Travel lovers can now discover the road trip of their dreams based on the experiences of authentic reviewers – their peers on Instagram. The latest research by leading car hire company Europcar analyzes millions of posts to unearth the top locations those adventure seekers chose to explore and their favorite stop-offs along the way.

Analysis of more than 47 million social media posts on Instagram highlights the hotspots to head to in 2019 according to the road trip loving public. Images using the hashtag #roadtrip have then been scrutinized and the most popular routes have been mapped out to inspire holidaymakers to get out on the open road and explore everything the world has to offer.

Coming out on top is the USA with almost 1 in 5 of all posts across the world being tagged stateside (nearly 8 million posts), a 485% increase on Australia which came in second with 1.35 million posts. Highlighting the popularity of the US further, 8 US cities made it into the top 10 in the world including San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas with Lisbon ranking as the most popular city outside of the US:

Top 10 Countries	Top 10 Cities
USA (7,910,854)	San Francisco (310,318)
Australia (1,353,392)	Los Angeles (259,764)
Canada (1,091,690)	Las Vegas (218,637)
France (827,752)	Grand Canyon (206,232)
India (826,366)	New York (170,612)
Italy (798,437)	Lisbon (114,616)
United Kingdom (754,614)	Chicago (107,390)
New Zealand (669,607)	Washington, DC (104,887)
Spain (540,262)	Seattle (102,003)
Iceland (499,084)	Venice (100,052)

The hashtag #westcoast was the most popular hashtag used alongside #roadtrip across the world with 197,468 mentions, closely followed by the #grandcanyon (182,672) and #yosemite (135,990). Banff (39,967) and Byron Bay (34,016) are the only non-American hashtags to make it into the top 24 globally.

The research has also found Florida to be the second most popular state in the U.S. for road trips overall with 346,047 posts on Instagram, behind California which has over one million posts in total. Miami was the tenth most popular city in the US, with 93,434 posts. In the top 50 most used words alongside #roadtrip for the top 10 states, some of Florida's best travel hotspots featured, showing that road trippers were exploring the best of what the state has to offer, from theme parks to beaches and landscapes;  

• #keywest - over 15,500 mentions
• #miamibeach - over 8000 mentions
• #floridakeys - over 7000 mentions 
• #universalstudios -  over 4000 mentions

A further deep dive into the American market provides a more detailed analysis of the official home of #roadtrips:

Top Cities	Top States
San Francisco (310,318)	California (1,194,082)
Los Angeles (253,247)	Florida (346,047)
Las Vegas (218,337)	Arizona (338,692)
Grand Canyon (206,232)	Nevada (281,074)
New York (170,612)	New York (231,562)
Chicago (107,390)	Texas (173,533)
Washington DC (104887)	Utah (152,125)
Seattle (102,003)	Washington (131,030)
Moab (99,091)	Illinois (116,520)
Miami (93,434)	Massachusetts (101,715)

California proves to be the most popular state as it is hashtagged alongside #roadtrip an incredible 1,194,082 times, a +245% increase on the state of Florida which came in second with 346,047 posts. These figures are even more impressive when compared with one of the least posted about states North Dakota, which only had 2,888 road trip posts, a 41,346% decrease in popularity on California. Further to this, out of the 20 most popular cities in the world, a quarter of these are located in California.

Using heatmaps for the top scoring locations, Europcar has visualized the most popular routes in the US for travelers to take inspiration from:

1. Seattle to San Diego
2. Los Angeles to Vegas
3. Vegas to Grand Canyon
4. San Francisco to Yosemite
5. New York City to Toronto
6. Route 66
7. Salt Lake City to Yellowstone
8. Vegas to Zion
9. Denver to Grand Junction (Rockies)
10. New York City to Washington DC

Mathilde Gady, Group Head of Digital Marketing at Europcar Mobility Group explains, “Travel is one of the greatest freedoms we have and the opportunity to plan and explore through our own means is an important factor for travelers. America is recognized worldwide as the land of road trips but finding a scenic route can leave you spending endless hours trawling the internet to build a travel itinerary.”

He continues “As social media has become a mainstream source of information and inspiration, we have pulled raw, real data from what users deem as highlights from their travels to give us the prime locations that you won’t want to miss off your next trip list.”

Explore top routes throughout America and the rest of the world by heading to the Europcar #roadtrip map to discover the roads that will lead you onto your next great adventure [Roadtrip USA].

Europcar - Methodology

The World’s Most Popular Roadtrips has been brought to you by Europcar.

The list of road trip hotspots was compiled by analysing over 47 million social media posts from across Instagram that used the hashtag “#roadtrip” between 2016 and 2017 and was sourced via Crimson Hexagon. The locations of these posts were then ranked by volume at a country level, state level and city level to show where in the world the ‘roadtrip’ hashtag was most popular.

To discover the most popular road trip routes, the most mentioned locations were analysed to map popular routes between two or more locations over five markets (USA, UK/Europe, France, Australia and Worldwide).

In order to understand the most Instagrammed hotspots and attractions, a sample of posts was taken from the most popular regions and mentions of attractions were then weighted with the volume of posts from that region to create a list of the most popular attractions to visit on a road trip.