Cancun Tops Thanksgiving Travel Rankings, With Punta Cana, Aruba and Jamaica Also in the Top 10
Mexico and the Caribbean account for eight of the 10 leading international destinations in Allianz Partners’ new holiday travel report.
Cancun is the leading international destination for Americans traveling this Thanksgiving, according to a new report from Allianz Partners, with Mexico and the Caribbean accounting for eight of the top 10 destinations.
The Mexican Caribbean hub takes first place in the travel insurer’s 2026 Top Thanksgiving Destinations report, ahead of San José del Cabo in second and Punta Cana in third. Aruba’s Oranjestad places fifth, followed by Montego Bay in sixth.
The results put Caribbean beach destinations at the center of the international holiday travel picture, with Cancun leading a list that also includes London and Paris.
Where the Caribbean Ranks
Punta Cana is the highest-ranked Caribbean island destination in the report, taking third place overall behind the two Mexican destinations.
Aruba follows in fifth, Jamaica’s Montego Bay takes sixth, and Nassau places ninth. Together with Cancun, those destinations give the Caribbean basin five entries in the international top 10.
Mexico has four destinations on the list: Cancun, San José del Cabo, Puerto Vallarta in eighth and Mexico City in 10th. That representation spans the country’s Caribbean coast, Pacific resort destinations and capital.
The rankings measure destinations within Allianz’s analyzed itineraries; they do not represent a count of all Americans traveling internationally for Thanksgiving.
The Dates Behind the Rankings
Allianz analyzed just over 145,000 insured itineraries involving round-trip flights departing from United States airports between November 21 and November 26, with return dates between November 27 and December 1.
That window captures departures ahead of Thanksgiving Day on November 26, along with returns through the following Tuesday.
The report does not provide destination-level passenger totals or year-over-year changes, so Cancun’s first-place finish establishes its position within this year’s sample without indicating how much its holiday demand has increased.
A Longer Holiday Vacation
A separate Allianz survey offers additional context for the Thanksgiving travel season. Among 1,524 surveyed travel insurance customers, 32.4 percent said they were either adding vacation days to their holiday travel or considering it.
Twenty percent had already decided to extend their vacation. Those respondents planned a median stay of eight days, compared with six days among holiday-only respondents.
Those findings cover the broader surveyed group, rather than Cancun or Caribbean visitors specifically. Still, they show that a portion of this year’s Thanksgiving travel extends beyond a long weekend — with Mexico and the Caribbean prominent among the international destinations Americans are choosing.
