With 37 years of experience in creating award-winning holidays to Central and South America, specialist tour operator Journey Latin America is delighted to announce their key trends in travel and predicts four destinations that are expected to capture holidaymaker's imagination in 2018.

KEY TRAVEL TRENDS 2018

Food and Wine

Latin America is fast gaining a reputation for its outstanding cuisine thanks to a recent mini boom in trendy and upmarket restaurant openings in the UK, food programmes such as Rick Stein's latest BBC series Road to Mexico as well as local dishes being featured in many food publications. In addition, several acclaimed restaurants in Peru, Mexico and Brazil feature in this year's top 20 of “The World's 50th Best Restaurants”. To satisfy the appetite, Journey Latin America has developed a range of Food and Wine holidays covering Peru, Argentina and Chile.

• Their brand new 10-day Mexican Street Food holiday starts from £1,751 per person and explores three of Mexico's most evocative cities; Puebla, Oaxaca and Mexico City.

Off the Beaten Track

In today's increasingly globalised world, our craving for adventure, blazing new trails and exploring new, enticing horizons has never been so strong.  As one of the first UK tour operators to offer trips to Latin America, we have been pioneering routes since 1980 and as such are experts in this field. To keep up with this demand, we've recently launched three Off The Beaten Track holidays:

• Landlocked, rural Paraguay is a bit of an unknown quantity for visitors, well off the beaten track, and culturally very different from its neighbours; Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. Our 12-day Signature Paraguay: The Missions and The Chaco is a comprehensive tour of Paraguay; it gives an insight into the Mennonite communities and combines the remote Chaco wetlands with Jesuit Missions. From £3,815 per person.
• Colombia has surged in popularity, with bookings tripling in as many years. As the Foreign & Commonwealth Office has relaxed its advice, new areas continue to open up. This year, for the first time, Journey Latin America launched a new tour that explores the Colombian Amazon and ventures to little-visited regions including the colonial town of Popayán, the archaeological park of San Agustín and the Tatacoa desert. Off The Beaten Track Colombia: San Agustín and The Amazon is a 12-day holiday and starts from £2,524 per person.
• The difficulty of access to the shattered landscapes of Bolivia means that many communities remain isolated from modernisation taking place elsewhere. Our new Zampullin: Vistas of Bolivia group tour takes in the highlights of La Paz and Lake Titicaca but also travels down the Che Trail; a rough, lonely but incredibly scenic road following Che Guevara's final footsteps in the villages of Vallegrande and La Higuera. The 13-day holiday costs £2,950 per person.

Self-Drive

The freedom of the road, the flexibility to stop where and when you want as well a more economical way of travel has led to the popularity in Self-Drive Holidays. Over the last few years we have been expanding our self-drive range to meet the demand that includes Cuba, Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and more recently Peru, Nicaragua and Colombia.

• This week, we launched our brand new 10-day Self-Drive Ecuador: Back Road of the Andes holiday, a unique and exclusive itinerary that encompasses three different regions and ecosystems; the Andes, the cloud forest and the Amazon. On this holiday you'll have the opportunity to meet remote communities, observe an array of wildlife, take a dip in thermal springs and go white-water rafting. Prices from £2,712 per person.

Glamping

With the steady rise in luxury camping options around Latin America, “glamping” is more popular than ever and our clients are opting for these quirkier options over traditional hotels. The latest to join our glamping portfolio is Scalesia Lodge, a new high-quality tented accommodation on Isabela Island, Galápagos.

• Our 10-day Signature Galápagos: Island Hopping holiday stay 3nts at Scalesia and starts from £4,512 per person.

Other glamping options include:

• Luxury yurt camp in Torres del Paine National Park in Chile.
• Ecocamp are tented domes, inspired by native Kaweskar dwellings also located in Patagonia's most famous national park, Torres del Paine.
• Galápagos Safari Camp on Santa Cruz Island in the Galápagos is inspired by Africa's luxury safari camps.
• A deluxe vintage-style Airstream campervan located on the salt flats of Uyuni in Bolivia.
• Rafiki Safari Lodge in Costa Rica is a South African-influenced, top-of-the-range tented camp.
• Inkaterra Canopy Tree House is an exclusive, one-of-a-kind hideaway for two and offers a magical 26m-high vantage point from which to take in the sights and sounds of the Peruvian Amazon.

DESTINATIONS TO WATCH IN 2018

Argentina

Journey Latin America predicts Argentina will be a destination on the up in 2018, buoyed by competitive prices and easier access. Travellers can take advantage of Norwegian Air's first low-cost long-haul flight to Buenos Aires. Flying direct and non-stop from Gatwick four times a week, the new service launching February 14 compliments British Airway's direct and daily service from Heathrow. From the sophisticated capital of Buenos Aires, travellers can access the glacial wonders of southern Patagonia; the subtropical forests of the Iguazú Falls; the dramatic canyons and foothills of the Andean north-west; and the wine-growing deserts of Mendoza.

• 13-day Signature Argentina: Patagonia, Lake District and Iguazú Falls. From £3,118 per person.

Chile

Thanks to new non-stop direct flights from London with British Airways, we've seen a 30% growth in visitors to Chile in 2017 and with the locals celebrating the country's 200th anniversary of Independence in 2018, there's never been a better time to start planning a trip. Choose from the lunar landscapes around the Atacama Desert in the north, the lush wine-growing valleys of the central region to the lakes, fjords and glaciers of southern Patagonia.

• 13-day Signature Chile: Atacama Desert to Patagonian Glaciers. From £4,572 per person.

Mexico

Discovered in 1995, the vast Mayan complex of Ichkabal will open to visitors in early 2018. Located near Bacalar in the southern Yucatán, Ichkabal is a vast archaeological site with at least five main pyramids – some over 40m high.

• For a true Indiana Jones experience, travellers can access the ruins on Journey Latin America's 13-day Self-Drive Mexico: Discover the Yucatán Peninsula From £1,492 per person.

Peru

Peru will be firmly in the spotlight next year for families following the hugely successful film release of Paddington 2 and with the 60th anniversary since the publication of Michael Bond's first Paddington Bear book happening on October 13 there's no place better to celebrate than in Paddington's original home.  

• To mark the occasion, Journey Latin America has launched an adventurous 14-day From Paddington to Peru family holiday offering holidaymakers the unique opportunity to meet and learn about the endangered spectacled bears in their own environment. From £3,807 per person.

Note to editor:

Prices are per person and include domestic flights, transfers, good-quality, mid-range hotels, excursions and breakfast. International flights are extra.