Some facts about international travel.
 

I'm looking through a report and have the following fun tidbits to share. It's about "overseas" travel, so I'm presuming that it excludes people driving across our borders with our friendly neighbors to the north and south.

There were 28.5 million trips overseas taken by Americans in 2010.

Residents of the state of New York accounted for 19 percent of all trips. If you exclude California, this is about the same amount as all of the states west of the Mississippi combined plus the upper Midwest states of Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Nearly half (47%) of international trips involve staying at a private home. (I interpret this to mean that it's less about vacation and more about visiting family in the home country. Maybe there's another interpretation.)

The median international trip is 11 days, and the mean is 17 days.

84% are visiting 1 country, 11% are visiting 2 countries, and 5% are visiting 3 or more.

The most common points of entry (presumably on return) are New York (22%), Newark (12%), Los Angeles (9%), Miami (7%), and Atlanta (7%). However, the two documents have different figures, with the other one showing departures as follows: New York (18%), Miami (12%), Los Angeles (9%), Atlanta (8%), and Newark (8%) as the largest airports where people leave from. I think the second set of figures is better.

The top ten destinations for overseas travel are (in order): United Kingdom, Dominican Republic (WTF?), France, Italy, Germany, Jamaica (wow), China, Japan, Spain, and India. If you add air trips (not driving) to Canada and Mexico, Mexico is an easy #1 and Canada is an easy #2.

The average expenditure on an overseas trip is $4,327.



Sources:

http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/outreachpag...nd_Profile.pdf

http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/outreachpag...vel_Abroad.pdf

If you want to look at overall tourism from the world and not just America, you can check out this site: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.RCPT.CD

May this thread never die.

I'd love to go on a WWII battle trip someday. London, Normandy, Battle of the Bulge, Germany.

This is a much better thread.

let's make this one the RPT

http://i40.tinypic.com/2vl9kw9.jpg

The D.R.? You have got to be shitting me. The can't be right.

Would that actually make you ollie higher? I remember some of the other skater kids doing it but they were doing it so the kingpin wouldn't hang up on coping on half pipes.

I'll bet it's people flying into the DR to cross the boarder into Haiti on humanitarian aid trips.

Seeing these two threads battle each other is like watching my children in a death match.

I was wondering if maybe there were some high-volume resorts there I didn't know about, or if it's a big kickoff point for cruises. But it's not the latter. I don't get it unless it's something humanitarian like you mentioned.

I don't know too if we've admitted a bunch of refugees who tend to go back frequently. I don't think there were enough adoptions in the earthquake to make a dent in these numbers if people were still doing paperwork.

That earthquake was a monster, though, so you may be right. There may be a lot of help and rebuilding going on, in addition to the fact that Haiti wasn't exactly a utopia before the quake.

It would have to be something like that, because I can't see that many people going to the DR, "just because."

Get on it Mr. Kevin. WHY is the DR ranked #2?

Skate shoes always wore through quicker. I actually used Nike's because they lasted a lot longer. I never reversed them but I guess it would have given you more of a tail/nose. Instead of doing that I would drill a couple of more holes in the deck and move the front truck closer to the center to make the nose longer because the noses in that era were really short.

My brother was into some high end skate boards in the late 1970's. I bet his board would be worth something on the vintage market if it was in good condition.

I know at least a half dozen people that have made trips to Haiti since the quake. A lot of college student groups and church groups have made trips.

A group of students in my department are looking at building bag houses in Haiti. A bag house is constructed of "bags" filled with aggregate. In the case of Haiti, they are going to look at busting up the rubble left over from the earthquake. That way they don't have to import any gravel, which would be very expensive.

We went to Spain. Took off from Chicago. Stayed in a private home in part because the cost of hotels is astronomical.

I go once a year, its very nice.

I was seriously thinking about it myself this year, but decided to head back to Belize, perhaps next year?

Not that it has anything to do with anything, but traveling to Canada for work is a bitch. Everytime I've had to cross the border, I get interrogated as to the reasons I'm there. Most other countries wave you across without usually even asking you what your business is. I always found it kind of ironic, because who the hell would want to be in Canada that didn't have to be?

Mexico and Great Britain both quiz you too.

That's a good idea.

I saw some show about purifying water in these countries, and it turns out that if you take the uncleaned water and set it on the roof of your hovel in the normal plastic water bottles, something about the heat and UV rays or whatever kills all the bad stuff in the water. I suspect you know far more about that than I'm conveying, but I thought it was a bizarrely simple solution.

So are you a logger, or do you work in the hockey field?

(Sorry, Canadians. I couldn't resist.)

I wasn't aware of this when you posted it and figured you were talking about some kind of solar still or something. I'm more familiar with the large scale processes used in developed countries. These might include filtration systems with gravel under drains. This solar disinfection is pretty interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection

Why the hell are you idiots talking about skateboards? Gtfo.

$13 prostitutes, or so I'm told...

My next major dest-O-nation, Beijing...

Not nearly to the extent of Canada (at least for the UK, I can't speak to the extent of Mexico).

That's about all there is there, other than Tim Horton's.

Wow, that's less than the cost of a pizza, and you don't have to tip the driver.

Really? I thought they just said, "Welcome to Canada!" and gave you a beaver/moose and some lumber or something.

Perhaps--but when you call for the pie, be sure to insist they go *light on the sauce*...

Which state had the least international trips per capita? My money's on Alabama.

That's even cheaper than Amsterdam.

mountie: do you have any firearms to declare?

steven wright: what do you need?

There's about a bazillion D.R.'s living in New York.

I know an attorney who goes to the D.R. every year on a golf trip with the same group of 6 or so friends. Every February like clockwork. Been doing it for 20 years. I assume the golfing is a big draw, but I'm stunned it's THAT big a draw.

Have you been to London lately? It's like NYC with worse breath.