In 2022, Covid-19 finally loosened its grip on the world.
Our site stats reflect that (beyond) welcome development: Of the year's 10 most viewed pages here at Frommers.com, just one has to do with the pandemic.
Compare that with 2021, when Covid content hogged half of the spots on the list.
That high-ranking 2022 article (#4 in popularity for the year) suggested we were at last on the mend and ready to get back on the road. Published in January, the how-to outlines the documentation formerly needed to prove you had recently recovered from the virus so that you didn't have to take yet another test. Those requirements have since been dropped pretty much everywhere.
But the easing of the pandemic didn't mean all was smooth sailing—or, more to the point, smooth soaring.
Air travel was the topic that generated the most traffic around here over all, and the long airport security lines, flight disruptions, and surging airline ticket prices caused this year by understaffing and inflation likely account for the large numbers of readers joining us to kvetch about the USA's worst airports (2022's second-most popular story), find ways to skip long TSA queues (in fifth place), and get the timing right on airfare purchases to save money (10th).
Speaking of the challenges of sticking to a reasonable vacation budget in 2022, the year's #1 most-read story likewise involves inflated prices, though these are at Disney parks, where costs have been trending skyward since long before our current economic situation. In the piece (posted in February), Frommer's editor-in-chief and our resident Orlando expert Jason Cochran examined the growing discontent of Disney die-hards who are dismayed by the company's curious strategy of letting the quality of the company's theme parks decline while hiking up prices at every opportunity.
Though nowhere near as steep as admission to the Magic Kingdom, the European Union is set to establish an entry fee of its own in autumn 2023, when travelers to the continent will need to register ahead of time with the soon-to-launch European Travel Information and Authorization System (ETIAS). Our primer on what we know about the system so far ranked third on our most-visited list.
Should you need to come up with a way to finance all these ever-ballooning costs, we cannot recommend following the example that a lawsuit alleges was set by influencer Cassie De Pecol. Consumer protection nonprofit Travelers United sued the onetime Naked and Afraid contestant for claiming to have been the first woman to visit every country.
Travelers United accused De Pecol of lying about that and other things in order to get lucrative sponsorship deals for her social media posts. In April Frommer's reported on the false-advertising lawsuit; readers made the story our eighth most popular of the year.
In an update sent to Frommer's via email, Travelers United counsel Lauren Wolfe tells us the first court date in the case is coming up in January 2023. To get more information on the lawsuit against De Pecol and access case documents, visit the page on Travelers United's website dedicated to the matter.
Incidentally, if you're looking for an alternative to the unquestioned hype and (allegedly) dodgy claims of certain travel influencers, you can always count on Frommer's, where we're on a 65-year streak of being truthful about travel as well as trustworthy and never on the take.
The 10 Most Popular Frommer's Stories Published in 2022
1. Disney Raises Prices Again! Even Die-Hard Fans Now Turning Against Poor Quality (published February 17)
2. The 10 Worst Airports in the U.S. (January 14)
3. What to Know About Europe’s New Entry Requirement—and Entry Fee—Coming in 2023 (November 5)
4. How to Get Proof of Recovery from Covid-19 for Travel (January 13)
5. How to Skip Long TSA Lines for Free—Without TSA PreCheck (May 31)
6. New Nonstop Flights Put This Quiet Caribbean Paradise Within Easier Reach (January 31)
7. Florida Gov. DeSantis Voided a Vote in Key West, but Cruises Are Respecting It Anyway (January 17)
8. Travel Influencer Sued for Telling “Increasingly Bold Lies” to Build Her Brand (April 14)
9. Car Renters Force Customers to Bring Fuel Receipts—but It’s Not Always in the Contract (April 8)
10. New Study of Millions of Airfares Reveals the Best Days to Purchase and to Fly (October 19)
