Travel Passion vs. Apathy: A Deep Dive into American Preferences

In a recent survey conducted by CivicScience, a striking contrast emerged between those who view traveling for pleasure as a passion and those who express no interest in it. The survey, which gathered responses from 27,394 users across the United States between January 1 and March 20, 2025, reveals intriguing insights into the demographics and preferences of these two distinct groups.

Age appears to play a significant role in shaping travel preferences. Interestingly, Older individuals, particularly those in retirement age of 65+, are more likely to be uninterested in travel, with 24% of this age group expressing no interest. Conversely, only 7% of those who view travel as a passion are in the same age bracket. Adults under the age of 44 are more than twice as likely to say travel is a passion of theirs.

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Unlike age, gender divides are much less pronounced when it comes to love of travel. While women are more likely to be passionate about traveling for pleasure, they only slightly outpace men in this regard (13% to 11% respectively). However, both men and women are more likely to say they’re ‘uninterested’ in traveling.

Parental status also influences travel attitudes slightly. For instance, parents are slightly more likely than grandparents to be passionate about travel (11% to 8%), with the connection to age playing a role and likely the desire to share trips with their children as well. Unsurprisingly, those who are neither parents nor grandparents are the most likely to be passionate about travel, which could be an indication of not having to spend on travel costs a full family and the freedom to do what they like on trips.

A look at income reveals the unsurprising insights that respondents making under $100K annually are less likely to be passionate about travel than those making $100K+. This is likely due to the cost associated with travel that they may not be able to fit in budgets. Additionally, those living in the city also lead in being passionate about traveling for pleasure, while those living in rural areas are the least likely. This suggests the costs and access to travel centers may play a role.

These findings underscore the diverse factors influencing travel preferences, from income and age to gender and parental status. Understanding these dynamics can provide valuable insights for the travel industry to cater to different demographic groups.

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This article’s data comes solely from CivicScience’s database, which contains nearly 700,000 poll questions and 5 billion consumer insights. Our AI content creation tool, DataScribe, supported the article.

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