The latest travel buzzword might once have been known as 'ants in your pants' READ MORE: Swapping Center Parcs UK for the Dutch version saved us hundreds of pounds - here's what costs less at the European parksSee more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred SourceBy JOANNA TWEEDY, ASSISTANT EDITOR, LIFESTYLE & TRAVEL Published: 09:40 BST, 28 June 2026 | Updated: 10:00 BST, 28 June 2026
I hate to break it to you, but if your idea of holiday heaven is a balmy lost fortnight by the pool - where floating on a lilo, flicking through a best-seller and enjoying a club sandwich with a glass of something cold is as hectic as it gets, then you’re increasingly in the minority.According to research by Tourism New Zealand, ‘Maxx-Packers’ - travellers who fill their days away with as many activities as possible - sometimes even a marathon - are firmly on the rise.Indeed, around 53% of British travellers say they identify with the trend, while just 31% want the traditional flop-and-drop getaway that’s been the cornerstone of the UK tourism industry since the dawn of the package holiday in the 1970s.A typical day in the life of a maxx-packer on their travels? They’re up with the lark -who needs a lie-in, anyway? - and raring to tick off an itinerary (likely in spreadsheet form and prepped months in advance) that shoehorns in everything from cultural sightseeing to immersive exercise, such as a long hike or run through local scenery. If your idea of holiday heaven involves a pool, a slowing heart-rate and a glass of something cold, then you're now in a minority according to the latest researchTen days later, having imbibed zero pina coladas, they go home for, well, a rest, one presumes.Where do I stand on the latest travel buzzword? My needle flutters around on the holiday exertion dial. An official surmising might read: ‘Not enough high-octane activity to suggest maxx-packing but certainly prone to frequent bouts of the less intense condition known as “ants-in-your-pants”.’I haven’t sat around a pool all day long in decades - this Bridget Fidget would be restless long before that club sandwich turned up; I need my travel horizons stretched beyond a podcast playlist and a beach vista.That said, when the local market has been shopped, the medieval church admired and the hidden cove snorkelled around, an hour or three of lounging in warm, late afternoon sunshine is what I dream of when under the leaden skies of home in February.I suppose I’m more of a fan of accidental maxx-packing; less prescriptive and more where the wind takes you. Around 53% of British travellers say they identify with the 'maxx-packing' trend - essentially not sitting still on holiday My favourite holiday day in recent memory saw a morning stroll in New York’s Central Park meander into an eight-hour urban ramble taking in everything from Fifth Avenue to the High Line and the West Village - the Big Apple’s thrills just kept calling us on.By the time we got back to the hotel, I almost had to physically pick up each leg from the floor to keep moving…but 40,000 steps has never felt so much fun.Could more active breaks also often be a cheaper option? A Spanish villa idyll is divine but it can Costa lotta to do nothing at the summer’s height. Lateral thinking has led us, via low-cost flights, to places we might not have considered otherwise - often cities where free museums, parks and walks come into their own.The kids haven’t always been on board, mind. I have been known to utter the line: ‘When you’re 18, you can go to Ibiza every year. Now stop moaning, get walking and think about the ice-cream at the end.’By return, they’ve offered some withering ripostes. ‘Finished your little school trip now, have you?’ my then 12-year-old barbed after we’d traipsed around an English church yard in the rain looking for Sylvia Plath’s grave - the final stop on an exhausting ‘up hill and down dale’ day.Two years later, the late US author’s most famous book, The Bell Jar, dropped onto her Year 10 reading list…and suddenly ‘maxx-packing’ West Yorkshire felt like it’d paid off. Join the discussionAre jam-packed holidays making travel more rewarding or just exhausting?What's your view?
