What locations are RS people interested in (just for grins).

Rick's biggest sellers of the guidebooks are Italy and France so it follows that those would have a lot of posts.

interesting results. I too am not surprised that Italy is the leader. When meeting new people instead of the usual questions, what do you do, etc. I always ask, do you like to travel. 9/10 times people who have not been to Europe yet mention Italy, specifically Tuscany. They mention the food, the scenery, the history. No one ever mentions not being able to communicate. It is just assumed that most people in Italy speak English. When I first started traveling in 1976, England was always the first foray into Europe specifically because people knew English was spoken. Heck, my first trip was supposed to be England but 3 weeks before we were to leave, the travel agent called to say the trip was cancelled and for the same dates, price we could go to Amsterdam. It was only one week, but my sister and I said, sure. I remember my parents' first trip out of the US was Bermuda, English speakers, then England.

My surprise is the RS club known for having world travelers has limited interest outside of the traditional European vacation countries. What compounds that is that there is so much known, shared and published about the traditional European vacation countries that you would expect that the less traveled countries, would and probably have, generated more posts asking questions and looking for information.

Yes, an interesting thought. But maybe most people who head to Europe tend to start with the “easy” places. So cumulative questions add up for those. And maybe a lot of people have either 1) not the resources or 2) no interest in either 1) new destinations or 2) continuing to travel. So, combining all of that, you wind up with far more questions about the places most people tend to start their traveling - France, Italy, England, and maybe Germany.

And we all know it is far more common, at least in the ten years I have been frequenting the forum (lots of you have been around much longer), for newcomers to pop on and ask their question than to go back and read through the masses of info already gathered here. So that also adds to the lopsided numbers. (I would rather go back and read years worth of posts - because I learn answers to questions I would never have known to ask.)

A side topic, I have lamented to myself that a Trip Report is filed under Trip Reports, but that makes it harder to find when you look back for specific country information (unlike just a question). However I often use the Search function but hadn’t thought of using it to locate specific country Trip Reports. Duh.

Thanks for bringing a "Just of Grins" to the Forum. We all need a smile every so often.

I was disappointed that your search did not find results for "Is Atlantis in the Schengen Zone", a post from a couple of years ago. The posts, questions, answers and advice certainly make that post an RS Top Ten destination.

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Dennis, I updated. There were 70

The stats make sense to me. North Americans as a rule do not get much vacation time. Unless there is a strong family pull, those that are resticted timewise or financially are going to head for the popular places they have read or been told about. Apart from Greece and parts of Sweden, most people do not head east of Vienna. One or two chances of visiting Europe, the average North American traveller is not going to visit Finland or Bulgaria.

Atlantis! Not in Schengen zone. I have to read that post! Its interesting that all the nordic countries are piled up at the bottom where RS tours does not go

So, I did some googling and the results pretty much match the forum. Conclusion? We are just a bunch of average American tourists.

In 2019 US tourists preferences were:

UK 3.9 million
Italy 3.2 million
France 3.1 million
Spain 2.2 million
Germany 1.9 million

Greatest increases 2014 to 2019 were Iceland, Portugal and Croatia

Another site just ranked them from most popular destination and down
1. UK
2. Italy
3. France
4. Germany
5. Spain
6. Ireland
7. Netherlands
8. Switzerland
9. Greece
10. Austria
11. Czech Republic

Italy and Great Britain are my favorite countries in Europe.

James, thanks for this information.