What Destinations are RS Forum Members Interested in.

This reminds me of the saying "Africa starts in the Pyrenees / Europe ends at the Pyrenees". If I understand the numbers correctly, Barcelona (17,000) and Madrid (14,000) would sandwich Vienna.

What a fantastic idea, Mr. E.!

If I'm considering a week in Dublin vs. a week in Belfast, I can see that:
Dublin: 11954
Belfast: 3118

But wait, there's more:

Budapest Mr. E. 376 searching for two words might be useful
Hungary Mr. E. 160 Hungary "Mr. E." gives the same result

Irish Guinness 469
Irish beer Guinness 82 so three words is too many?
Irish Whiskey 192

Albania would’ve been only an even 1,000 if Nigel hadn’t started his Traveling Through the Alphabet thread with it. And now, this thread’s bumped it to 1,002 right?

I also remember Coach on the TV show Cheers had a song about Albania.

Maybe I’ll get there some day.

Georgia (1753)

Any chance that searching “Georgia” wound up counting some mentions of the southern U.S. state, or are all of those describing the home of kinkali?

By the way, Cardiff, Wales has an excellent Georgian restaurant on Saint Mary Street called Genatsvale. We were walking past all the American fast food places and bars, looking for dinner on our first night two months ago, and were very pleasantly surprised to find it. It’s the European Georgia, BTW, with no pecan pie.

Cyn, I meant to point out Georgia would be a difficult one to judge. There is also Georgian architecture, and the word Georgia comes up in a lot of posts on England as well.

travelerguy, you will note that I commented after the Montenegro number that one or two folks might could sway the number quite a bit. I had me in mind.

All this is just a curiosity. Not much more. But we tend to get a little uptight here from time to time so ....

What does this say, if anything, about the RS Traveler/Tourist. At the least they go to the same countries and probably in about the same numbers as any other average American tourist. But that doesn’t reveal if they spend more time out of the city and in lesser known "backdoor" locations. But from my reading of posts, I doubt it to any substantive degree. Might indicate that we aren’t any more cutting-edge than the average. That is we aren’t out discovering the next big draw in advance of the crowds. Or I could be completely wrong on all of that.

Cable car (6066)

This is, undoubtedly, from discussions about the devices that take tourists to the tops of peaks in the Alps and other mountain ranges. Here in the Rocky Mountains, they’re generally referred to as Trams or Gondolas (Idaho Springs, Colorado just opened one this year, and it’s boosting tourism to the former mining capital), while cable cars are those things in San Francisco, depicted on Rice-a-Roni boxes.

And of course, in a European context, a tram and a gondola are completely different things than a cable car.

An interesting exercise! A few other examples:
Andorra: 343
Liechtenstein:: 489
Cyprus: 365
Rick: 40,264
Steves: 61,685
Hotel: 123,962

English 34870
French 60447
German 45162
Italian 88225
Portugese 159
Spanish 32166
Swiss 31452

The figures for capital cities like London will probably be skewed by results for the airport, eg London Heathrow not London specifically. Similarly regional airports like Manchester, they are discussed on the forum because people are travelling through them, not because people are interested in visiting Manchester. specifically

Putting it politely, I think the whole 'back door' thing on this site is a load of rubbish :-) Maybe it was true in the past but 'backdoors', (looking at you York, the Cotswolds and Bath) stop being 'backdoors' if the majority of people choose to include them in their trip. Also just because an american visitor hasn't heard of a place doesn't mean it isn't well known by other visitors.

Back door: 6,632
Backdoor: 652

Italy is used more than Rome, but both Paris and London are used more than the countries they're in. I wonder how many people just go to Paris or London and think that's all there is to France and England.

I always thought Rome was the backdoor to Paris?

I wouldn’t read too much into London surpassing England in number of references, although London is undoubtedly by far the most popular destination. One could alternatively refer to the UK (23,532), or Britain (19,075) — yes, I do know that these are not synonymous with England — or refer to towns, regions and cities without having to say they are in England. Bath has 10,372 (although undoubtedly some refer to a hotel with bath), York 10,739 (although this is artificially high because of New York’s 6,317), Oxford 4,565, Windsor 3,511, Cotswolds 4,162, Liverpool 2,235.

I always thought Rome was the backdoor to Paris

No, that would be the Champagne region, including Reims (1922) and Epernay (395).

Thank you to Emma and Slate for mentioning, and researching, those non-London places that are high on many visitors’ lists.

By comparison, the count for Stonehenge is (2773).

Farther north, how about Scandinavia:

Norway (7109)
“Nutshell,” by the way, gets (1541)
Sweden (3964)
Finland (1567)
Denmark (3456)
… Copenhagen (4781)
… Greenland (271)
Iceland (4667)
… Blue Lagoon (548)
… just plain “Lagoon” (1890)

And in the British Isles, several cities have been discussed, along with England (now 20405), but there’s also:

Scotland (14888)
… Edinburgh (10377)
… Glasgow (4841)
… Skye (2826)
Wales (4994)
Ireland (19842)
Northern Ireland (2549)
Isle of Man (246)

… and, in England (but almost in Wales) - Chester (1183)

It's probably why it took me so long to get my first girlfriend because I always found numbers like this fun to dissect and analyze. I'd be interested in breaking down trends to see if certain places see its numbers jump when it suddenly became popular for whatever reason. For example, the Bayeaux Tapestry has 1390 mentions, has there been a spike in the past year since the announcement that it was coming to London?

I also wonder that about a place like Scotland. What were the numbers like before the Outlander craze, compared to during? Scotland tourism says that tourism spiked thanks to Outlander, so I assume this Forum had a spike as well. And now that the TV show is now done, will tourism drop a bit or was it just the push Scotland needed to keep the numbers high?

Allan, was that first girlfriend impressed by that “first” number?

And mentioning Scotland, for what it’s worth,
Whisky (951), compared to Whiskey (699)

Some countries are primarily one destination countries

How about Monaco (1997), and Vatican (9236)?

Of note, Vatican Museums is (4698)

Each of us could end any and every post we make until the end of the year with "Moldova" until we pull it up with some company. Look, it just climbed nearly 1/2 of 1%

I’m not certain, but I believe a word or phrase appearing once in a thread causes that entire thread to count as one incidence if that word/phrase. As it seems to me, the Search function isn’t identifying every single time that word/phrase appears, so repeated mention in a particular thread won’t add to its count.

France is the most visited country in the world. Italy is Rick’s favorite country. That explains over 200k search requests per your numbers, Mr. E.

This isn’t a destination but we often see people asking for the ” best “ place to eat, sleep, airline, etc. 129,083 is the number of times the word best comes up for the travel forum.

a word or phrase appearing once in a thread causes that entire thread to count as one incidence

Cyn, we can test your theory. Nonsense to follow:

Snafflefarkel is a perfectly good word, IMHO. It comes from the Druid culture of 1805. The correct spelling is Snafflefarkel, It's meaning is "a good party with good wine and snacks". Word useage: That was a great Snafflefarkel last night. Those Cro Magnons sure know how to throw a Snafflefarkel.

Nonsense off. Now we just count the Snafflefarkels.

EDIT: Now I'm confused. The RS forum "search" function shows no hits. Maybe it will after some time, as indexing such a large forum may take time. In the meantime, I found that snaffel and farkel are actually real words! Then I did a G00gle search for Snafflefarkel, and G0ogle's AI gave me this:
There is no official dictionary word, product, or established piece of media under the exact combined name "snafflefarkel."

EDIT NUMBER 2: Finally it showed up in the RS Forum search, and it's one hit, for the thread. So Cyn's theory is correct! And I learned what a snaffle is and what a farkel is. So a win-win.

If as noted above (correctly, based on online info) France is the most visited country, Nauru is the least visited. Nauru has 3 references in the forum. One was a joke about going there, one reference was embedded in a long discussion of how many countries people had been to and how to count them, and the third was a lengthy list of all countries where English is the official language that someone posted. There were no trip reports or any other indications that anyone on the forum, including those three posters, had ever been to Nauru or had any serious desire to do so. I sense an opportunity here for an entrepreneur such as, hmm, maybe Rick Steves … An episode of his show about Nauru (but does he have a friend and fellow tour guide there yet?), new guidebook “Rick Steves’ Nauru”, and tour, “Best of Nauru” (or perhaps, “All of Nauru”). And now I’ve done my part by increasing forum interest by 33 percent, from 3 threads to 4.

Thanks for testing (and proving!) the count theory, travelerguy. There’s another Farkle (although not quite the same spelling as farkel), the Farkle family on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-in in the 1960’s. All their kids resembled their neighbor, played by Dick Martin, with bright red hair, black glasses, and freckles.

One more Search, “Cruise” shows (29632) times.

Oooh! I remember the Farkles. Never missed a "Laugh In"! Good times!

Slovenia 4982

Hidden gems: 1481.
Pompeii - 8565
Pompei - 8565

The vitals, which are sometimes combined and sure to be added to in the very near future.

Must See – 21,071

Must Do – 23,278

Pompeii - 8565
Pompei - 8565

Kate, that’s interesting. I suspect that the Search function for Pompeii, the ancient sight, stopped after the first “i,” so when looking for the scavi, you get the results for Pompei, the modern city nearby. Although I wonder why it wouldn’t pick up the second “i”?

Maybe almost 9,000 times, a thread has been about the modern city (although I doubt it), or perhaps that’s how many typos have occurred, when people really were asking about seeing the House of the Fawn. I’m certain there are folks who’ve gone to Pompeii without ever setting foot in Pompei (like me and my husband), so having the exact same number for both is puzzling.

So here’s another Search:
Economy (7915)
Coach (7802)
Steerage (139)
Premium Economy (1372)
Business Class (3825)

And:

Hotel (123994)
Motel (1448)
B&B (23048)
B and B (23070)
Bed and Breakfast (4721)
Gîte (or Gite) (940)
Airbnb (11488)

My mind works differently.

When Georgia is mentioned on the Forum I think of Ray Charles singing.

Proud owner of a long sleeved tee with a hedgehog on scooter. The t-shirt is emblazoned with the phrase “ Off to cause a Kerfuffle.”

Claudia, if everyone's mind worked like yours there would be world peace.

Claudia, Georgia was always on Paul McCartney’s mind, too, at least Back when it was In The U.S.S.R.

OK, so just out of curiosity, the Search for this Forum shows:

Kerfuffle (62)
Hedgehog (44)
Scooter (1542)

Good old Sir Paul. Somewhere I have a Polaroid of him leaning his bike against the wall of the cafe I was sitting in. 1972.

World Peace is a misnomer. Greed, ego, religion and stupidity prevents it.

Claudia, that’s definitely Fab! I never imagined a (former) Beatle Bike! That would be a treasured snapshot.

Istanbul (5127) is not Constantinople (64)
Istanbul (5127) was Constantinople (64)

Even old New York (6319) was once New Amsterdam (1697 - but that probably covers the old one, too).

Turkiye (157) Türkiye (147) Turkey (7544, wonder how many of those are actually 🦃)

Munich (21851)/München(921)

Konigsberg/Königsberg (23) Kaliningrad (45) Królewiec (1 😀)

Kiev (240) Kyiv (365)

Lemberg (41) Lwow (15) Lvov (32) Lviv (312)

Interestingly, Gdansk (1044) = Danzig (1044), but the first couple of threads I checked have no reference to Danzig at all - somehow the search engine just accepts it as an equivalent.

I was curious about the numerous references to “New Amsterdam” reported above. Could there actually be that many mentions of a name New York hasn’t had since 1664? As I suspected, no. Based on a quick spot check, apparently the search function flags everything that includes both the words “new” and “Amsterdam” wherever they are, such as, a traveler’s new plan for Amsterdam, a new hotel recommendation for Amsterdam, Amsterdam for the New Year, and so on. I had assumed that when you searched a multi word phrase by putting it in quotation marks, it would flag use of that specific term and no other, as many search engines do, but apparently not here. I think this would also negate the results of a search I did above for “New York,” although this probably still reflects more use of that actual term than “New Amsterdam.”