Weekend survey: How will you travel in 2011?

Don’t you just love reading surveys that tell you how you’re going to travel? Do you ever wonder how those so-called industry “experts” find out how three percent more people are getting to their destination by rickshaw on National Bird Day (a popular holiday, that one).

Me too.

So this weekend, as we look forward to 2011, I thought I’d ask: How do you plan to travel next year?

This survey is being conducted with help from the Consumer Travel Alliance. But we need more than your answers; we need you to tell us why you’ve decided to travel more, or less, in ’11.

If you decided to fly more — or less — then why? If you’re staying off the road and switching to mass transit, please explain your reasons.

Also, what one event or story in 2010 shaped your decision on how to travel next year?

Please send me an email and don’t forget to include your full name, city and occupation. Your responses may appear in a future story.

Here’s a link to the survey.

Here are the real-time results.

Have a great holiday, everyone!



  • Bill

    Almost all my travel plans for 2011 will be similar to 2010.

    I will fly more just because more of my vacations in 2011 will be outside the US so I will need to fly farther.

    I can’t think of a news story that affected my travel plans.
    Maybe the launch of Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, but I knew about that from other sources as well. I say this only because we are taking QE cruise around the Britsh Isles in September which adds to my time in the air (flying there).

    I am an aggressive supporter of the full body scanners and believe they make flying safer and reduce some of the inconvenience.

  • Jeanne in NE

    Hi Chris! My husband and I belong to a walking club that has walks in all the state capitals and other specialty walks (such as the Lincoln Highway). We still have the southern tier of states and the DC area to complete, plus Illinois and Indiana for the Lincoln Highway this year.

    We’ll be driving, so will save the DC area until air travel becomes either more pleasant or he is required for business to go, at which time I’ll go with them.

    We calculated the time spent driving vs. the time spent flying. Figure 2 – 3 hours each way committed to getting to the airport, dropping off a rental car and going through security. That’s 6 hours of our life that we could be spending together pleasantly, with better leg room and at lower cost.

    If we do end up in the DC area for business, we’ll use mass transit to get to our other sites (Richmond, Dover, Annapolis). I love riding the trains on the East Coast. The staff are friendlier (it’s a relative thing), the riders more pleasant and the scenery can be spectacular, once you get outside the graffiti-covered cityscapes along the tracks.

  • http://www.hanskortleverstravel.nl Hans Kortlevers

    Well, if i look outside then it would we a warm happy place!

  • cjr

    In the end, I will just be traveling less overall next year than in years past. Thank you for that, airlines and TSA.

    And due to the “use or lose” situation with my paid time off, I will be taking a “staycation” for the first time in the next few months.

  • BucksterSF

    Why would 2011 be different from 2010?

  • Joe Farrell

    I will continue to fly my personal aircraft on personal and business flights between the Los Angeles area and as far as Portland, OR, Salt Lake, and El Paso . . . . and the airlines out to a further distance – thankfully my family and friends mostly live inside that distance and there is a lot to do and see in California – the mere fact I can over fly traffic on the freeways in Calif is oh so precious. . . .

  • Steve

    I don’t anticipate any changes for 2011. Technically, I plan to fly less, but that’s not a reaction to the new “security” measures or anything the airlines are doing; we had a wedding to attend in 2010 as well as a trip to Las Vegas, but it looks like our travel in 2011 will be road trips.

  • Ed

    Unfortunately, I have several obligations that I need to take in 2011 that require flying to the destination. So, that means that I will be flying more. Road trips? Hmmm, wife doesn’t get enough vacation to accommodate too many trips, so that may not be possible. Train? What train? There’s no train where I live! Used to be back in the 1800′s and early 1900′s, but now? They dug up the train tracks and put in a bike path…this was a fully graded and complete train track that went from West Virginia, through all the major northern Virginia suburbs all the way into Washington DC.
    Cruise? Never been on one, and not planning to either.

  • Carrie Charney

    No changes planned for me, except possibly a little more train travel between Newark and Boston/Baltimore to visit my “nearby” grandkids. I am a 75K traveler for leisure. Once TSA invades the train stations, I’ll rethink my modes of travel. I don’t mind the dogs that come sniffing through the train cars between NYC and DC. Unlike Bill, I am anti TSA methods and feel far less safe with them than if there were nothing in place. Field intelligence-gathering (not entrapment) and stategic placing of dogs and agents, trained in people psychology, would be far more effective.

  • Mark K

    Flying more because of my new position at work. We have offices in Singapore and India and I wil get to go with the boss on at least 2 of his 4 round the world flights next year.

    Driving is about the same.

    Train? Not likely since none, other than freight, go anywhere near me.

    Cruise? Nope. Not unless I get an offer I can’t refuse.

  • Sommer Gentry

    I have rearranged my entire life to avoid flying in 2011, because I will never, never line up to let government goons degrade my body and trample my constitutional rights. The real terrorists are the blue-shirts with Pistole, their barbarous amoral leader. They have the cowardly and ignorant populace frozen with fear and are taking advantage of you in every possible way. They’ve got you stripped naked, taking radiation and molestation like a champ so they can line their perverted pockets.

    Why on earth are you still flying? Stand up for yourselves! I’ve never been so sad and ashamed of America as I am today.

  • http://www.destinationiran.com/articles Iran Travel Blog

    Due to lots of delays and cancellation in domestic flights in Iran, I’d rather drive and enjoy the lazy long time spend this way. Also, i get to see more of the real life and experience lots of things that are impossible on the plane, train, etc.

    Rahman Mehraby
    Destination Iran Travel & Tours

  • http://www.meetup.com/Martin-Luther-King-Airline-Boycott-2011/ Estelle Edwards

    It will take time before the media gets the news or even notices. However, there is already a growing number of Americans who have vowed to boycott commercial air travel until the TSA is disbanded. Just check out the social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, Meetup, MySpace, etc. There is also a movement where people will form groups to patronise the private charter services for affordable rates if they have to fly. They are that set on avoiding the TSA if they have to fly for an important reason: i.e., wanting to see an elderly relative before they pass away, especially if he or she is in bad health.