97% of U.S. Travelers Regret Trips, Survey Finds

A Travel Guard survey says 97% of 1,022 U.S. travelers regret at least one trip, often tied to preventable issues like poor planning, stress, and bad timing—even when travelers say they’d redo the experience.

Halfway into a first-time trip to Tokyo last November, the excitement started to feel like pressure.

I had planned to stay near the action. in Shibuya—recommended by a friend who knew the city and described it as centrally located near major attractions. Shibuya is. in his words and in most travelers’ minds. the Tokyo equivalent of New York’s Times Square. home to the famous Shibuya Crossing. But once I got there. the scale of the city caught up with me in a way my research hadn’t prepared for. The streets and the train stations were so crowded and confusing that walking felt like being trapped in the middle of a moving crowd.

I wouldn’t call the entire trip a flop. If the chance came again, I’d redo it. I don’t blame my friend. I blame my own confidence in a plan that wasn’t specific enough—especially for a solo traveler.

That mix of regret and resolve is echoed in a new survey from Travel Guard, conducted in March 2026. The survey found that 97% of 1,022 U.S. travelers said they regretted at least one trip. About two-thirds of respondents said they would take a “mulligan” and redo their trip. while one-third said they would scrap it and choose a different one.

The survey’s message is blunt: most regrets aren’t about grand misfortune. They’re about decisions that could have been made differently.

The biggest source of disappointment was “something went wrong during the trip,” reported by 17% of respondents. Among the specific issues tied to that bucket were accommodation problems, arguments with travel companions, bad weather, and crowded destinations. Other commonly cited reasons included not planning properly. being too stressed or overwhelmed to enjoy the vacation. and choosing the wrong travel companions.

The pattern gets sharper when respondents look at who ends up with the most mixed feelings. Family holidays were the most likely to end in regret. with 27% of respondents pointing to family trips—particularly when travelers are with parents or extended family. where pressure can rise and travel styles don’t always match.

Adventure travel, quick city visits, romantic getaways, and solo trips also showed up as trip types people regretted.

Age and experience mattered, too. The survey found that many of the trips Americans regret most happened when travelers were in their 20s. That lines up with the real-world stress of planning a trip for the first time—especially when budgets are tighter and the margin for error feels smaller. Sloan said the “good news” is that better planning. thoughtful choices. and having the right travel insurance plan can help prevent many of those regrets.

There’s also a second side to the story: regrets don’t always end in bitterness.

Nearly three-quarters of travelers said they learned from their mistakes, and those experiences shape how they plan future trips.

Meredith and Colby Thomas. full-time travel bloggers. described one of those learning moments on a trip to Cusco. Peru. in early May. They were flying from Mexico with a 1½-hour layover in Lima. The connection felt tight. but because the flight was booked on a single ticket with the same airline. they assumed it would work out.

What nearly derailed them was time and the kind of friction travel often hides until it happens to you.

They faced minor delays landing and deplaning in Lima before reaching a long customs line. They had been waiting 45 minutes when their flight to Cusco began boarding. At the final boarding call. they begged a customs officer to let them cut to the front—and they made it just as the doors were closing.

Meredith Thomas. who co-runs the travel blog Two Packs and a Pup. said the day ended with them “stressed out of our minds and sprinting to our gate at the very last minute.” She called it “certainly not the way you want to start a trip.” They regretted booking the tight layover. and now ensure their layovers have ample time.

Even so, the stress didn’t stay contained to that one day. Meredith said the trip didn’t derail, but it left a carryover effect: travel always includes uncertainty, she said, but when events go “that far off the rails,” it’s natural for stress and exhaustion to spill into the next day.

Back in Tokyo, I took a similar approach: I leaned into Shibuya’s bright lights and high energy while I was there, even when it wasn’t ideal. When I return, I’ll know what to do.

That’s the throughline the survey can’t ignore. When trips go wrong, people feel it. But when they learn—when the planning changes—regret doesn’t just linger. It turns into a roadmap for the next one.

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