Well, it’s that time of year again. The leaves are changing, the days are getting shorter, and award shows are in full swing. As we begin to reflect on this past year, we love to look at travel trends and numbers.
It should come as no surprise that travel habits from the past year look a bit different than they did in 2020 and especially 2019. Our data tells a larger story about how you spent your time traveling over the past few months.
Story time
For this year’s Travel Awards, we created a new kind of story: KAYAK’s first-ever “State Superlatives.” As the world’s leading travel search engine, we analyzed billions of search queries to determine how travel search behavior has evolved from state to state across the country. With this information, we gave each search behavior a superlative – yes, like straight out of a high school yearbook – and plotted it on our map.
Is sleeping in or taking off early more important? Who’s banking on those vacation packages vs. planning a trip like they’re at a buffet? Some of what we saw was pretty predictable. For example, New Yorkers are the most likely to travel for business whereas Californians can be found road tripping across their state – no surprises there. Other data, however, was more surprising: travelers from Mississippi love a good deal, while folks from Ohio rarely catch an early flight.
No matter what your search habits might be, odds are there are other US jet-setters with similar travel philosophies. Check out the full map of data-driven State Travel Superlatives below:
In addition to this year’s “State Superlatives,” KAYAK also analyzed millions of verified guest reviews from 2020 to now, for its annual Travel Awards recognizing the best hotels, airlines and car rental companies of 2021 so when you’re ready to travel, you can plan your trip confidently. To qualify, we looked at more than a full year of reviews left or accumulated on KAYAK.
For more information on KAYAK’s Travel Awards and the full list of winners head to www.kayak.com/travelawards.
Methodology
State Travel Awards
Unless otherwise stated, KAYAK US searches were considered by state using searcher IP addresses to determine origin for search dates 3/1/2020 – 7/31/2021 (COVID-era) for all future travel dates. For comparison data showing pre-COVID vs COVID search dates change, search dates 7/1/2019 – 2/28/2020 (pre-COVID era) were used.
