Elbows up, phones down: Some Canadians who travel to the US are keeping it off social media

Stefanie Ricchio has been taking her kids to New York City since they were newborns.

“It’s a special place for us and a tradition for my daughter,” says the Toronto-based chartered professional accountant. To celebrate her daughter’s birthday each April, they travel to the city to watch a Yankees game at Yankee Stadium.

But this year, while they still made the trip, they kept quiet about it.

“I felt like this is not really something that I want to broadcast because I feel like I shouldn’t be spending my money there,” she says. “There’s that conflict of (being a) super-proud Canadian, but also these are our traditions and memories that mean something to my daughter that I didn’t want to give up.”

Ricchio is referring to the reluctance — by now, a grassroots national resistance — of Canadians traveling to the United States. Alongside the buy-Canadian movement, which started when US President Donald Trump first started imposing tariffs in March 2025 and continues to today, Canadians also changed their travel plans.

Courtesy Stefanie Ricchio

In 2024, Canadians made 39 million return trips across the US-Canada border. Then the tariffs and 51st state mentions began and that number contracted — sharply. There were year-over-year declines in Canadians traveling to the US for 15 consecutive months until April 2026. The 2026 Canadian Travel and Tourism Outlook study from Environics Research shows that six in 10 Canadians are either actively avoiding travel to the US (46%) or would travel to the US, but feel conflicted (15%).

This summer, however, there was a slow but steady increase of Canadians crossing the border, according to Statistics Canada, though numbers were still 25.6% lower than in the same time period in 2024. Like Ricchio, they are traveling to sports games, concerts and theme parks. Many of them, however, aren’t posting their trips on social media or talking about the holidays with friends because the “elbows up” sentiment still prevails.

“If I did have to tell somebody that I was going, I felt a little bit of angst. Are they judging me? Saying, ‘You could just watch the Yankees play here in Toronto,’” she says.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

A chill on tourism in Florida’s ‘Little Quebec’

Kemi Wells-Conrad, founder and president of Wells Luxury Travel, a travel agency in Vancouver, says her travelers are falling into two categories.

Recent tensions between the two countries have led some of her clients to restrict US travel entirely, canceling US trips they may have planned and even avoiding layovers at US airports.

Others, particularly those traveling with family, are “still going,” she says.

“Because Hawaii, for example, is so good with family resorts and it might be their annual tradition, or some of them have a home in Arizona or one of the Hawaiian islands.

“I definitely had people saying, ‘Oh, I’m not telling my friends I’m going,’ or ‘not posting on social media that I’m going,’” Wells-Conrad says.

But she explains that they tend to separate Hawaii, in particular, from the rest of the US. “Even though, of course, it’s part of the United States, people do see it differently with the different culture.”

Barry Choi, a personal finance and loyalty program expert in Toronto, travels to the US for both work and fun. When the tensions between Canada and the US first started, he kept quiet about the trips, but now he shares both on his Instagram account to more than 12,000 followers — something he’s gotten backlash for.

“The reality is, I’m not going to the US to visit Donald Trump. I go there to see friends, family, and things that we don’t have here in Canada. If there was like a Disney World in Vaughan,” he says, referring to a suburb of Toronto, “of course I wouldn’t go to Orlando. Or if my friends and family lived here in Canada rather than Miami, California, New York, there’d be no reason to go.”

He decided to start posting these travels publicly because he thought it worthwhile to share with those who follow his social media accounts what the experience is like for Canadians.

“I was in the Palm Beaches, and every single local I talked to, as soon as I told them I’m from Canada, apologized for the president,” Choi says. “They’re like, “I didn’t vote for him. Most people here do not like him. I found that to be a bit shocking, to be honest.”

The tariffs and tensions are affecting people on both sides of the border, he says. “I do feel like the people there are feeling the same struggles as us.”

Danielle Donders/Moment RF/Getty Images/File

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Still, some who have ventured across the border have decided it’s not worth it.

Caleigh, a marketing executive in Toronto who didn’t want her last name published for fear of backlash, recently drove across the border to watch a Hayley Williams concert in upstate New York, but kept quiet about the trip.

“I know that my family is very much like against it, and friends are apprehensive,” she says of US travel.

She had considered not going at all and listing the tickets for resale.

“All of the Lake Ontario rhetoric was a week or so before the concert, and then more tariffs were put into place, so there was a heightened sense of everything going on,” she says. The plan was to drive across with a friend, but they wondered, “Is the border going to be stricter now?”

How fed up are Canadians with Trump?

In the end, she and a friend drove to the show. Normally, she would have posted her road trip and the concert to her social media, but she didn’t post at all during the journey. Part of it was not wanting people who follow her to know she had gone, the other reason was concern over having her phone searched at the border.

While her phone wasn’t searched going into the US, her car was.

“As a family, we used to go to upstate New York quite a lot growing up, and (this time) felt completely different. They were doing flashlight searches of all the cars, no matter what,” she says. “The vibe has completely shifted. The kind of scrutiny has completely shifted.”

As a result, she doesn’t plan on making another trip — whether she keeps quiet about it or not.

斯蒂芬妮·里奇奥从孩子们出生起就一直带他们去纽约市。

“这里对我们来说意义非凡，也是我女儿的传统，”这位居住在多伦多的注册会计师说道。每年四月，为了庆祝女儿的生日，她们都会前往多伦多，在洋基体育场观看一场洋基队的比赛。

但今年，虽然他们仍然进行了这次旅行，但他们对此事保持沉默。

“我觉得这件事不太好公开，因为我觉得我不应该把钱花在那里，”她说。“一方面，我为自己是加拿大人而感到无比自豪；但另一方面，这些传统和回忆对我的女儿意义重大，我不想放弃它们。”

里基奥指的是加拿大人前往美国旅行的意愿降低——如今这已演变成一场全国性的草根抵制。与此同时，随着“购买加拿大货”运动的兴起（这场运动始于美国总统唐纳德·特朗普2025年3月首次加征关税，并持续至今），加拿大人也改变了他们的旅行计划。

图片由 Stefanie Ricchio 提供

2024年，加拿大人往返美加边境的次数达到3900万次。随后，关税政策和美国宣布成立第51个州的举措开始实施，这一数字急剧下降。从2026年4月到2026年4月，加拿大人赴美旅行的次数连续15个月同比下降。Environics Research发布的《2026年加拿大旅游业展望》研究报告显示，十分之六的加拿大人要么正在积极避免前往美国旅行（46%），要么虽然想去美国旅行，但内心却很矛盾（15%）。

然而，据加拿大统计局的数据显示，今年夏天，加拿大人跨境前往其他国家的人数虽然缓慢但稳定地增长，但仍比2024年同期下降了25.6%。和里基奥一样，他们前往其他国家观看体育赛事、参加音乐会和游览主题公园。然而，由于“保持社交距离”的观念仍然盛行，许多人并没有在社交媒体上分享他们的旅行经历，也没有和朋友们谈论假期。

“如果我不得不告诉别人我要去那里，我会感到有点焦虑。他们会评判我吗？会说，‘你完全可以在多伦多看洋基队的比赛啊，’”她说。

乔·雷德尔/盖蒂图片社

佛罗里达州“小魁北克”旅游业遭遇寒流

温哥华旅行社 Wells Luxury Travel 的创始人兼总裁 Kemi Wells-Conrad 表示，她的旅行者分为两类。

最近两国之间的紧张局势导致她的一些客户完全限制了前往美国的旅行，取消了他们可能已经计划好的美国之旅，甚至避免在美国机场转机。

她说，其他人，特别是那些和家人一起旅行的人，“仍在继续”。

“例如，夏威夷有很多适合家庭度假的度假村，这可能是他们的年度传统，或者他们中的一些人在亚利桑那州或夏威夷群岛拥有房产。

“确实有人​​说，‘哦，我不会告诉我的朋友们我要去’，或者‘我不会在社交媒体上发布我要去的消息’，”威尔斯-康拉德说。

但她解释说，人们往往会将夏威夷，尤其是美国其他地区，区别对待。“虽然它当然是美国的一部分，但由于文化差异，人们对它的看法确实不同。”

巴里·崔是多伦多的一位个人理财和会员忠诚度计划专家，他经常因工作和娱乐前往美国。加美关系最初紧张时，他一直对这些旅行保持沉默，但现在他会在拥有超过12000名粉丝的Instagram账号上分享这些旅行经历——这也让他遭到了一些批评。

“事实上，我去美国不是为了见唐纳德·特朗普。我去那里是为了见朋友、家人，以及体验我们在加拿大没有的东西。如果沃恩（多伦多郊区）有个像迪士尼乐园那样的地方，”他说道，“我当然就不会去奥兰多了。或者，如果我的朋友和家人住在加拿大而不是迈阿密、加利福尼亚或纽约，那我就没有理由去美国了。”

他决定公开这些旅行经历，因为他认为与关注他社交媒体账号的人分享加拿大人的旅行体验是值得的。

“我当时在棕榈滩，我跟每个当地人聊天，只要我告诉他们我来自加拿大，他们都会为总统道歉，”崔说。“他们会说，‘我没投他的票。这里的大多数人都不喜欢他。’说实话，我觉得这有点出乎意料。”

他说，关税和紧张局势影响着边境两侧的人们。“我感觉那里的人们和我们一样，正经历着同样的困境。”

Danielle Donders/Moment RF/Getty Images/文件

一些美国游客“冒用国旗”，加拿大人对此非常愤怒。

不过，一些冒险越境的人最终认为这样做不值得。

凯莉是多伦多的一位市场营销主管，她因为害怕遭到报复而不愿透露自己的姓氏。最近，她开车越过边境，前往纽约州北部观看海莉·威廉姆斯的演唱会，但她对这次旅行保持沉默。

“我知道我的家人非常反对去美国旅行，朋友们也对此感到担忧，”她谈到美国旅行时说道。

她曾考虑过干脆不去，然后把票转售。

“所有关于安大略湖的言论都集中在音乐会前一周左右，之后又出台了更多关税，所以当时的气氛更加紧张，”她说。他们原本计划和朋友开车过境，但他们担心，“现在边境会更严格吗？”

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最后，她和朋友开车去了演出。平时她都会在社交媒体上分享这次自驾游和演唱会的经历，但这次她全程都没发。一部分原因是她不想让关注她的人知道她去了，另一部分原因是担心过境时手机会被检查。

虽然她进入美国时手机没有被搜查，但她的车被搜查了。

“我们一家人小时候经常去纽约州北部，但这次感觉完全不一样。不管什么车，他们都要用手电筒搜查，”她说。“气氛完全变了。审查的方式也完全变了。”

因此，她不打算再去那里旅行了——无论她是否对此保持沉默。