New U.S. Travel Association Report Offers a State-by-State Look at Time Off and Travel

Leaving vacation days unused has become an unfortunate national American pastime.

Under-Vacationed America: A State-by-State Look at Time Off and Travel is a new report issued by Project: Time Off and the U.S. Travel Association that ranks states by how many vacation days they use, and shares detail on how often residents travel and how those same people like to enjoy their downtime.

Most Americans are not thinking about the economic benefit of their vacation days—they are just hoping to use them. State of American Vacation 2018 found that workers who use the majority of their vacation days for travel are significantly happier than those who travel less or not at all.

When it comes down to it, the report indicates that Colorado (20.3 days), Virginia (18.9 days) and Arizona (18.8 days) lead the nation in vacation taking.

On the other side of the spectrum, the report indicates that Montana (16.3 days), Delaware (16.5 days) and Rhode Island (16.5 days) are home to the nation's most under-vacationed workers.

Some travelers are lucky enough to already live in a highly desirable vacation spot—but that doesn't seem to stop people from spending a good amount of their vacation days on the road. Virginia is at the top of the list for vacation days specifically spent traveling (12.2 days), with Colorado (11.7 days) and New Jersey (11.1 days) rounding out the top three.

Falling well below the national average of eight days of vacation days spent traveling are South Dakota (4.3 days), Missouri (5.2 days) and Iowa (5.4.)

When it comes to travel preferences, 88 percent of Americans are in search of a warm climate, but nowhere more so than West Virginia. Most say they prefer to indulge than be healthy (63 percent) on vacation, particularly in Nevada. Americans are split on whether they prefer to save or splurge on vacations with 52 percent being savers and 47 percent preferring to splurge. The big spenders are in Tennessee and New Jersey, where 64 percent in both states say they like to splurge on travel.

View the full report at Project: Time Off—powered by U.S. Travel Association.

Written by Sarah Suydam, Staff Writer for Groups Today.

Photo courtesy of U.S. Travel Association Report.