Burnt Out On Dating Apps? Just Get On A Plane.

Johnny LaZebnik has a very unique type. The Los Angeles-born TV writer has dated guys of all sorts, but he seems to always be drawn to those with one particular quality: They all hail from the great state of Ohio. LaZebnik, 31, likes how nice and caring Ohioans tend to be. They’re “Golden Retriever boys,” he says, who give great hugs and seem to be eternally optimistic — a nice balance, he finds, to his biting Jewish sarcasm. Again and again, he’ll ask dates where they’re from and receive the same answer. Once, his date said he was actually from Kentucky, which gave LaZebnik pause until he clarified that he was from northern Kentucky, which is part of the Cincinnati metro area. LaZebnik took it as a sign. “It felt very mystical,” he says. “I’m not a very woo-woo person, but I felt like the universe was pushing me to go to Ohio. Who am I to say no?”

Last year, Johnny came up with an idea — something that started as a joke but soon turned into reality: a self-described “slut tour” of the Buckeye State wherein he could escape the LA dating scene and fully immerse himself in Midwestern men. This July, he posted about his plans on TikTok and Instagram, with a PowerPoint presentation that went viral. Soon, he set his Hinge profile to Columbus and Cleveland, matched with a bunch of men, lined up a date for each day, and set off in September to find love — or, at the very least, get laid. Ten days, nine dates, and $2,000 later, LaZebnik says his unusual vacation was the stuff of dreams.

“I cleaned up in Ohio. I felt like the caliber of men was so high,” he says. “I meet great guys in LA, and they’re always married. The good ones get snapped up. In Ohio, I was just shocked that there were men this hot, this eligible, this kind, who were still single.”

While the name LaZebnik gave his trip was unique — as was, arguably, his destination of choice — the idea behind it is not unheard of. Aided by advances in technology, many singles are turning to travel to break out of their dating bubbles. These aren’t just bored travelers deciding to open Tinder or Grindr while abroad, hoping to find a spur-of-the-moment fling. These vacationers are intentional and organized, planning entire trips to regions with people they’re attracted to, or around dates and hookups they’ve set up well in advance. For some holidaymakers, these getaways can serve as test runs for potential long-term moves; for others, they’re just about tracking down more people who fit their type and having some fun. Whatever the outcome, these date-cations are evidence both of an increasingly interconnected world and the lengths people will go to in order to find a spark.

“You have to be open-minded right now to be dating in general. It can be pretty horrific out here.”

“My friends and I called it sex tourism,” jokes Ananya Mody, a 29-year-old who traveled to Finland in June to go on dates with more of the Scandinavian men she’s attracted to. Having previously dated a Swede and spent one amazing night with a Norwegian — and been charmed by their progressive politics and innate sense of gender equality — Mody wanted to see if there were any more matches for her in Finland. When the Mexico City-based digital nomad landed in Helsinki, she immediately opened Bumble and got to work, successfully setting up dates with four men who took her on walks around the city or nearby forests. The 10-day trip cost her about $1,600, and she’s now eyeing Denmark for another dating adventure, even though she says these short trips tend to lend themselves to even shorter romances. “I am open to something long-term, for sure, but I always go in expecting nothing more than a hookup,” Mody says.

Almost a third of Americans believe their dating pool is too homogenous and want to connect with people from other communities and cultures, according to a 2024 survey from the website Dating.com. It also found 44% of single women and 54% of single men were open to dating someone new during their summer vacations. And with many people feeling a sense of dating app burnout, it’s not surprising that daters, especially young adults, might turn to travel as a means to break out from this screen fatigue. In a 2024 survey of 3,000 Americans from the online travel agency Priceline, for example, members of Gen Z were twice as likely as the average respondent to be interested in a vacation romance and almost three times as likely to view travel as “the new dating app.”

Adventurous love-seekers haven’t had to look far for inspiration. TikTok is full of clips of people showing off summer romances that feel like the stuff of movies. More often than not, these videos are replete with comments from incredulous onlookers asking, “This actually happens in real life??”

Pop culture, too, has done much to romanticize the allure of finding love while abroad thanks to movies like Eat, Pray, Love (2010) and Under the Tuscan Sun (2003). On television, TLC just aired a second season of Match Me Abroad, in which singles work with matchmakers to find a partner overseas, while Bravo did something similar with 2022’s Love Without Borders. Not all this media is foreign-focused, though. In 2023, the OWN network broadcast Ready to Love: Make a Move, in which four women travel to New Orleans to sample that city’s dating pool. That same year, HBO released Swiping America, a so-called “rom-doc” that followed four single New Yorkers who traveled to eight U.S. cities to try to find love.

Kesun Lee, 39, a real estate agent now living in South Carolina, was among the cast of Swiping America. After getting out of a long-term relationship, she’d been intrigued by the idea of spending three months going on dates across the country that were set up for her by the show’s producers. “It’s really important to actually expose yourself to the way that other people live and what they find exciting or acceptable or normal,” Kesun says. “I think you’d be surprised at the type of people that you can really click with.”

“I learned very quickly that my social life, my love life, anything related to dating and hooking up, was so much more abundant down there.”

While Kesun enjoyed meeting guys in smaller cities like Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Asheville, North Carolina, she recalls dating one man who had never left his state — a dealbreaker given her passion for travel. But although the relationships Kesun forged with men on the show didn’t ultimately last, she’s still open to doing a similar trip again and, if she met the right guy, moving permanently. “I think that you have to be open-minded right now to be dating in general. It can be pretty horrific out here,” Kesun says. “If there’s anything worth being inconvenienced for, I’m sure that it’s love.”

Many dating apps have features that allow for swiping across countries. Tinder, for example, has a popular “passport” feature to virtually explore the dating scene in different cities or countries. The company says the feature was used 145,000 times on average each day last year, with American users mostly looking for love in Mexico, Canada, and Colombia.

Luis, a 32-year-old advertising professional in Austin (who asked to just use his first name), used Tinder and Scruff to arrange hookups prior to his first solo vacation to Amsterdam, Brussels, and Paris in 2017. A month out from takeoff, he changed his location on the apps, letting potential matches know what dates he’d be in town and suggesting they take him around the city. “I don’t think my main goal was to find a tour guide. It was just to find a hookup,” Luis admits. Still, he would meet with these men for drinks beforehand for “little dates,” quizzing them about the city’s gay scene and local culture. “It made it a little bit more wholesome than just, you know, getting to the point,” Luis says.

These trips aren’t always about just sex. For other people, they can prompt major life changes. In 2019, Abi Peña, a 33-year-old tech salesworker, spent 11 weeks in the Dominican Republic surfing town of Cabarete. She quickly realized just what her life back in Connecticut had been missing: an abundance of men from around the world who seemed more worldly, multilingual, and sporty. “I learned very quickly that my social life, my love life, anything related to dating and hooking up, was just so much more abundant down there,” Peña says. After learning more about herself and what she wants in a partner on that trip, Peña has since returned to Cabarete for several months-long trips. Now, she’s even considering buying an apartment there, partly to surround herself with men she feels she can’t meet as easily in the States.

“My friends and I called it sex tourism.”

There are two big things anyone considering going on dates while traveling should consider — the first and most important being safety. This June, for example, the State Department warned about several Americans being kidnapped in Mexico and held for ransom after being lured via dating apps. They advised people to exercise caution, meet their dates only in public places, and let others know of their plans.

The other thing that daters stress is the need to be upfront with prospective partners about the length of your stay in order to set expectations and not leave behind a trail of broken hearts. After all, whether you’re in town for a few days or, potentially, forever will change how your dates see you. “They want to know what kind of bucket to put you in as well: Can I take this girl seriously? Is she here for a good time, not a long time?” says Sherita Janielle, a 42-year-old who has been dating around the world as a digital nomad for two years since a divorce. Because she gravitates to countries where she might want to settle down with someone, Janielle says she’s had an easier time meeting people than if she were just passing through. One man she matched with before arriving in Spain even picked her up from the airport. They’ve now been dating for six months, and she plans to move her home base there soon. “When you are open to saying, ‘Yeah, I might actually relocate here,’ I think you can have a more true, authentic dating experience,” Janielle says.

As for LaZebnik, he’s not ready to relocate to Ohio just yet, but he wants to return to meet all the friends and lovers he made along the way, almost all of whom he’s still in touch with. He feels the short length of his stay actually took the pressure off these dates, making them more fun for everyone involved. “No one was playing anyone. We were just all on this stupid ride together, and so there wasn’t any of this stupid is-he-going-to-call-tomorrow dating jitters. People were so receptive to that energy, so I really did have fun,” he says, with a wink.

LaZebnik now suggests to any other singles planning a summer vacation that they might do well to consider Cleveland over Cannes, Akron over the Amalfi Coast. After all, as he documented his escapades on social media and Substack, LaZebnik recalls his followers seeming shocked by just how fine these guys were. “I just got so many comments that were like, ‘What the hell?! Where did you find these guys?!’” he says. “And I was like, ‘Ohio!’”