Young Indians take the lead in global travel, solo adventures, and smart spending on the rise

A new set of Indian travellers has surfaced in 2025, youthful, liberated, and keen on discovering the world. According to the latest travel report by fintech platform Niyo, millennials and Gen Z now make up nine out of ten transnational trips from India. Tech-savvy and experience-driven, they plan carefully, travel solo, and make every rupee count. “Gen Z and Millennials accounted for 9 in 10 international trips. Two-thirds of these journeys started from Delhi, Bengaluru, and Mumbai, showing the big role India’s major cities play in outbound travel,” the report noted. One of the biggest trends? Solo travel. Nearly 64% of trips were undertaken alone, while couples made up around 20%, families 12%, and groups just 4%.

Where Indians are heading

Asian short-haul destinations and emerging Central Asian countries continue to capture travellers’ imaginations. Leading the list is Thailand with 23% of trips, followed closely by the UAE at 21.5%. Other well-liked destinations included Georgia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, the UK, and Singapore. “Thailand, UAE, Malaysia, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan are seeing strong flight growth, while visa bookings are surging for Dubai, Vietnam, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Indonesia,” it said.

Spending on experiences and essentials

When it comes to spending, shopping leads the way—making up almost half of overseas expenditure. Dining (20.7%), transportation (19.9%), accommodation (9%), and experiences (3%) followed. Evidently, these young adventurers are giving much thought to pleasure combined with intelligent accounting, that way, they can get the most out of every journey.