Long vacations are not the things for summer 2020. U.S. citizens are generally unable to fly internationally, and many are unwilling to fly domestically or even be around others for extended periods. So lots of Americans are doing more last-minute road trips, generally closer to home, for a few days at a time. Also knows as “quickies.”
Last year Hotwire, the travel website that sells off unsold inventory of airline tickets, hotel rooms, rental cars, and vacation packages, analyzed where people went on “quickie” vacations. They followed it up this year and the results give a nice idea of places people are going in the Year Of The 2019 Novel Coronavirus (a.k.a. “hell on earth”).
They analyzed more than 10,000 internal and external data points across 300 cities, based on the travel factors that are the most pressing today:
Ease of Arrival (Driveability) (30%)
- Short drive time (based on number of top 50 U.S. metro areas within 250 miles)
Best Bang for Your Buck – Value (30%)
- High hotel demand
- Lowest average hotel daily rate
- Biggest last-minute savings
Things to Do – Leisure (30%)
- Most number of bars (well, where available) and restaurants
- Most things to do (sites and attractions)
- Least number of rainy days
Population (10%)
- Higher priority to those with smaller populations (hence they didn’t even include places with populations over 1 million)
Hotwire listed the Top 10 for each category; here are the top 5 for each:
Major Metropolises (population of 600K to 999,999)
- Las Vegas, NV (last year #1)
- San Francisco, CA (last year #8)
- Washington, D.C. (last year #9)
- Oklahoma City, OK (new to list)
- Seattle, WA (new to list)
Mid-Size Must-Sees (population of 300K to 599,999)
- St. Louis, MO (last year #4)
- Tampa, FL (last year #3)
- Atlanta, GA (new to list)
- Arlington, VA (new to list)
- Tucson, AZ (new to list)
Small Town Favorites (population of 150K to 299,999)
- Orlando, FL (last year #1)
- Scottsdale, AZ (new to list)
- Fort Lauderdale, FL (new to list)
- Reno, NV (last year #5)
- Salt Lake City, UT (last year tied with Boise, ID for #3)
Itty Bitty City (population under 150K)
(Ladies, did any of you see that and the first thing that popped into your head was “Itty Bitty T***y Committee” from junior high school? No, just me? OK.)
- Charleston, SC (last year #3)
- Newport Beach, CA (last year #1)
- Santa Barbara, CA (new to list)
- South Bend, IN (new to list)
- Sarasota, FL (last year #4)
You can go here to see the full Top 10 list, and here if you’d like to see the 2019 list. Both lists are PDFs and include how they did in terms of the travel factors listed above.
Hotwire also included insights into how Americans are planning to travel this year, especially regarding local travel and short, last-minute trips (a.k.a. “quickies”). Here are some snippets:
- 72% of Americans are interested in getting away this summer
- 4 out of 5 people think that quick, local trips are the best way to “test the waters” of a post-quarantine world
- 89% of Americans plan to take health precautions when traveling (include 50% who will travel by car)
- 43% will seek out less crowded destinations (although we all know how that may go)
Click here to see the PDF of what else they found out.
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands #wearamask
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
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