Let’s pretend for a moment that the internet has not changed the way we do travel research. That we’re still stuck in the days where you’d have to get out a magnifying glass to search for a remote location on a globe or a map. Now imagine, for argument’s sake, that you can ask someone (or something) any travel or geographical question. What would you ask, and how embarrassing do you think these questions would be?
Well, research by a travel money provider has revealed that no question is too embarrassing. Some of the most searched travel questions in the past year show shortcomings in some of the world’s most iconic sights. According to The Money Shop, the most asked travel questions on Google over the past 12 months are (in no particular order):
— “Is the Eiffel Tower in Italy?”
— “Is Mount Everest in Europe?”
— “Is Stonehenge in Kenya?”
— “Who is Machu Picchu?”
— “Is The Grand Canyon in Vegas?”
While it may be easy to laugh at these seemingly embarrassing questions, previous Google travel question compilations have also pointed out that we don’t often pay much attention to geography. Questions such as, “Where is Bali?” “Where is Corfu?” and “Where is Bora Bora?” topped search engine ranks in 2016, while 2015 saw questions the likes of “Where is Disneyland?”
Now if you too aren’t too sure about the answers to these questions yourself, let us air them out here so that you don’t have to google them:
— The Eiffel Tower, which has seen over 250 million visitors, is in France, not Italy.
— Mount Everest, the highest mountain on earth sits on the borders of Nepal, China and Tibet.
— The prehistoric monument that is the Stonehenge is located in England.
— Not a ‘who’ but more of a ‘what’ and ‘where’, Machu Picchu is a 15th century Inca city set high in the Andes Mountains of Peru.
— The Grand Canyon is actually about a five-hour drive from Las Vegas, being in the neighbouring state of Arizona.
— Bali is an Indonesian island.
— Corfu is a Greek island off the country’s northwest coast.
— Bora Bora is an island in French Polynesia just northwest of Tahiti.
— Outside of the two original resort areas in the United States (Disneyland in California and Walt Disney World in Florida) there are also Disneylands in Paris, Tokyo, Hong Kong and a Disney Resort in Shanghai.
