Journeyers

wdt_ID	US Travel Destination	Top Travel Destination	Value for Money	Total Stars	Journeyer
1	Yellowstone National Park/ Beartooth Highway, Montana				1
2	Washington, D.C.				2
3	Denali National Park/other parks, Alaska				3
4	Cape Ann, Massachusetts				4
5	Southern California				5
6	Hawaii				6
7	Key West, Florida & Keys				7
8	Death Valley, Southern California				8
9	Maine coastal towns				9
10	New Orleans, Louisiana				10
11	Alaska Inside Passage (Ketchikan, Sitka, other towns), AK				11
12	Savannah, Georgia				12
13	Redwood/Sequoia/Yosemite national parks, Northern California				13
14	San Francisco & Bay area, California				14
15	Kenai Peninsula, Alaska				15

wdt_ID	International Travel Destination	Top Travel Destination	Value for Money	Total Stars	Journeyer
1	Ephesus/Troy/ancient sites, Turkey				1
2	Italy				2
3	Paris, France				3
4	Ring of Kerry/County Kerry, Ireland				4
5	Swiss Alps, Switzerland				5
6	Salzburg, Austria				6
7	London, England				7
8	Portugal				8
9	Netherlands/Holland				9
10	Bermuda				10
11	British Columbia, Canada				11
12	Sydney, Australia				12
13	Provence, France				13
14	Edinburgh, Scotland				14
15	China				15

These ratings and rankings are based on evaluations by thousands of travelers.
Best Destinations, summarizes evaluations by all visitors on the degree to which they especially like the places they recently visited. Value for the Money, measures the degree to which all visitors feel they got good value for what they paid, not that it is a cheap place to visit. (Note: Most destinations receive better scores on the Great Destination scale than on Value for the Money.)

About the Journeyers Travel Personality

Journeyers are one of the two largest personality groups on my scale. Three out of ten people share these personality characteristics. They are called Journeyers because of the steady, predictable (traditional) approach to daily life, and derive characteristics shared in common with persons who fit in the center of the personality scale. Journeyers’ travel interests and daily life are more varied and diverse than either Traditionals or Sightseers. They will fly or drive on a leisure trip, but generally prefer to go by car or SUV when they can. I’ll explain why in a moment, after I cover some of the personality characteristics.

Journeyers are typically some of the most valued employees wherever they work. Their steady nature means that they show up for work on time, every day, and require few sick days off. They know your job well, and others turn to them to solve problems. And, have an easy way with people. Journeyers like people and people like them too. This combination of knowledge, skill, dependability, and good people skills usually results in promotion to more senior supervisory or management positions. Journeyers know how to manage people—put the right kind of pressure on them to do their jobs, support them when they need help, but still show disappointment when they don’t live up to expectations. These traits also carry over to other parts of life. If Journeyers have children in school, they’re more likely than average to be involved in the PTA and, in fact, one of the leaders. Or they might play an active role in your church, or help out with Little League or Pop Warner football. Journeyers’ deep sense of moral commitment leads them to take on these kinds of responsibilities. They likely have certificates or awards in their desk drawer at home, recognizing contributions from some of the organizations with which they’ve worked.

Journeyers believe they have a lot of common sense and, the fact is, they usually do. They might have an interest in the latest technology, but won’t consider these new-fangled gadgets until they have proven themselves in the marketplace and have dropped in price to the point where they now seem relatively affordable. And if something they’ve used for years seems to work well, they feel it’s a dumb decision to run out and buy a hi-tech replacement that takes a lot of time to learn and doesn’t provide many recognizable benefits. Thus, unless someone gave them a digital camera or a hand-held PDA (personal digital assistant), they might still be using an older point-and-shoot film camera and a hand-written address book. Life moves at a rapid pace, so they don’t particularly like to complicate it by buying unneeded accessories. Like others with authentic personality characteristics, Journeyers probably possess a lot of home-related skills. As a woman, few can match their cooking and sewing abilities. As a man, they can handle most problems on their car or truck, or repair just about anything that goes wrong around the house.

When shopping, Journeyers usually stick to popular brands. Popularity demonstrates that these are good products, or they would not have gained such prominence in the marketplace. And these often go on sale, which fits with their common-sense notion of never paying more for a product than is necessary. They love sales and faithfully bring double discount coupons to the supermarket to save hard-earned dollars.

Media interests typically focus on some of the most popular TV shows—sitcoms, and reality-based series. And are probably an avid sports fan—following the fortunes of a favorite professional or college football and basketball team, especially if it’s local or a place from which they graduated. Because there are so many Journeyers and they like the entertainment provided by television, viewing habits contribute heavily to the success or failure of many shows. They may not take a daily newspaper or subscribe to magazines, preferring to get U.S. and world information from television and sometimes the Internet.

The characteristics just described also determine travel interests. As mentioned, Journeyers will fly on some trips, but usually only when going to a family reunion or taking the kids to Disney World or someplace similar when time is short and where you want to go is not close. Generally, they’d rather drive because they enjoy getting behind the wheel and don’t mind spending extra hours on the road. After all, it provides a sense of relaxation, rather than the hurried schedules that seem to accompany air trips. If a Journeyer has a camper or trailer, they’ll use it a lot. They may like fishing or just being outdoors in a beautiful setting, which is both possible when driving themself. Taking the kids to places where they can get out and run without someone showing their displeasure at their exuberance is another reason to have a camper because other people they meet have similar interests. If they choose a more typical destination for a trip, it’s not a bother if there seems to be a lot of people around. They’re just like them—having fun with a spouse or the family and just enjoying the moment. Beach areas and other places that have good weather hold great interest. And Journeyers especially want them to have acceptable motels if they didn’t come by camper. Family restaurants, movie houses, and video arcades for the kids add to the attractiveness of a destination. They’d like good shopping to be available also so that they can bring back reminders of where they’ve been—hats or shirts with the name of the destination or resort visited.

If Journeyers decide to take a long-distance trip to a place they’ve heard about, but it seems relatively foreign, a good choice would probably be to book an escorted tour. They won’t get lost, all the details are taken care of, and whoever goes with them removes much of the frustration, and they’ll see much more than if they tried to do it on their own. And tours are relatively inexpensive considering all of the services provided because the tour operators negotiate volume hotel and meal discounts that are not available to the public. Consider a cruise to a warm locale like the Caribbean. Almost all major cruise lines get very high ratings in the studies I (S. C. Plog) have conducted over the years. They maintain clean ships, service is good from the staff, and the meals are something to behold.

Because Journeyers have broad travel interests (traveling by car or by air), they will find pleasing destinations you among places preferred by Pioneers and Voyagers. Journeyers are in a rather fortunate position since more destinations can please this type of person.