The 14 Places Where People Are Most Excited About Summer Vacation

One of the most memorable summertime anthems hit the airwaves in 1991.

Summer, summer, summertime
Time to sit back and unwind

That was the refrain in the hit tune “Summertime,” by hip-hop duo DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince. You might be more familiar with The Fresh Prince by his acting identity: Will Smith.

Yes, we agree with DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince that summertime is the time to sit back and unwind. From our perspective, it’s the time to sit back and unwind by letting someone else take care of the lawn.

via Flickr

We were curious about which areas of the country are clamoring most for a summer vacation — and a vacation from yard work. So we combed through Google Trends data to identify the hot spots for people dreaming of time at the beach or in the mountains during the summer months.

Landing in the top spot was the Boston, MA, metro area. It’s No. 1 in LawnStarter’s new ranking, based on Google Trends data, of the 14 Places Where People Are Most Excited About Summer Vacation.

For our ranking, we reviewed Google search activity from June 2013 to June 2018 for the term “summer vacation.” Picking up a perfect Google Trends score of 100, Boston came out on top as the U.S. region with the most “summer vacation” search activity on Google Data was available for 107 metro areas.

Google Trends analyzes a percentage of all searches for a term such as “summer vacation” within the same time and location parameters and then assigns a search score (1 through 100) to a geographic region. For 2013 to 2018, Boston posted the highest score on the Google Trends scale — 100 — for the term “summer vacation.” On the Google scale, a score of 100 signifies the maximum search interest for a particular period and place.

Steve Jermanok, founder of Newton, MA-based travel agency ActiveTravels LLC, offers two reasons for Beantown’s fascination with summer vacation.

First, he says, the Boston area endured a harsh winter in 2017-18 as well as a rainy spring in 2018, so “people want to play” now that summer is here. That would account for recent Google activity related to “summer vacation,” according to Jermanok.

Second, he adds, the Boston area and the rest of New England boast an array of mountain and ocean destinations that are ideal for summer getaways, including Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard, Acadia National Forest and the White Mountains.

“But New England is also home to many hidden gems that you might just find if you search ‘summer vacation’ on Google,” Jermanok says.

With Boston at the top, here’s our ranking of the 14 Places Where People Are Most Excited About Summer Vacation.

1. Boston, MA
Google Trends score: 100

2. Portland, ME
Google Trends score: 94

3. Hartford and New Haven, CT
Google Trends score: 92

4. Providence, RI
Google Trends score: 91

5. New York, NY
Google Trends score: 90

6 (tie). Des Moines, IA
Google Trends score: 87

6 (tie). Albany, NY
Google Trends score: 87

8 (tie). Springfield, MA
Google Trends score: 81

8 (tie). Bakersfield, CA
Google Trends score: 81

10. Baton Rouge, LA
Google Trends score: 80

11. Philadelphia, PA
Google Trends score: 78

12 (tie). Lafayette, LA
Google Trends score: 77

12 (tie). Austin, TX
Google Trends score: 77

12 (tie). Peoria, IL
Google Trends score: 77

Feature image source: Flickr

John Egan

John Egan is the former editor in chief of LawnStarter.com. Now, he is a freelance writer extraordinaire. He lives in Austin, Texas.

Posts by John Egan