Canadian travellers take a vacation from visiting the States

September saw Canadian resident return trips from the United States drop for the eighth consecutive month year over year, according to a Statistics Canada report. 

The Oct. 10 report revealed that return trips from the U.S. by Canadian residents by air declined by 27.1 per cent in September 2025 compared to September 2024. Return trips by car declined as well, by 34.8 per cent. 

In 2024, Canadian return trips to the U.S. represented about 75 per cent of all Canadian resident travel abroad. In 2025, an increasing number of Canadians are united in avoiding travel to the States. 

Jennie Sanford, better known as MoxeyTravels to her 88,000 TikTok followers, says there have been changes in how people engage with her largely travel-based content since last year. 

“I used to get a lot more questions about Disney (World), Universal (Studios), going to Florida,” says Sanford. “That’s definitely tapered off a lot.” 

Sanford added that for many regular travellers to the States, including snowbirds such as herself, the political climate has been discouraging people from returning. 

“People who have queer family members, trans children, they don’t feel safe anymore going there,” says Sanford. “They’re just going to choose to go somewhere that the value of their dollars can be given to another region that can support their political beliefs as well.”

This prompted Sanford to do a series on Canadian travel alternatives, which was met with feedback that her audience was inclined to stay in Canada and support Canadian dollars. According to some Canadian business owners, the numbers support the patriotic sentiment. 

“We saw our Canadian business increase like we’ve never seen in my 40 plus years in the industry,” says Dennis Campbell, CEO of Ambassatours Gray Line. 

“Some Canadians definitely decided that they were not going to go to the U.S. for the time being,” says Campbell. “Our experience is that they did make the decision to travel significantly within Canada.” 

Ambassatours has seen just over a 20 per cent increase in Canadian bookings from outside Nova Scotia this year, with the bulk of that coming from Quebec. Nova Scotia saw a 26 per cent increase in visitors from Quebec between 2024 and 2025, though visits from Ontario were down 11 per cent.  

Another factor encouraging Canadians to travel domestically is the ongoing trade war started by President Donald Trump’s punishing tariffs, said Lorn Sheehan, a Dalhousie University professor whose research topics include tourism, travel, and destination management. 

“It’s not that there’s an economic, direct economic cost to Canadians going to the U.S. because of tariffs,” said Sheehan, “But it is because Canadians simply do not want to support the American administration, and one of the ways that we can fight back against tariffs is with our own choices about how we consume products, services and experiences like travel.”  

“That is having a very large impact on the U.S. tourism industry. Places like Florida, California, Hawaii, are seeing dramatic drops in tourists from Canada. It’s hurting their economies.”

In 2024, Canadian tourism brought $20.5 billion in spending to the United States economy, meaning even a 10 per cent loss in visitation would be $2.1 billion in lost spending.