If anyone was worried that the travel industry wouldn’t come back after the pandemic lockdowns, you can put your mind at ease.
The Wall Street Journal shared this chart a couple of weeks ago showing the boom in European trips by Americans.
As you can see, travel to Europe has reached new highs the last three years running. It reports that 2026 travel continues to be strong, too. The trend is driven by our strong economy – which in turn amplified by a strong dollar relative to the Euro ($1 buys 0.86€ yesterday).
We’re in Europe ourselves right now. We were in Reykjavik, Iceland last week and are on Day 5 in the Ireland countryside now. Tomorrow we’ll drive to Dublin. At the same time, our son and his girlfriend are on a two-week Grand Tour through Asia.
The WSJ noted that Americans used to be known as a group that didn’t travel much. In 1990, only 5% of Americans held a passport. Now, over 50% do.
I noticed that our passports are good for another 7 years. Hopefully that will be enough time to reach my goal of 50 foreign countries. I adopted that goal after reaching all 50 US States. It’s a great quest for a retired couple.
Link: Counting Countries: How Many?
Are you traveling more than in the past? Do you have a “travel quest”?
Image: ChatGPT
MrFireStation 
50 countries is an admirable goal.
We do two major trips each year, October and March, but that is flexible. We make it a point to avoid much travel in the summer months due to crowds.
I am at 30 countries now. I will add Monaco in October, and then Malta, Tunisia, Algeria and Morrocco in March. That will make it 35.
I have always had a thirst for travel. My maternal great grandmother travelled to Moscow, Egypt and the Canadian Rockies in the 1890’s. She was torpedoed off of Ireland in 1939 but survived an overnight in a lifeboat.
Both my parents visited Europe on their own in the 50’s and dad worked seasonally from 1951-55 building airbases in Greenland.
I had an ancient relative move to Quebec with his majesty’s army in the late 1700’s and a relative moved to Tidewater Virginia in 1720.
I think it is genetic
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I think at your pace, you are quickly going to pass us in “country count”. At that rate, you might want 75 as your goal!
We’re averaging 1 overseas trip per year. I think that will get me to my goal of 50 – I don’t think my wife would be interested in 2 big trips a year since we bought our vacation place in FL.
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