Most Popular Travel Destinations for Summer 2014 According to TripAdvisor : News : TravelersToday

Summer is just around the corner and it's time to make travel plans. To help guide travelers this summer, TripAdvisor has released some summer travel information including the top destinations for summer travel.

TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel site, released the resuls of its annual summer travel survey of more than 2,500 respondents, which showed that 89 percent of Americans are planning a leisure trip for summer 2014 and 34 percent of those are planning to get away as soon as Memorial Day. These stats show a six to seven percent increase respectively from those who traveled during the same times last year.

Many may have been inspired to travel this summer after the rough winter that many states went through. Nine percent of the respondents said the Polar Vortex motivated them to take a Memorial Day trip and another nine percent said it's the reason they'll take a trip sometime this summer. The long winter may have also inspired some to broaden their travels as 71 percent are planning to go somewhere new.

This summer, Americans are planning to spend more on their leisure trips. Thirty-six percent of respondents plan to spend more than they did last year and 14 percent will even use their tax return to pay for their getaway. This summer, the most popular travel activity Americans are planning to do is shopping as 54 percent said they'll be hitting the stores on vacation.

Some other top activities for summer trips include swimming or watersports (49), visiting a historical event or sight (49%), going to a park or national park (46%), and sightseeing tours (46%).

This summer, 66 percent of respondents said they'll travel domestically and TripAdvisor determined what the top U.S. destinations for the 2014 summer travel period will be. They include: