Skyscanner US Reveals Reasons for Road trips and Most Popular Places

Last updated on 26 August 2020

American citizens have been adapting to the measures put in place over the last few months, and as well as domestic air travel taking center stage, many are looking to escape by car.

The great American road trip has been made famous by some of our favorite books and movies, but what are people looking for in 2020? Skyscanner polled American travellers on skyscanner.com to find out.

The findings from the survey* are below:

• Many in the US are using a road trip as their break from everyday life, with most participants saying they would use the trip to escape to the mountains (35%) and just 12% stating they wanted to visit the city
• Getting far away from their home base was also a key part of why they were looking to take a trip, with most participants (32%) stating they would go more than 1000 miles on their trip
• The need for human connection that has been underlined by the coronavirus pandemic was evident in the findings too, with ”good company” being most commonly named as the most important thing when taking a road trip
• Reasonableness is the order of the day, with 50% of respondents stating they wanted a medium, practical car for their road trip, and 35% choosing safety and convenience as the motivation behind their mode of transport
• Good scenery (25%) was the second most important thing on people’s minds for their road trips, and 22% of participants named Instagram and social media as the inspiration for their trip

Please see below the top 10 performing pickup cities for car rental based on searches from users in the US over the last 10 weeks:  

1. New York
2. Denver
3. Las Vegas
4. Los Angeles
5. Orlando
6. Washington
7. Chicago
8. Newark
9. Atlanta
10. San Francisco

40% of 1000+ participants who took part in a Skyscanner and OnePoll US survey in May said that they were “very likely” to travel by car once they were able to take their first trip.

Paul Cumins, Car Rental Expert at Skyscanner said:

“American travelers are seeking adventure and escape in a time when they would normally be using their vacation to discover the rest of the world. What we are seeing is pent-up wanderlust creating interest around domestic road trips, with people looking a little bit closer to home for a 2020 break.

We also see interest in foreign travel returning for later in the year and into next year on our flight and hotel sites, so it seems that US travelers are happy to use summer 2020 as an excuse to explore their own backyard before venturing further in Fall, Winter and 2021.”

*Survey carried out on Skyscanner.com from 14^th – 19^th August 2020 with 763 participants