In 2022, Americans spent $1.2 trillion on travel, about $3,600 per person. But in a country so large, American travel takes a variety of forms. It can include road trips to campgrounds, vacations to amusement parks, and even trips abroad for the Olympics.
This interactive map from Esri is a love letter to the American spirit of traveling. With graphical touches that call back to a mid-century modern aesthetic, it uses Esri Demographics to explore the geography of travel in America. Across a series of maps, it highlights who spends the most on travel and how America’s varied geography influences travel behaviors.
Average Household Travel Spending
The first map provides an overview of travel spending in the US. Taller, orange spikes show counties where households spent more money on travel while. Counties with shorter teal spikes spend less. This map reflects the patterns we typically observe in median household income trends. Counties in or near metro areas spend more than their more rural counterparts. There are some notable outliers, though, such as northwestern North Dakota and northwestern Wyoming. The northeast corridor from Washington, DC, to Boston, Massachusetts, is a hot spot for travel spending.
Proximity to Airports and Travel Preferences
If you’re closer to an international airport, does that mean you prefer to travel abroad? This map suggests it has a significant impact. Counties in orange prefer international travel, while places that prefer domestic travel are in teal. In general, counties that strongly prefer international travel contain or are near international airports (one-hour commutes are shown as hashed polygons). Counties that most prefer domestic travel tend to be farther away, although some counties in Georgia and Kentucky are relatively close to international airports.
Travel to Mexico
While we might assume that proximity to Mexico influences travel to Mexico, that’s not always the case. People in many counties along the southern US are more likely to travel to Mexico (represented in darker clay colors). Yet, there are several metropolitan counties in the northern US that also have a higher propensity for travel to Mexico. Some counties that are reliant on agriculture are also highlighted. Travel to Mexico appears to be driven by a mix of proximity and demographics.
