Americans Just Say ‘No’ to Summer Vacations

Hypocrites, that’s what we are!

Americans, that is. And in particular, Americans and our relationship to leisure travel.

We talk a good game, expounding expansively about the places we’ll go, the things we’ll see. But in the end, we just stay home. Instead of tucking into the chef’s tasting menu at a three-star Parisian eatery, we settle for beer and franks at a ballgame. The Taj Mahal? More likely a road trip to the local Costco.

The latest evidence comes in the form of a survey by travel-industry publication Skift, which led off with a simple question: Are you planning on taking a vacation this summer?

The overwhelming answer this year in 2015 is almost exactly the same as we got last year: About 62 percent said they won’t be taking a vacation this summer at all.

The reasons varied, with the most respondents claiming they couldn’t afford one (31.3 percent), followed by “No, too busy” (30.2 percent). Only 15.8 percent of the respondents planned a traditional long summer vacation, with 22.8 percent planning one or more short weekend getaways.

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Other survey findings:

• Men are more likely than women to take long summer vacations.
• Women were more likely than men to blame tight budgets for their stay-at-home ways.
• Among age groups, Millennials are the most likely to take summer vacations this year.
• Residents of the Northeast were the least likely to take summer vacations; Westerners were the most likely.
• Not surprisingly, richer Americans (more than $100,000 in annual income) were most likely to plan summer vacations; least likely to plan vacations were those making less than $50,000 a year.

The survey didn’t explore the relationship between American’s current aversion to travel and the recent deterioration of the travel experience. But that’s another story, for another survey.

Reader Reality Check

Are you planning a long vacation this summer? If not, why not?

This article originally appeared on FrequentFlier.com.