Dreaming of Travel? The Internet Says You’re Not Alone

According to the latest internet search data from Google, Pinterest and booking app Hopper, and compiled by the Washington Post, Americans stuck at home with COVID-19-produced cabin fever are doing quite a bit of daydreaming about their tentative upcoming travel options.

The combined evidence suggests that, in addition to researching destinations and trip ideas, people are currently using online searches largely to try and gauge when international travel will resume. Yet, the U.S. State Department has given no indication that it plans to lift its Level 4 Advisory (Do Not Travel), first issued in mid-March.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to plague the planet’s populations, people are keeping a weather eye out for ways it might affect their summer travel dreaming, and it’s becoming clear that online users are getting desperate to venture outside their own neighborhoods, even if it isn’t particularly far from home. Here are some of the possibilities that internet users are investigating:

On Google:

Top U.S. travel-related searches on Google’s platform between April 1 and May 11, 2020, included phrases like: “will we be able to travel this summer”, “when will it be safe to travel again”, and the slightly less optimistic “can you travel during shutdown” and “where to travel during COVID”.

Top Google searches for actual flights (scarce though they may be) and potential trips centered on the idyllic, small island nation of the Maldives in the Indian Ocean. If you’re going to fantasize about anywhere in the world you’d go if only you could, you might as well dream wildly and exotically, right?

The predominant search phrase regarding air travel was fairly straightforward: “when will flights resume”. Next in ranking came searches surrounding flights to and from India, followed by destinations that included Sweden, Antarctica, Poland and Switzerland.

On Pinterest:

As a unique platform and social media tool, Pinterest is already largely aspirational in nature, encouraging users to seek out and collect sources of inspiration and ideas on pretty much every topic imaginable, while also sharing their own. It lately launched new features for “board” organization, offering the ability to add notes and calendar dates, making activities like travel-planning easier.

A May 6 news release indicated that searches surrounding travel are on the rise. “In the early phases of the outbreak, Pinners put traveling on hold to focus on needs close to home,” Swasti Sarna, Pinterest Insights Manager, told the Washington Post. “But in April, future optimism began to take hold as searches for ‘travel ideas’ and ‘travel destinations’ started to climb back up.”

In a comparison of Pinterest’s travel-related user activity from April 20 to May 3 against searches from April 6 to April 19, 2020, Sarna found that Pinterest users are most looking forward to heading out of town with their loved ones. Searches for “travel family” had risen 78 percent over the previous period, while “friends traveling” spiked 74 percent.

“Pinners are dreaming about going to the beach this summer,” she revealed, saying that “beach trip packing list” searches more than doubled and searches centered on “beach trip with friends” went up 81 percent.

Adventures on the open road are also top-of-mind at the moment, with searches for “road trip with kids” and “healthy road trip snacks” having doubled since April, and searches for “road trip games” climbing 50 percent. Popular road-tripping destinations among pinners included South Dakota (wherein lie outdoor attractions like Mt. Rushmore and Badlands National Park), Colorado and Oregon.

On Hopper:

Hopper economist, Hayley Berg, pulled the flight- and hotel-booking app’s data from April 1 through May 12 to reveal its most popular destination searches during the six-week period.

Internationally speaking, the five most frequently searched destinations were San Juan, Puerto Rico; Cancun, Mexico; London, U.K.; Paris, France; and San Jose, Costa Rica, in that order.

Within the states, the top search spots went to Las Vegas, Nevada; Honolulu, Hawaii; Los Angeles, California; Miami, Florida; and Denver, Colorado.

While we’re all chomping at the bit to get out of the house and go just about anywhere else these days, health experts continue to advise against any sort of travel at this time, fearing a second wave of COVID-19 outbreaks could occur as America gradually emerges from lockdown.

So, at least for the moment… keep dreaming.