A new report from Statistics Canada finds more Canadians are travelling to the U.S. than they were a year ago. And another study says more Canadians are willing to travel to the States than they were a year ago.
But both reports suggest Canadian travel to the U.S. has a ways to go to get back to the good old days.
Stats Canada’s report on October travel by Canadians to the States, issued today (Nov. 12), states that return trips from the United States by automobile and air totalled 1.9 million for the month. That’s up 3.0% from the same month in 2025, and marks the seventh consecutive month of year-over-year growth. In October 2026, compared with a year earlier, return trips from the United States rose for both automobile (+2.2%) and air travel (+5.6%).
“However,” Stats Canada said, “they remained below those recorded in October 2024 (-29.0% and -19.6%, respectively for automobile and air traffic).
The Travel Health Insurance Association of Canada today put out a study saying 30% of Canadians say they’re likely to travel to the U.S. this year. That’s up from 26% last year, but still down from 41% average in previous years.
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The “elbows up” trend that began a while back is still there, but it appears Canadians views about visiting the land of Uncle Sam have mellowed a little bit. The massive repudiation of President (“Make Canada the 51st state”) Trump in the U.S. midterm elections may be a factor, as could the election of many senators and governors who argue that the tariffs Trump slapped on Canada have hurt their states, and that they wish to be on better terms with their neighbours to the north.
Speaking to travel journalists and travel trade representatives in Toronto last week, Long Island, New York tourism representative Alfredo Gonzalez said he greatly appreciates the Canadian market.
“Things are changing in the U.S. right now,” he said. “This is an opportunity to get back to normal.
If you’re in the U.S. tourism business like Gonzalez is, today’s reports are good news. But the gap between 2026 travel behaviour by Canadians and that from the “good old days” of 2024 is still present. And it’s likely going to take some time for things to, as The Beatles famously sang, get back to where they once belonged.
On the other side of the ledger, Stats Canada’s report today said US-resident trips to Canada by automobile and air increased 8.1% in October, reaching 1.5 million. This marked the ninth consecutive month of year-over-year increase. Which means Americans are coming to Canada in solid numbers.
Overseas-resident trips to Canada by air and automobile were up 5.0% in October from the same month one year earlier.
Hope there’s a surge in travel to Texas. At this point, its time to visit blue states.