United Kingdom (Commonwealth Union)_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 William, 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 King Charles 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 the King and Queen will be able to stop off in Australia and possibly New Zealand either en route or on the way back.
Also read :
Princess Anne touches down for tour in Sri Lanka
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed the visit at the start of the year, with a spokesman saying he enjoys a warm relationship with His Majesty King Charles and is looking forward to welcoming King Charles to Australia later this year.
It will be the first trip to Australia 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 people Down Under, 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.
Their Majesties are also expected to return to Canada ahead of that trip, in the spring for the first time since the accession. They travelled more than 2,000 miles in 2022, 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 King Charles’ 20th visit to Canada and the sixth for the Queen.
The first royal overseas visit of 2024 however, 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 seventy-five years of diplomatic relations with the United Kingdom.
Prince William and Princess Catherine 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 The Prince and Princess of Wales 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 their first official visit to Italy, although as a student the then Kate Middleton spent 3 months studying art history in Florence during her gap year, which might mean a return to the Tuscan city.
The Prince has made journeys to New York, Singapore, Poland and Kuwait, in the past 12 months, while Kate joined him for the royal wedding of Crown Prince Al Hussein of Jordan to Saudi architect Rajwa Al Saif last June.
Both also travelled separately to France to support England and Wales during their Rugby World Cup ties. This will be the first major trip for the couple since their tour in March 2022, to the Caribbean 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 possibly tie into a tour for them.
Also Princess Anne, president of the British Olympic Association and a member of the International Olympic Committee, is likely to attend the Paris Games this summer, while other members of the royal family could also head across the Channel to support Team GB.
