He flew from NYC to Zurich in the morning, was in his home by bedtime
USA TODAY
Gen Z and millennials are embracing 24-hour “micro-cations,” squeezing international trips into a single day without using PTO.
On a Wednesday evening in February, Kevin Droniak left his apartment in New York City for a seven-and-a-half-hour flight to Zurich. He landed at 6 a.m. and spent all of Thursday skiing in the Swiss Alps. He flew back home that evening, landed at 7 p.m. and was back home to sleep in his own bed the same night. That's nearly 8,000 miles traveled in 24 hours.
This isn't the first time Droniak, 28, has taken a day-long trip. He's been doing it for almost a decade, going to far-off destinations like Japan, Iceland and Egypt. Each time, the experiences he can squeeze in just a day's worth of travel still surprise him.
"I'm like, it doesn't feel normal. It doesn't feel like it's possible, but then you're like, oh, well, other things in life are probably possible too," Droniak, who documents his micro-cations on social media with nearly half a million followers on TikTok, as of Feb. 25, told USA TODAY. All he has with him is his backpack, filled with basic toiletries like a toothbrush and camera equipment.
Micro-cations – extremely short trips in which someone departs and returns from their home within the same 24 hours – are quickly rising as a new type of travel. This year, 25% of Gen Z and millennial travelers said they plan on taking a micro-cation, according to Expedia's recently released 2026 Air Hacks Report, which surveyed 1,000 U.S. adults in Jan. 2026.
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