A Survey Revealed The Countries Canadians Most Want To Visit
(So you can avoid them)
A Canadian flag flies over downtown Vancouver. Right: A view of Rome, Italy.
Let's take a moment to dream about your ideal vacation. Maybe there's sand and surf while you watch the sunset, or maybe there's plenty of food at a fancy restaurant whose menu you can't read. If you're like most Canadians, you're picturing a romantic getaway in Italy, according to a recent survey from Samsonite Canada, a luggage company.
Apparently, France used to be the place to go, but Canadians have been changing their minds of late. Consistently, across the board, surveyed Canadians wanted to go to Italy for the following (real, actual) Samsonite Canada prompt activities: "get your groove back," "fall in love," "have an epiphany," "re-invent yourself" or "propose."
Second in each category was often France, except when it was Mexico. Canadians really want to go somewhere with better food, it seems, and that's perfectly reasonable given what we're working with domestically.
For each bizarrely eat-pray-love "activity" that Canadians could choose to do anywhere, they chose Italy so consistently that there's almost nothing else to say about the data, except that we all want to go to Venice before it sinks AND get proposed to while we're there.
Samsonite also asked Canadians about "the most amazing thing that happened to them on a trip," apparently without worrying about accuracy. Some responses include "a volcano eruption," "meeting President Clinton" (presumably not in Italy) and, ominously, "sav[ing] a man's life..."
That's all we get to learn about this heroic event, but Samsonite did learn that someone else "got an upgrade to first class after speaking Italian (learned for trip) and telling the airline clerk how beautiful their country was to visit."
So, suck up to Italians, and be wary when you travel there: you might find more lovelorn Canadians than smolderingly beautiful Italians in the country of romance.
Before you get going, check out our Responsible Travel Guide so you can be informed, be safe, be smart, and most of all, be respectful on your trip.