The King will visit Australia this year as the royals return to a busy schedule of overseas travel.
After a year of transition, with the monarch and his heir the Prince of Wales getting to grips with their new roles, their diary will return to a more regular pace, complete with major spring and autumn tours.
While His Majesty already has three state visits under his belt, he has yet to see any of his 14 overseas realms as monarch.
But a trip to Samoa for October's Commonwealth's Heads of Government Meeting means he and the Queen will be able to stop off in Australia and possibly New Zealand either en route or on the way back.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the visit at the start of the year, with a spokesman saying he "enjoys a warm relationship with the King and looks forward to welcoming His Majesty to Australia later this year".
It will be the first trip Down Under by a reigning monarch since 2011, when Elizabeth II visited for the last time. With the republican movement growing, it will be a key moment for the King to cement his relationship with the Australian people, six years after his last visit. He and the Queen – then the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall – opened the Commonwealth Games in Queensland in 2018.
Ahead of that trip, Their Majesties are also expected to return to Canada in the spring for the first time since the accession. In 2022, they travelled more than 2,000 miles from St John's in Newfoundland and Labrador to the capital Ottawa, then on to Yellowknife and Dettah in the Northwest Territories. This will be His Majesty’s 20th visit to Canada and the sixth for the Queen.
However, the first royal overseas visit of 2024 began this week, with the Princess Royal and her husband Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence undertaking a three-day visit to Sri Lanka to mark 75 years of diplomatic relations with the UK.
The Prince and Princess of Wales are also preparing for their first official overseas visits – again at the request of the Government – since taking on their new roles.
Talks are under way about Prince William and Kate possibly travelling to Italy in the spring, hot on the heels of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s meeting with his Italian counterpart, Giorgia Meloni, in Rome last month. This would be the Prince and Princess's first official visit to Italy, although as a student the then Kate Middleton spent three months studying art history in Florence during her gap year, which could mean a return to the Tuscan city.
In the past 12 months, the Prince has made journeys to New York, Singapore, Poland and Kuwait, while Kate joined him for the royal wedding of Crown Prince Al Hussein of Jordan to Saudi architect Rajwa Al Saif last June.
Both travelled separately to France to support England and Wales during their Rugby World Cup ties, too. This will be the first major trip for the couple since their tour of the Caribbean in March 2022, where they encountered scattered anti-monarchy protests. There will also be another glittering Earthshot Prize ceremony, with the continents of Africa and South America lined up as potential hosts. The long-haul trip could tie into a tour for them.
Also this summer, Princess Anne, president of the British Olympic Association and a member of the International Olympic Committee, is likely to attend the Paris Games, while other members of the royal family could also head across the Channel to support Team GB.
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