Cruising has never been more popular. In North America, an estimated 14 million cruise passengers embarked onto ships in 2018 — a massive increase of nearly 30% versus ten years ago. But as you might guess, there are some places in the United States where cruising is loved… and others where it still has some room to grow to achieve the same popularity.
At Cruzely.com, we see millions of visits from eager cruise passengers each year, making us one of the most popular cruise websites in the country. These visits cover everything from cheap Spring Break cruises to what to pack to where to stay for a cruise. And thanks to Google, we can see the states and towns from where the most people visit.
Of course, the largest cities in the United States represent the highest totals of visitors. You’d expect Miami to have more visits to our site than Tulsa, Oklahoma, just based on the number of people that live in each city.
That’s why after we gathered the data on more than 2.5 million visits from thousands of cities, we adjusted each figure for population to come up with a “Popularity Score.” Using this figure gives us the best picture of how popular cruising is with each city’s population.
In addition, we also did the same for all 50 states, ranking them from top (Florida) to bottom (Montana).
Most “Cruise Crazy” Cities
While bigger cities undoubtedly mean more people interested in cruising, it doesn’t automatically mean large cities as a whole are more interested. To figure out which cities have the most interest in cruising, we examined our 2018 traffic of millions of visitors.
As mentioned, our data represents popularity based on visits to Cruzely.com, adjusted for population. The “Popularity Score” starts at 100 for the most popular city. Other scores are relative to the most popular location after comparing the number of visits to the population of each.
| Rank | City | Popularity Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Union Park, Florida | 100 |
| 2 | Orlando, Florida | 98.0 |
| 3 | Atlanta, Georgia | 68.3 |
| 4 | Tysons, Virginia | 65.3 |
| 5 | Four Corners, Florida | 59.1 |
| 6 | Galveston, Texas | 53.8 |
| 7 | Mount Laurel, New Jersey | 47.2 |
| 8 | Miami, Florida | 42.1 |
| 9 | Palm River, Florida | 41.7 |
| 10 | Tampa, Florida | 40.2 |
| 11 | Lawrenceville, Georgia | 39.8 |
| 12 | Woodstock, Georgia | 37.8 |
| 13 | Ann Arbor, Michigan | 37.0 |
| 14 | Hattiesburg, Mississippi | 32.3 |
| 15 | Rockledge, Florida | 30.7 |
It should be little surprise that many of the top 15 “Cruise Crazy” cities are located in Florida. With so many ports — from Miami to Jacksonville — cruising is a popular vacation in the Sunshine State. There is also a strong showing from Georgia, with three of the top 15 cities hailing from the state. Being in driving distance of Florida ports seems to make cruising popular with Georgians.
Most “Cruise Crazy” Large Cities (Population > 200,000)
As you can see from our list of the most popular cruise cities, there are a number of small towns on the list, meaning that on average these people visit Cruzely.com much more often. That said, larger cities naturally have many more visits. Below is a list of the top large cities, along with their rank in the United States.
| Large City Rank | National Rank | City | Popularity Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | Orlando, Florida | 98.0 |
| 2 | 3 | Atlanta, Georgia | 68.3 |
| 3 | 8 | Miami, Florida | 42.1 |
| 4 | 10 | Tampa, Florida | 40.2 |
| 5 | 18 | Birmingham, Alabama | 26.3 |
| 6 | 23 | Dallas, Texas | 24.3 |
| 7 | 25 | Washington, D.C. | 22.3 |
| 8 | 33 | Charlotte, North Carolina | 18.9 |
| 9 | 35 | Nashville, Tennessee | 17.3 |
| 10 | 36 | New Orleans, Louisiana | 17.2 |
Most “Cruise Crazy” States
It’s obvious that many cities in Florida and Georgia love cruising. But what about states as a whole? For that, we took a look at our data from all 50 states, ranking each on visits adjusted for the state’s population.
As you can see, Florida and Georgia take our top spots, followed by Tennessee, Texas, and North Carolina. The least popular states for cruising? South Dakota, New Mexico, and Montana came in at the bottom.
| Rank | State | Popularity Score |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | 100 |
| 2 | Georgia | 83.0 |
| 3 | Tennessee | 67.3 |
| 4 | Texas | 64.0 |
| 5 | North Carolina | 61.8 |
| 6 | Louisiana | 52.3 |
| 7 | Alabama | 52.2 |
| 8 | Utah | 50.2 |
| 9 | South Carolina | 49.2 |
| 10 | Virginia | 46.8 |
| 11 | Missouri | 45.8 |
| 12 | Oklahoma | 45.4 |
| 13 | Rhode Island | 44.8 |
| 14 | Michigan | 44.6 |
| 15 | Arkansas | 43.0 |
| 16 | Delaware | 41.2 |
| 17 (Tie) | Illinois | 40.9 |
| 17 (Tie) | New Jersey | 40.9 |
| 19 | Massachusetts | 40.6 |
| 20 | Kentucky | 39.9 |
| 21 | Maryland | 39.1 |
| 22 | Ohio | 39.0 |
| 23 | New York | 38.4 |
| 24 | New Hampshire | 37.7 |
| 25 | Nevada | 37.4 |
| 26 | Kansas | 36.1 |
| 27 | Colorado | 36.0 |
| 28 | Connecticut | 35.9 |
| 29 | Mississippi | 35.9 |
| 30 | Indiana | 35.7 |
| 31 | Minnesota | 35.4 |
| 32 | Washington | 35.2 |
| 33 | Pennsylvania | 34.4 |
| 34 | Nebraska | 32.0 |
| 35 | Arizona | 31.6 |
| 36 | Maine | 29.4 |
| 37 | Alaska | 28.8 |
| 38 | California | 28.3 |
| 39 | Oregon | 27.9 |
| 40 | West Virginia | 27.4 |
| 41 | Wisconsin | 27.1 |
| 42 | Idaho | 26.0 |
| 43 | Vermont | 24.6 |
| 44 | Iowa | 24.3 |
| 45 | North Dakota | 21.4 |
| 46 | Wyoming | 20.7 |
| 47 | Hawaii | 19.8 |
| 48 | South Dakota | 18.7 |
| 49 | New Mexico | 17.2 |
| 50 | Montana | 15.4 |
Methodology
We reviewed location data for traffic to Cruzely.com during 2018. In total, this encompassed more than 2.5 million sessions from cruisers all over the world. We then adjusted the amount of traffic for each location based upon the population of that city or state. Rankings were determined based on the amount of traffic relative to population size.
Fair Use Statement
Have an audience interested in cruising? Feel free to use our study and graphics on your site. We only ask that you ensure a link back to this page, so readers can learn more.
