Forget going off the grid — half of millennials stay more connected with friends and family while traveling than when they’re home. That’s according to a recent survey of 3,000 U.S.
Forget going off the grid — half of millennials stay more connected with friends and family while traveling than when they’re home. That’s according to a recent survey of 3,000 U.S.
Forget going off the grid — half of millennials stay more connected with friends and family while traveling than when they’re home.
That’s according to a recent survey of 3,000 U.S. adults, divided evenly among Generation Z (18–25), millennials (26–41), Generation X (42–57) and baby boomers (58–76).
Compared to 50% of millennials, only 37% of Gen X respondents said they’re more connected with loved ones during their travels than in their day-to-day lives. However, when the unexpected occurs on the road, nearly half (48%) of Gen Z respondents call an immediate family member.
People’s top three preferred methods of communication while traveling are text messaging (47%), calling (39%), and video calls (32%). While Gen Z was found to favor texting (54%), millennials opted for chat apps such as WhatsApp and Viber (41%), and Gen X preferred phone calls (41%).
But the survey does not imply that older people are less dependent on their cells phones. Regardless of age, 60% would be completely lost if their phone were lost or stolen when traveling.
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of AT&T, the survey also found out that more than a third (36%) of those who use social media don’t feel like they’ve had a real vacation unless they’ve posted about it.
Some are ramping up their travels, with 37% traveling more now than they were before the pandemic. Of those who are taking more trips, 44% revealed they have more free time and 44% shared the lifting of pandemic-related travel restrictions as a contributing factor that helped drive their decision to travel more.
In fact, people’s summer travel must-haves included a smartphone or tablet (44%), more so than sanitizer (37%), face masks (36%) and at-home COVID tests (27%).
The most popular apps people depend on when traveling included map apps (37%), Google Translate (28%), airline apps (27%), and booking apps (26%). Gen Z was more likely than Gen X to summon Google Translate when on the road (37% vs. 29%). As for map apps, 42% of Gen Z and Gen X respondents preferred these, with only 28% of boomers relying on them to chart their course.
For 35%, too many pandemic-related regulations would be deal-breakers for traveling abroad, while 29% cited a lack of options for flights or hotels. More than a quarter (25%) also said they wouldn’t consider international travel without access to mobile connectivity. More than half (70%) agreed that unlimited talk, text and high-speed data were important when traveling internationally. 40% prefer to have a data plan and about a third (32%) rely on free Wi-Fi.
Produced in association with SWNS Research.
