For many people, choosing a travel destination can be the hardest part of planning a trip. Many of us rely on travel influencers, travel bloggers, or friends and family to inform our decisions about where in the world to travel, but these aren’t always reliable predictors of where we would enjoy vacationing.
Just about all of us have the experience – either locally or internationally – of arriving at a destination someone else raved about, only to discover that it’s not really something we enjoy (case study: my trip to San Pedro de Atacama).
While I could write extensively about the places I think everyone should visit (and indeed, I’ve written many articles promoting travel to less popular spots like Northern Patagonian islands, Bosnia, and the rural spaces of Eastern Europe). I’ve even written a few pieces about places I think many travelers should skip (including Machu Picchu and Dubrovnik, both of which have much more appealing relatively obscure neighboring villages).
But when making the call on the next destination for your travels, it’s almost impossible to decide for someone elsewhere an individual person might enjoy traveling – that is, until a travel quiz delves into more categorical information- like why a person chooses to travel and the types of experiences they seek during travel.
I’ve spent a lot of time learning about, understanding, and applying personality tests- which are sometimes self-administered as a quiz. As I reflected on my current vocation as a travel blogger helping people learn about their travel style and plan their ideal trips, I zoomed out to a more meta level view as I considered how to further develop the resources that I currently offer to help travelers and potential travelers decide where to travel next.
I realized, based on my understanding of personality and global travel, that most potential travelers rank high or low in three categories: novelty seeking, travel budget, and need for safety/predictability. Together, our attitudes in these categories seem to form a sort of travel personality which can potentially be used to predict where we should travel for future trips for more enjoyable travel.
As I began to consider how I could develop a quiz to help people decide where they should travel, I realized that quizzing travelers about their priorities in these three categories would be a much better way to predict where a person should travel if they want to really enjoy their trip.
This: “where should I travel?” quiz accomplishes just that: by asking quiz takers questions about whether they value predictability over adventure, spontaneity over planning, luxury over cost savings, and whether, through travel, they seek to explore a less popular part of the world or visit popular and brag-worthy cities and locations.
The “Where Should I Travel Next?” Quiz:
Who is this quiz for?
Anyone planning or thinking about planning travel in the future can take the “where should I travel?” quiz to get a better sense of the type of destination they might enjoy. This quiz is an entertaining and potentially helpful resource for teens and adults.
Will the quiz tell me where to go on my next trip?
This quiz is designed to give you some feedback on the general type of destination that you might enjoy.
Results of this travel quiz are delivered in the form of feedback on your travel style. (It’s not going to tell you to pack your bags and head to the Cabo Azul Resort in Los Cabos, or hit the road for the Ruta de las Flores in El Salvador) Instead, each quiz result includes a list of 6 to 10 countries that people with similar travel styles enjoy.
While this quiz won’t spit out a single destination city or tour in response to your questions (try Buzzfeed for travel quizzes with randomly associated destinations!) This quiz does help people decide where they should travel by providing a few ideas for destinations and things to keep in mind as you plan your next trip.
Researching travel destinations is my preferred method of procrastination when I’m facing a deadline. How do you decide where to travel? For me I consider three categories: is it cheap, is it exotic, is it safe?
I realized as I was considering travel destinations for my post-graduation adventure, that these three questions that I use to decide where I will travel make an interesting Venn diagram. Last summer I flew into Italy (not what I consider exotic, or cheap, but home to add cheaper airport and enough art museums to keep my travel-journal-doodling for days) and then set off on the real adventure- a ferry ride across the Adriatic Sea and busing down the coast of Croatia and then inland to Bosnia. For me, Bosnia and Croatia set the bar for cheap, novel, and safe- the recipe for my idea of an excellent solo travel adventure.
When I posted this on social media I was reminded by a follower of that the word “exotic” has been used to harm, and is sometimes used incorrectly to refer to anything that isn’t “Western”. In this case, I am using the word exotic according to its dictionary definition: “characteristic of a distant foreign country,” for which many western countries- like Iceland in this diagram- definitely qualify to me, a midwestern transplant who was 27 before leaving North America for the first time! For more travel related quizzes, see my full assortment of travel quizzes.
Lynli Roman’s unique approach to travel is informed by decades of experience on the road with a traveling family and, later, years spent as a solo international traveler. When she’s not writing about Seattle from her Pike Place Market apartment, Lynli writes on-location while conducting hands-on research in each destination she covers. Lynli’s writing has been featured by MSN, ABC Money, Buzzfeed, and Huffington Post. She is passionate about sharing information that makes travel more accessible for all bodies.