One international destination everyone wants to go to this summer

Thrillist carries an article about new data from Delta Air Lines showing a surprising European city that is surging in popularity, Caliber.Az reprints the article.

It will probably be no surprise for you to find out that this summer, the common answer to the question "where do you want to travel to?" is "outside the country." At least, that's what Delta Air Lines' latest data featuring its list of the most-searched summer travel destinations for 2024 revealed. But that's not all of it.

According to the data, while your evergreen and iconic tourist destinations unsurprisingly dominate the top of the list, one city that usually attracts more niche travelers is actually popping off with searches this year.

By taking into consideration data from US-based searches on the Delta website between November 2023 and March 2024 for summer travel this year, the study found that Athens, Greece is actually the international destination that witnessed the highest surge of interest compared to last year. On the list, the Greek city sits at the fourth position overall, but flaunts a 248 per cent increase in searches when compared to 2023 data. To give you a sense of it, other cities in the top 10 noticed a decidedly more modest 150 per cent search volume increase from last year.

Athens' tourism has been growing exponentially since after the pandemic, with last year's tourism numbers seeing almost an 80 per cent increase compared to 2019 levels, according to French newspaper Le Monde. The city, in fact, already started worrying about the presence of too many tourists last summer. In an effort to curb overtourism, the city had to introduce time slots to visit the Acropolis, a city landmark that last year noticed a 70 per cent increase in visits compared to 2022.

This is not to say that you shouldn't visit Athens, of course. If you do want to have the best experience, though, you might want to try and visit it outside of peak summer travel times, so ideally before May or after August.

If you're actively trying to stay away from large masses of tourists, take Delta's most-searched international destinations list into account, and use it as a handy tool to help you understand where to go (and possibly, where not to go) this summer. You can find it below:

1. London, England
2. Paris, France
3. Rome, Italy
4. Athens, Greece
5. Cancun, Mexico
6. Amsterdam, Netherlands
7. Tokyo, Japan
8. Dublin, Ireland
9. Barcelona, Spain
10. Vancouver, Canada