Australia is offically the country global travellers most want to see

People around the world have declared Australia to be the country they most want to see, according to a new international study.

Hostelworld’s Meet the World Report, uncovering travel trends among Australians and people from six other countries, saw Australia put at the top of the to-see list by 23% of people across the UK, France, Germany, the US, Brazil and South Korea — more than the US (22%) and Canada (16%).

It was also discovered that other Australians are in fact the people that Australians most want to meet while they’re abroad, according to a quarter (24%) of Aussies, followed by the English (19%) and Americans (17%).

Aussies’ popularity isn’t just among their own kind either, as three of the six travelling nations polled named Australians as the people they most want to meet while abroad, getting the nod from 26% of Brits, 23% of Americans and 18% of Germans.

The report also revealed that there is a great big world out there that the average Australian is yet to conquer, with Aussie adults having visited nearly six countries each — leaving 97% of the world to go.

Amazingly, there are 122 countries around the world that have been visited by 1% or fewer of Australians — with nations in all corners of the globe, including Greenland, Peru, Kenya, Samoa and Bangladesh, among those in this ‘least-seen’ category.

However, this is likely to change with the numbers of people travelling, as opposed to going on a typical holiday to one location, more than doubling over the past five years — 13% of people having ‘travelled’ in 2010, compared to a massive 27% in 2014. 

England was found to be the country most visited by Australians, with 25% of people having made the long-distance trip. Almost as many have been to the US and neighbouring New Zealand (both 24%), while 23% have been to France.

Yet despite having 97% of the world left to visit, Australians are air miles ahead of some of the other global travellers surveyed. The French, who are right at the heart of Europe, have seen slightly less of the world having visited an average of five countries each (less than 3% of the world), while residents of the US have only seen around 1.5% of countries – three each.

However, Australians are behind residents of some European nations who appear to be taking advantage of their geographic positions; UK adults have seen just under 10 countries each on average (5% of the world), while Germans have seen 4.5% of the world (just over 8 countries each).

Well over half of Australians who have been travelling went expressly with the goals of seeing the world (56%) and having new experiences (55%), while 44% cited adventure as a major factor. Learning more about the world was a big push for 41% of travellers and over a quarter (30%) went to visit friends and family.