We knew our annual Readers’ Choice Awards survey would look a little different this year. With most of us stuck at home during the voting period, the 2021 list reflects the places that travelers yearned for the most and the ways in which the tourism industry has slowly begun to reopen. To reflect the unique circumstances that defined the past year, we added a brand-new section to the survey: “Year in Travel,” a set of questions to assess how the COVID-19 pandemic affected your travel plans in 2020 and how it continues to impact your outlook on travel in 2021 (and beyond). More than 20,000 readers responded, giving us a fascinating glimpse at your past, present, and future travel habits.
The results are enlightening, to say the least. Peruse some of the most interesting takeaways below—we hope it validates some of your own opinions and gives you inspiration for prospective travel plans. Because even as we continue to navigate our way through this pandemic, we’re all thinking about where to go next.
Almost all trips were affected by the pandemic
A whopping 89 percent of voters said they had travel plans that were affected by COVID last year, whether you had to personally postpone a trip or had an airline or hotel cancel your reservations. Unfortunate, but not too surprising.
But a lot of you still traveled in 2020
Despite all the travel restrictions, border closings, and stay-at-home orders, most of you still managed to enjoy at least one leisure trip since March 2020—82 percent of voters, to be exact. A smaller, but still impressive, amount of readers took at least two leisure trips (40 percent), and 5 percent took more than seven leisure trips. (Who are you, and what is your secret?) While 60 percent of readers stuck to domestic trips, 23 percent of you managed to travel internationally last year.
The pandemic obviously changed many aspects of leisure travel for the worse—closed businesses and strict curfews, for example—but some of you were able to find the silver lining. “While business travel was almost entirely eliminated, my few personal trips, while slightly more challenging, were unique due to the lack of crowds,” one reader wrote. “While I would never want to repeat 2020 again, there were some pleasant surprises from time to time in my travels.”
Road trips and solo travel reigned supreme
As more and more flights got canceled and more and more international borders closed to foreigners, road trips became the sleeper hit of 2020. Cars were the most frequently used mode of transportation (44 percent), followed by planes (39 percent). Only 2 percent of voters arrived at their destination via cruise ship.
“This year was about low-key road trips,” wrote one reader. “To manage pandemic restrictions, we looked for rentals with kitchens, drove for all but one trip, stayed relatively close to home, and tried to stay in self-contained properties.”
Another rising trend in the travel world? Solo trips. “I took a trip to Costa Rica with a friend who had to leave early for a COVID-related reason, and I ended up staying two months on my own,” wrote another reader. “So I discovered that I can solo travel by accident. Before it wasn’t something I would have even considered.” Fourteen percent of other survey-takers also took solo trips in 2020, while 5 percent chose solo travel as their first priority once travel bans were lifted over options like visiting a new destination or reuniting with family and friends.
WFH got a lot more interesting
It’s no secret that remote work became one of the biggest byproducts of the pandemic, giving millions of people who had never worked outside of an office building a taste of digital nomad life. There are obvious pros (increased productivity, no commute) and cons (inconsistent Wi-Fi, navigating different time zones) to working remotely, and our readers are split pretty evenly over whether or not they want to permanently adopt that lifestyle. About 48 percent of voters don’t have the flexibility to work outside of the office, while 52 percent have considered working remotely overseas since the COVID-19 pandemic began.
What’s in store for 2022 (and beyond)
Almost all of our voters (91 percent) said their travel habits have shifted because of COVID-19, affecting how they intend to approach vacations moving forward. When it comes to how travel priorities may change once the pandemic is under control, our readers were split among three options: planning a bucket list trip, planning a multi-destination trip, and taking more trips than they had previously taken before. In fact, 79 percent currently have some sort of trip already planned and booked. Cheers to a new year of adventures!
For more of our Readers' Choice Awards, see all the survey results here.
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October 06, 2021 at 09:00PM
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Readers’ Choice Awards 2021: The Year in Travel Survey Results - Condé Nast Traveler
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