# Where Americans flew in 2025

*The top United Airlines international destinations by US state*

By [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com) · 2025-12-26

tokyo, japan, london, cancun, mexico, travel, toronto, canada, paris, united-airlines

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Whether you live in North Dakota or Texas, there's a reasonable chance that when you travel internationally, you enjoy going to Cancun. Or perhaps you fly into Cancun and then go to a neighboring town like Tulum. United Airlines just [released](https://www.united.com/en/us/newsroom/announcements/cision-125430) the following map showing the most-booked international destinations from every state for passengers traveling on United Airlines between January and October 2025. The top three destinations are London, Cancun, and Tokyo:

![](https://storage.googleapis.com/papyrus_images/3c5bf4de8bab934222bdd72565e78372e07b7eda527fbfdea7b3f49b49828ed0.jpg)

First, it's important to keep in mind that this data only includes people flying on United; it doesn't capture all international air travel. Second, maps like this are necessarily going to be influenced by an airline's biggest hubs. In the case of United, its hub-and-spoke model relies on major airports and routes like San Francisco-Tokyo and Newark-Heathrow.

Still, specific destinations appear on this map for a reason. Cancun is the number one "vacation" airport for Americans, which is an incredible success story, because it wasn't a place until the 1970s. Prior to Cancun, Acapulco was Mexico's top resort destination, but it was becoming constrained, and the government needed a replacement conduit for extracting US dollars from the American middle class. So, they developed Cancun.

The popularity of Tokyo is likely partly a result of a weaker yen, in addition to being an important Asian hub and an incredible place to visit. According to the [Japan National Tourism Organization](https://www.japan.travel/en/ca/) (JNTO), over 2.7 million Americans visited the country in 2024 — a 33% year-over-year increase and a 58% increase compared to 2019.

The country also saw 3.7 million international visitors in January 2025, which is the highest ever for a single month. Countries like the US and Canada also set all-time records for January arrivals. Part of this, I'm sure, has to do with Japan's legendary "Japow." I was part of this year's cohort, and I've never seen so much snow as [I did on the island of Hokkaido](https://brandondonnelly.com/hello-hokkaido).

There are also very specific one-off relationships that appear on United's map. The number one destination for the state of Arizona is, for example, Taipei. And this is being driven by a semiconductor boom, specifically Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company's direct investment in the state. At the time, it was [heralded](https://www.tsmc.com/static/abouttsmcaz/index.htm) as "the largest foreign direct investment in a greenfield project in American history."

So, there's a lot that can be gleaned from a map like this. If we were to zoom out and look at all international air travel, we would likely see some reordering. I suspect Paris would jump ahead of airports like Vancouver, given its hub status for other airlines. But it's unlikely you'd see a completely different list. Americans fly east to London, south to Cancun, west to Tokyo, and north to Toronto. These are the primary hub airports.

_Cover photo by_ [_Yu Kato_](https://unsplash.com/@yukato?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText) _on_ [_Unsplash_](https://unsplash.com/photos/boats-on-body-of-water-824OwkP7sgk?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText)

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*Originally published on [Brandon Donnelly](https://brandondonnelly.com/where-americans-flew-in-2025)*