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May 29, 2021

Canadians love U.S. travel

1414861_51130807Canadians love their American friends.

According to Statistics Canada, overnight travel by Canadian citizens to the United States increased in the last quarter of 2012.

And visiting family and friends tops the list of go-sees with 832,000 overnight trips to U.S. destinations, up 19.4 per cent over the same period in 2011.

However, pleasure trips to the United States remained the most common reason for overnight travel with 2.7 million trips, up 5.1 per cent; and business travel rose 3.3 per cent.

You can include our family in the statistics. We head across the border every summer to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and my husband organizes a golf tour with a large group of buddies each spring to the same destination.

It seems that often, travel to the U.S. can be less expensive than travel to other provinces within our own great country.

Of course, we look for deals with VIA Rail for an annual weekend get-away to Montreal, Quebec with our children.

According to statistics, the most popular U.S. destination that Canadians visit is New York State with 844,000 overnight trips (up 13.7 per cent).

And right back at us, New York State was the top state or origin for overnight travel to Canada with 321,000 trips.

And interestingly, business travel from the U.S. to Canada posted the largest increase, up 3.5 per cent; pleasure travel 1.9 per cent; and trips to visit family and friends rose 2.1 per cent.

The top overseas countries visiting Canada were the United Kingdom, followed by France and China.

The most common reasons for people from other countries coming to visit Canada were for pleasure, and to visit friends and relatives, according to the report.

Canadians also like to travel overseas. The report found that those north of the 49th parallel took 1.4 million overnight pleasure trips to overseas destinations including Mexico, the United Kingdom, Dominican Republic and Cuba. 

All this talk about travel to warmer climates is making me feel like -- well, packing my bags.

By Donna Donaldson, MSN Money

Do you travel to the United States? What destinations do you enjoy visiting in the U.S.? What is it that makes travelling to the U.S. appealing to you?

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