The under-the-radar country winning over Aussies fed up with US border hassles

Australians are travelling more than ever before, but they are leaving one iconic destination off the itinerary.

Despite a historic boom that had Aussies take 12 million overseas trips in 2025, travel to the United States has taken a dramatic, sustained dive.

New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that April trips to the US were 40 per cent below the 2019 baseline - a downward trajectory that has only accelerated over the last year.

Meanwhile, travel to the US's northern cousin, Canada, is rising.

It raises a critical question for the tourism industry: why are Australians falling out of love with the US, and is Canada poised to benefit?

Aussies returned from 47,900 trips to the US in April 2026, well below the 81,130 trips registered in April 2019.

On the flipside, Aussie jaunts to Canada rose 22 per cent in a year to 8780.

While Canada's numbers aren't a patch on the US's, the trends are clear: Canada is having a moment with Aussies, while the US is falling out of favour.

Griffith Business School adjunct associate professor, Graeme Hughes, said tighter entry rules and a proposed social media check policy are giving the US a bad name.

A US Customs and Border Protection proposal to force tourists from visa-waiver countries, including Australia, to disclose five years of their social media history, is still being considered.

When asked if Australia's love affair with the US is officially dead, Hughes said "the romance has undeniably cooled into a frosty estrangement".

"The contraction in demand is real, structural, and sustained," Hughes told Explore.

Could it be the strength of the Aussie dollar against the greenback? Hughes said no. Our dollar currently hovers around 70 US cents, which is "almost exactly where it averaged in 2019".

"The currency has barely moved, yet consumer behaviour has shifted completely," Hughes said.

Instead, "What has actually changed is sentiment, friction, and a rapidly fading sense of welcome."

Over the past two years, the US has generated "a steady stream of operations headaches that make a holiday there feel like a bureaucratic risk rather than a getaway," Hughes said.

"Between tightened entry rules, the creeping anxiety of arbitrary border screenings, higher visa fees, and a polarised political climate, a good many Australians simply find the whole proposition off-putting."

Australians aren't exactly replacing the US with Canada, but the latter is "a nice little beneficiary" of the current climate, Hughes said.

"Travellers who still crave a sweeping, North American alpine experience, but want to bypass the current border friction, social media screening anxiety, and political noise of the US, are finding an easy alternative just across the border," he said.

"Canada is less a direct replacement and more the quieter, friendlier cousin capitalising beautifully on a distinct shift in consumer mood."

Cheer said Australians are looking for "more bang for their buck".

"At the moment given the volatile global political context, which is then contributed to the dramatic increases in the cost of air travel, might be the biggest determinant over where Australians holiday abroad," he said.

"This means, long haul destinations like Canada and the US, have become less attractive than, say Thailand, Japan or China, where airfares are likely to be less prohibitive.

"The opening up of China where Australian travellers now get a visa on arrival is a contrast to the tightening up of arrangements for travellers to the US and this can be an inhibiting factor also."