confronting realities. What connects the two is not necessarily an appetite for danger, but a growing desire for travel that offers perspective precisely because it is difficult.
That distinction matters to Lukas Furtenbach, owner of high-altitude expedition company Furtenbach Adventures. “People are not looking for danger. They are looking for something real,” he tells VML Intelligence. “Our everyday lives have become increasingly comfortable, predictable, and regulated. Technology has removed uncertainty from almost every aspect of modern life. Mountains are one of the few places where nature still sets the rules.”
Furtenbach says many clients are entrepreneurs and executives who find that the resilience and decision-making developed on expeditions carry back into everyday life. But he draws a firm line between challenge and unnecessary danger. “Adventure should never mean accepting avoidable fatalities,” he says. His company uses pre-acclimatization, physiological monitoring, specialist guides, weather forecasting, and redundant oxygen systems to reduce manageable risks while preserving the challenge itself.
People are not looking for danger.
They are looking for something real.
For Chinese traveler Dai Tata, who works as a veteran culinary PR, risk is even less central to the decision. She has traveled to destinations including South Sudan, Yemen, and Somalia, but says she never chooses somewhere because it sounds dangerous.
She tells VML Intelligence, “What made my adrenaline rise wasn’t thinking, ‘I’m somewhere dangerous.’ It was finally reaching somewhere I had dreamed of seeing and being overwhelmed by what was in front of me.”
She argues that perceptions of risk can also be misleading. Rather than treating entire countries as uniformly dangerous, she researches the specific places she plans to visit and relies heavily on local professional advice. More importantly, she is prepared to trade comfort for access. “For me, travel is about opening my eyes and learning more about the world. Comfort is a very small consideration.”
What made my adrenaline rise wasn’t thinking, ‘I’m somewhere dangerous.’ It was finally reaching somewhere I had dreamed of seeing and being overwhelmed by what was in front of me.
The appetite for testing limits is becoming increasingly visible. In early August, Polish endurance swimmer Bartłomiej Kubkowski completed a 100-mile Baltic Sea crossing from Sweden to Poland after four failed attempts, while The New York Times has documented a growing social media genre built around ambitious cross-continental journeys. Yet the same report highlighted warnings from security specialists that genuine geopolitical risk cannot be treated like another endurance challenge.
The opportunity for travel brands, then, is not to glamorize danger. It is to understand the growing appeal of earned transformation. VML’s 2026 report argues that travelers increasingly want to return home “charged and changed, not just rested.” High-friction travel takes that desire one step further. The harder the journey feels, the more meaningful the arrival can become. By trading passive luxury for active achievement, hospitality and tourism companies can connect with this growing, adventurous cohort seeking off-grid challenges that ultimately leave them feeling transformed.
