The Top 10 Trending Destinations of 2018, According to Google

Google has once again released its Year in Search report, which takes a look back at some of the year’s biggest global news, trends, and moments — as told by users’ search data. The big G surfaces the search terms that had the highest spike this year when compared to the previous year to determine the most sought-after people, movies, food, sports teams, and much more from a global and country-based perspective. And we're willing to bet you can guess which list we asked Google to send us: the top travel destinations.

In previous years, Google has used standalone destination names to determine the data, which can potentially allow for a bit of news-based skew. But for 2018, an added keyword qualifier of “trip to” has better narrowed the list down to a mix of countries and cities people are researching specifically with tourism in mind.

According to the data, European destinations dominated travelers' trip planning research this year, securing five spots on the list and the top three. Perhaps all those under-$400 flight deals had somewhat of an influence? The U.S. had a decent showing thanks to three of its most visited cities. And the remaining two destinations? Island idylls both near and very, very far.

Below, scroll to see the top 10 trending trip searches of 2018.