There is something about airports that inspires those "I'm going on a trip!" or "I'm home!" photos.
Whether Portland International Airport's (PDX) carpet with geometric shapes or the 130-foot indoor waterfall known as The Jewel at Singapore's Changi Airport (SIN), some airport features have become iconic enough to be written about in their own right. The latter is so striking that many travelers have been known to extend or even purposefully book a layover in Singapore just to capture pictures of water cascading down in the middle of the airport garden.
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A new survey conducted by adventure travel site Miss Tourism looked at the number of hashtags for each airport posted on social media platform Instagram (META) ; Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) surpassed all others in the U.S. and globally with a whopping 3,393,690 hashtags.
LAX, SFO and KUL: These are the most photographed airports in the world
Popular photos at LAX include everything from generic hand-with-tickets-and-passport pics that many take before a trip, to shots of the Theme Building in the center of the airport's passenger terminal area and the In-N-Out restaurant on the 24R runway that many passionate plane spotters use to watch flights taking off.
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Another California airport — San Francisco International Airport (SFO) — landed in second place, but with 1,047,624 hashtags was far below LAX. The two California airports were the only two to surpass one million. London's Heathrow Airport (LHR) took third place with 762,904 hashtags while Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KUL) scored fourth with 600,336. The latter is home to the famed Jungle Boardwalk that connects airport terminals with a passageway surrounded by flora and animals.
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'Transformed from simple transit points to gateways for adventure'
Regularly topping "best airports in the world" lists for its stunning design, Singapore's Changi Airport rounded out the top five with 581,993 hashtags. No other U.S. airport made the top ten most hashtagged on Instagram but the list also included Amsterdam Airport Schiphol (AMS), Dubai International Airport (DXB) and Tokyo Haneda Airport (HND) — the latter is the smaller airport closer to the city's downtown than the main Narita International Airport (NRT).
The last airport to make the list is London's Gatwick Airport (LGW) with 257,730 hashtags; the smaller London airport is currently undergoing a renovation and expansion costing £10 million (roughly $13 million USD).
Airports that made the top ten did not necessarily do so because of their aesthetics or facilities alone, as almost all are major hubs to their countries and continents and therefore record very large traffic numbers.
LAX recorded 75,050,875 passengers in 2023 while Dubai was the second-busiest in the world after Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson (ATL) — an airport that travelers often classify as "stressful" due to spread-out terminals connected only by an air train. ATLdid not make this list of the most hash-tagged.
"Airports have transformed from simple transit points to gateways for adventure and unique experiences," Miss Tourist founder Yulia Saf said in a statement. "With the rise of social media, travelers are increasingly eager to document and share their journeys from the moment they arrive at the airport."
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