An eDreams survey recounts the rituals, foibles and oddities of travellers: early-rising Italians, superstitious Gen Z and United States champions of superstition
There is a moment, at the beginning of every journey, when the whole of Italy stops being a country and becomes a film set. We don’t leave: we carry out a ritual. A ritual that begins long before the airport, when you decide which alarm to set, which “lucky” object to put in your backpack and which state of mind to wear for take-off. Yet, at the end of the story, Italians are not even the most superstitious in the world. Surprise: the primacy goes to the Americans. This is according to a survey by eDreams, which with the precision of an anthropologist and the involuntary humor of global tourism lists the habits that define, more than a passport, who we are when we leave home.
The Italian awakening and exploration as a national discipline
Italians, for example, remain faithful to an ancient idea of travel: you don’t sleep in the morning. For 65%, the alarm goes off early, almost always at dawn, as if the world were to end at midday and every good thing had to be consumed before lunch. A hunger for discovery that is more cultural than tourist. As soon as they arrive at the hotel, everyone stages their own little liturgy: someone lies down on the bed with an almost sacral satisfaction, someone checks the room inch by inch with the rigor of a Scandinavian investigator, someone unpacks their suitcase as if they had decided to move there forever. It is a theater of identity, even before that of behavior.
Supermarkets as museums, museums as playgrounds: the essence of the Italian traveller
But it is outside the room that the true essence of the Italian traveler explodes. Supermarkets become museums of anthropology, the aisles of local products are transformed into a more effective narrative of the territory than many official guides. Almost half of those interviewed admit that they make it an obligatory stop. And we don’t even give up exploring the most unusual museums, from sex to wars, passing through every borderline wonder the planet has to offer. Even the obsession with clothing stores returns promptly: style, after all, never goes on holiday.
Gen Z: superstition 2.0 and militant mornings
What makes everything more interesting, however, are the generational differences. Generation Z is the only one to treat travel as a mix of superstition and do-it-yourself spirituality: manifestations of the outcome of the flight, lucky charms, numbers to avoid, improvised rituals. They are the most convinced that intention can change the trajectory of an airplane. Curiously, however, they are also the early risers: the exploration begins at dawn, with a discipline that borders on the military one but equipped with the hyper-curated aesthetics that only they can give to ordinary moments. Every hotel room becomes a set to be photographed before you even touch a pillow.
The Americans beat everyone: superstition as a national rite
Americans, on the other hand, choose a more traditional, almost nostalgic superstition. They carry out superstitious rituals as if they were essential to make a Boeing move. They hope that the flight goes well, they avoid unlucky numbers, they guard lucky objects with a seriousness that belongs more to folklore than to FAA manuals. In this imaginary ranking, they beat everyone: Italians, Portuguese, British. On the opposite front, the French and Germans confirm themselves as the most rational, even when rationality seems out of place even for them.
Europe divided by the alarm clock: those who run and those who sleep
The alarm clock, however, tells something deeper than superstition. The Spanish, Italians and Portuguese are the true children of the “morning has gold in its mouth”, a formula that sounds ancient and yet still works. For them the day begins very early and ends late, as if it were a cultural battle against time. Germans, on the other hand, prefer to sleep. There is no anxiety about discovery: the priority, on holiday, is rest. It’s a life philosophy disguised as a morning habit.
The courtesy set as a cultural mirror
Even the theme of the courtesy set becomes a cultural referendum. Italians are divided between those who use them, those who take them away “because they paid for them”, those who leave them out of modesty or for fear of committing a micro-theft. Americans and Spaniards consume them all, the Germans leave them there, the French too. It is an anthropological map made of single-dose shampoos and miniature conditioners, a perfect observatory to understand how a tiny object can condense centuries of education, habits, ethics and self-perception.
Traveling as a rewriting of oneself
Ultimately, the eDreams survey not only captures how we travel, but why we do it that way. Habits, rituals, foibles, superstitious gestures are not simple behaviors: they are personal narratives that everyone carries with them like invisible baggage. The Gen Z who demonstrate, the Italians who find supermarkets as if they were museums, the Americans who hope for fate, the Germans who sleep: in every country and in every age group, travel becomes an extension of one’s identity. A mirror that doesn’t lie. A way of telling ourselves when the world doesn’t know us yet.
Maybe that’s the point: traveling means continually rewriting yourself. And every awakening at dawn, every superstitious gesture, every souvenir stolen from everyday life is just another way of saying that, wherever we go, we always carry with us the most authentic – and often funniest – version of who we really are.
