Japan led trip planning on MonkeyEatingMango in the third quarter of 2026: 58 of 444 trips (13%) went there, and Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto were the three most-planned cities. Couples made up 42% of the trips, mid-range was the most chosen budget, the median trip ran 7 days, and of the trips with a travel month, 59% were for the month they were planned in or the next two. The figures count the inputs travelers chose and the destinations of the trips they finished, from July 9 to September 30, 2026.
- Most planned: Japan (58 trips), the United States (48) and Italy (27).
- Trip length: a median of 7 days, and 10 days for Japan.
- Who: couples 42%, families 26%, solo travelers 19%, friends 14%.
- When: 29% planned without dates; of the rest with a month, 59% were leaving within three months.
- Where from: the United States sent the most trips (113), then India (43) and Canada (25).
Where did people plan to go?
Japan was the most-planned country, in 58 of 444 trips, and the United States came second with 48. A trip that visits two countries counts once for each, so the shares add up to more than 100%.
| Country | Trips | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Japan | 58 | 13% |
| United States | 48 | 11% |
| Italy | 27 | 6% |
| France | 21 | 5% |
| Portugal | 21 | 5% |
| India | 19 | 4% |
| China | 18 | 4% |
| Thailand | 17 | 4% |
| United Kingdom | 17 | 4% |
| Spain | 16 | 4% |
| Germany | 15 | 3% |
| Singapore | 13 | 3% |
| Vietnam | 13 | 3% |
| Austria | 12 | 3% |
| Netherlands | 12 | 3% |
Tokyo was the most-planned city, in 49 trips, followed by Osaka (29) and Kyoto (27), all three in Japan. Paris came next with 16, then Singapore and Bangkok with 12 each, London, Porto, Lisbon and Seoul with 11 each, and Amsterdam with 10. Only eleven cities reached 10 trips; every smaller count is left out to keep the figures anonymous.
How long are the trips?
The median trip ran 7 days across the 418 trips with a set length, and the mean was 8.2 days. Trips of four to seven days made up 43%, while 13% ran 15 days or more.
| Trip length | Trips | Share |
|---|---|---|
| 1 to 3 days | 65 | 16% |
| 4 to 5 days | 93 | 22% |
| 6 to 7 days | 86 | 21% |
| 8 to 10 days | 64 | 15% |
| 11 to 14 days | 56 | 13% |
| 15 days or more | 54 | 13% |
Half the trips, 228 of 444, stayed in one city, and 87% stayed in one country. Trips to Japan ran longer than the overall median, at 10 days against 7, and 40 of its 58 trips (69%) covered two or more cities.
When are people traveling, and how far ahead?
Of the 313 trips planned with a travel month, 185 (59%) were for the month of planning or the next two, and 63 (20%) were seven or more months away. Another 130 trips (29% of all 444) were planned with flexible dates and no month at all.
October 2026 was the most common travel month, with 69 trips, then September (48), November (41), August (26) and December (24). Looking further out, April 2027 drew 20 trips and January 2027 drew 14.
Who is traveling, and on what budget?
Couples planned 186 of the 444 trips (42%), families 114 (26%), solo travelers 83 (19%) and groups of friends 61 (14%). Of the 114 family trips, 43 were adults only, 36 had one child and 28 had two.
| Budget band chosen | Trips | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-range | 192 | 43% |
| Budget | 106 | 24% |
| Premium | 68 | 15% |
| Backpacker | 47 | 11% |
| Luxury | 30 | 7% |
Premium and luxury together made up 98 trips, and couples planned 48 of them. Half of all trips asked for a comfortable pace; 22% chose balanced, 20% relaxed and 8% packed.
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Plan a trip →Do people travel abroad or stay at home?
International trips made up 342 of the 444 (77%), counting a trip as domestic only when every destination is in the traveler's home country. Among the 113 trips planned from the United States, 40 (35%) were domestic. Road trips were the most domestic of all: 61 of 72 stayed in the home country.
Flights carried 359 trips (81%), road trips 72 (16%) and trains 13 (3%). The United States sent the most trips, 113, followed by India (43), Canada (25), Poland and Australia (16 each), the United Kingdom and Singapore (14 each), and Germany, New Zealand and the Philippines (12 each).
What do travelers want from a trip?
Food was the most chosen interest, in 282 of 444 trips (64%), then culture (62%), history (57%), nature (54%), hidden gems (44%) and adventure (42%). Travelers could pick several, so the shares add up to more than 100%. Romantic picks appeared in 33% of trips and beach in 27%.
How the data was built
The 444 trips are itineraries planned on MonkeyEatingMango, an AI trip planner, between July 9 and September 30, 2026; the trip records begin on July 9, so the quarter is short by eight days. Of 517 trips started in that window, 475 were finished. Home country comes from the starting location the traveler typed. Eight trips linked to staff accounts, one trip run in SEO mode and 22 repeats of identical inputs (the same origin, destination, length, dates, group and pace) were removed, leaving 444.
Four limits apply to every figure here:
- September dominates: 320 of the 444 trips (72%) were planned in September, with single-day spikes on September 20 and 23, so one burst of traffic can shape the totals.
- Staff trips made while signed out cannot be detected, only those linked to a staff account.
- The budget band will not repeat: the planner stopped asking for it in early October 2026, so the next edition cannot compare it.
- Domestic or international is derived by comparing the traveler's home country with the trip's destinations; it is not something the traveler chose.
Every group smaller than 10 trips is left out of the tables, or folded into an "other" row only when the combined count reaches 10, so no trip or traveler can be picked out. The figures count what travelers asked for, not where they went: a planned trip is not a booked one.
Download the data
The aggregate counts behind every table are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0: trip-planning-q3-2026.csv, one row per dimension and category, with the trip count, the base it is a share of, and the share. Groups under 10 trips are combined into an "other" row where the combined count reaches 10, and left out otherwise.
The next edition will cover October to December 2026. For the cost side of the same trips, the Trip Cost Index models what a trip costs by country, and the Oh-No Travel Index scores how well AI planners answer a first trip's questions.
To plan one of these trips yourself, the planner asks 8 questions and writes a dated day-by-day plan: plan a trip.
Last updated October 2026.
How to cite
“Japan was the most-planned destination in 58 of 444 trips (13%) planned on MonkeyEatingMango between July 9 and September 30, 2026, and Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto were the three most-planned cities.” with a link to monkeyeatingmango.com/research/trip-planning-report-q3-2026/. Data and charts are licensed CC BY 4.0: free to republish with attribution.
Written by Shobhit Shrivastava · Founder
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