In 2005, a holiday company by the name of Sky Travel announced a concept that is named “Blue Monday”. It is a Monday in January, usually the third Monday of the month deeming it the most depressing day of the entire year. This pseudoscience theory (although it’s more like a marketing ploy) is based on a combination of cold winter conditions, low finances and drop in motivation after the holiday festivities and merriment have dissipated. Cold, brutal winters play a huge factor in people’s desire to flee to a warm and sunny place.

Each year travel companies would analyze searches made on Blue Monday. While destinations with cool climates stayed around the same, if not decreased.. there has been a great jump in searches to warm and tropical countries. This year, Bangkok had the largest increase in searches and travel interest. Nice, Las Vegas and Miami Beach were also popular choices as these destinations typically do not go under 9°C in January. Meanwhile, searches to the beautiful yet cold Budapest has dropped by 21% in interest compared to last year. The searches were made for trips during January to April.

So while Blue Monday was possibly started as a marketing strategy, the numbers shows that there is some truth behind the concept of this particular Monday.

Are you having a case of Blue Monday? Which country would you like to be in right now?