What's the hottest party place on Earth? The answer to that question is different now than it was a year ago.
We recently took every place that Lycos Travel covers, and tossed all the names into our big search number cruncher. That's over 700 cities, countries, states, and islands. Then we compared search numbers from last week with numbers from last year at the same time.
Now, obviously, some of these searches could have been subject to influences from the news this year, or last. We also limited the study to locations with a certain amount of searches. Let's be honest -- we don't get too many searches for Dar Es Salaam or San Bernardino.
With those caveats, here are the places with the greatest growth in searches when compared to last year.
1) Tijuana
2) Andorra
3) Great Barrier Reef
4) Ibiza
5) Cork
6) Oslo
7) Rotterdam
8) Isle of Wight
9) Middle East
10) Seychelles
11) Finland
12) Brunei
It must be something in the water; searches for Tijuana are up 260 percent. As for Middle East, well, I think we know why searches for that are up.
On the other hand, here are the places with the greatest shrinkage in searches when compared to last year.
1) Goa
2) Lancaster
3) Charlotte
4) West Virginia
5) Montana
6) Colombia
7) Nebraska
8) Poland
9) Mexico City
10) Massachusetts
11) Martha's Vineyard
12) Istanbul
So that answers our question. The Indian island of Goa, known for its ecstasy-powered beach raves, has apparently lost a lot of its cachet among the party-hopping youth. Searches are down 68 percent from last August.
Instead, the hot spot is the Spanish island of Ibiza, which has seen searches rise 150 percent from last August. Ibiza is known for its hedonistic all-night club parties, with entertainment from all the world's hottest disc jockeys.
Finally, what is the place that came closest to having the same number of searches this year as it did last year? That would be our beloved neighbors to the north, Canada.
TOMORROW: The new Lycos 50 has Powerball fever!
