Straycation Season: Nearly Half Cross the Line on Guys’ and Girls’ Trips

Booking a summer trip without your partner? The data suggests you might want to read this first.

A new survey of adults in relationships, commissioned by Casinos Analyzer, has found that summer is the season people are most likely to be unfaithful, and the trip away is where most of the damage gets done. Casinos Analyzer calls it the Straycation: the trip where being away from your partner turns into flirting, or something a lot harder to explain when you get home.

Key findings:

49% have crossed a relationship line on a summer trip
62% turn bolder and more forward the moment they travel solo
14% have kissed someone else while away, and 8% have gone as far as a one-night stand
39% name summer as their season of peak temptation, more than double any other
49% worry their own partner could stray on a trip away
34% have had a serious row after a summer trip, and 12% watched a relationship end

What Starts as Flirting Rarely Stays There

There is something about a suitcase that rewrites the rules. Nearly half of respondents, 49%, admit to crossing a relationship line while away from their partner in summer, and the behaviour ranges from harmless-ish to hard to defend. Almost a third (32%) have flirted with someone on a trip, 19% have slipped a stranger their number, 14% have kissed someone else, and 8% have spent the night with someone behind their partner`s back. Filed under "holiday fling," it sounds like a rom-com subplot. Filed under the actual numbers, it looks like a habit.

What links all of it is who people become the second they travel alone. A striking 62% say they get bolder and more forward when their partner isn`t there, split between 28% who go a lot bolder and 34% who go a little. That is the Straycation in one sentence: the version of you that checks in the moment you check into the hotel. It rarely arrives by plan. It shows up through a change of scenery, a couple of extra drinks, and the quiet thrill of being somewhere nobody knows your relationship status.

Relationship therapist Jaime Bronstein, LCSW, says none of this is as random as it feels. "During vacations, the fictitious line between flirting and cheating can become much less cut and dried," she says. "The usual rhythm of life is becoming derailed by traveling more, meeting with other people, and drinking more often. Situational cheating thrives in these circumstances. What`s interesting is that it`s not only about physical distance, but also a psychological sense of being far from your partner." Read against that 62% figure, her point lands hard. The Straycation was never really about the destination. It is about feeling, for a few days, like the usual rules don`t apply.

The Heat Rises — and So Does the Temptation

Ask people when they were most tempted to cheat, or actually did, and one season wins by a landslide. Summer took 39% of the vote, more than double the share who named winter (15%), spring (14%) or fall (11%). Longer days, looser schedules and a general holiday-brain haze all seem to chip away at the guard people keep up the rest of the year. And it isn`t only wishful thinking they`re reporting. It`s what actually happened.

Curiosity about where the line even sits is spiking too. Searches for "is flirting cheating" have jumped 288% in the past month, which suggests a lot of people are quietly trying to work out whether their own Straycation counts.

Half Already Fear Their Partner Will Stray

If reading this has you eyeing your partner`s group-chat plans for a lads` or girls` trip, you have company. The same survey found suspicion running in both directions. Half of respondents (49%) admit they fear their partner could stray on a summer trip, and 32% say they`d feel uneasy waving them off at the airport at all. A firm 9%, close to one in eleven, wouldn`t sign off on a solo trip in the first place. Whatever gets packed for these holidays, trust is clearly coming along for the ride.

The Holiday Ends — the Relationship Might Too

A Straycation can feel like nothing in the moment and cost a great deal later. Serious arguments have followed a summer trip for 34% of couples, and 12% saw a relationship collapse over one entirely. That is a lot of getaways that returned with more baggage than they set off with, and it is exactly the escalation Bronstein warns about. "What was once an impulsive mistake can morph into a full-blown falling out," she says. "If you hide the messages, belittle what happened, or feign ignorance, it can further intensify the issue. Knowing your partner would perceive your behavior as cheating, the line has already been crossed. And when this happens, it can create a psychological thrill that turns an accident into a habit. Be insightful and consider the consequences before making decisions that could negatively impact the rest of your life. If you`re not happy or fulfilled in your relationship, it`s better to communicate that to your partner, rather than seek comfort in the arms of someone else."

The Boundary Talk That Could Save Your Relationship

None of this is a verdict on your partner. Plenty of people travel solo all summer and come back exactly as committed as they left. But the numbers are a useful reminder that a change of scenery can quietly change behaviour, and that the old "what happens on holiday stays on holiday" logic has more believers than most couples would ever admit over dinner. The reassuring part is that a Straycation only holds power while it stays unspoken. The couples who talk plainly about boundaries, what counts, what doesn`t, and what they`d actually want to know, tend to be the ones who come home lighter than they left.

A survey by Casinos Analyzer of 1,500 US and UK adults in relationships, conducted in July 2026