We at Ermisch Travel will celebrate our 100th year anniversary in 2027. Being in the travel business this long, and having over 110 years of combined experience in our office, we’ve seen it all! One thing we don’t want to see though is people going into debt to afford the vacation they deserve!

Did you know that 84% of people said there were going to put some or all of their 2026 summer vacation on a credit card? Please don’t think this is meant to shame anyone, but on top of that, 35% of people who put last year’s summer vacation on a credit card still haven’t paid it off.

So we’ve put together a series of short articles to help people get on the right track. Booking with Ermisch Travel isn’t like booking with a website. We are not an algorithm. We’re real people just like you, and we care about our clients not going into debt to afford the vacation they deserve!

We’ve been paying attention to the rise of vacation-related debt. In a few words, the trend isn’t good. We’re starting here by looking at the numbers.

Last year’s April 2025 survey from Bankrate showed about one quarter of American adults weren’t going to take a summer vacation. Only 46% of adults planned to take a summer vacation, while 24% said they weren’t, and 23% were unsure.

Those numbers stayed about the same for summer 2026 and it sure seems like nothing has become more affordable since then! Money is the biggest reason people plan on staying home. The survey said that 29% of travelers would be going into debt to take a trip, mostly using credit cards.

WalletHub did a similar survey in April 2025 too. They found that about 18% of travelers still had credit card debt from their summer 2024 vacations.  Their summer 2026 survey showed 30% still carried last year’s travel debt.

NerdWallet published a similar survey for this summer, 2026. It included ways people were going to try and save money, shown above.  84% of people were going to pay for their vacation, in part or in whole, using a credit card. Most said they would pay it off with the first statement.

23% said they won’t pay it off right away. But how many people who said they would pay it off right away will end up accomplishing that goal?

Turns out 74% of people who paid for last summer’s vacation with a credit card didn’t pay it off right away. A whopping 35% of people who put last year’s summer vacation on a credit card still hadn’t paid it off.

That’s almost double (18%) the number of people who still had vacation-related credit card debt from their summer 2024 vacation!

It’s not a good sign, and that’s why we want to be sure our clients know about alternatives! First though, in the next article we’re going to run some numbers to see how much more vacations cost when credit card interest payments are added on top.

Before that though, here’s WalletHub’s most recent graphic on the subject: