Here’s an interesting study from flight comparison website www.us.jetcost.com: according to the company’s survey of over 4,000 Americans over the age of 18, as many as 14 percent of Americans have lied to someone about going on vacation.
Other key findings from the report: two thirds of Americans who have been on vacation have also lied about their experiences, with the weather, quality of accommodation and amount of sightseeing done being the most common exaggerations. Additionally, just over one quarter of respondents (27%) said that they have previously been on a vacation outside of the mainland United States and, when asked if they had lied or exaggerated about the content of their vacation, two thirds (61%) admitted that they had.
When given a list of possible mistruths and asked to select all that applied to them, the most common lies told by Americans about their vacations were found to be:
- Exaggerating about the weather – 34 percent
- The quality of the accommodation – 29 percent
- Amount of sightseeing/cultural activities done – 27 percent
- Amount of alcohol consumed – 23 percent
- Amount of money spent – 21 percent
Over two thirds (68%) of Americans said that they had told someone that they enjoyed their vacation more than they did, and 52 percent said that they wouldn’t tell anyone if their vacation had been a disaster.
The study also found that one in seven (14%) of Americans have previously lied about going on vacation and, when asked why, the top reasons were “I was embarrassed that I hadn’t been” (21%), “I wanted to seem well-traveled” (16%) and “I wanted to impress someone” (12%).
Who are these people lying to? The most common ones on the receiving end of the lies were “parents of friends/partners” (31%), “colleagues” (23%) and “friends” (14%). In terms of destinations, Americans have lied about traveling to Europe (40%), Africa (21%) and South America (16%) the most, according to the report.
What’s more, 10 percent of those who had lied about going on vacation had even gone to the extent of posting a fake picture to social media.
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