What are the world's dream destinations for Christmas?

Everyone has their our own way of celebrating the festive season. Every country in the world has its own customs and traditions, and not everyone dreams of the same kind of destination for Holiday celebrations. But some global locations seem particularly popular among those looking to get away at this time of year.

Just as everyone has their own idea of what the traditional Christmas meal looks like, or whether gifts should be unwrapped on Christmas Eve or on the morning of December 25, not everyone shares the same opinion about where would be the best place to spend the festive season. You might dream of Christmassy hotspots like, Strasbourg, France with its famous Christmas market, or Rovaniemi, in Lapland, Finland, known as the official home of Santa Claus.

However, analysis of Google searches carried out by Cloudwards.net looking at where people all around the world want to go for Christmas, tells a different story.

Vienna ranks as the dream destination for people in the USA, Italy, Poland, Germany, Norway and Finland. Meanwhile, people in Sweden, would rather go to Copenhagen. For the Portuguese, Irish and Brazilians, Paris is the ultimate Holiday destination, while the French prefer Brussels. But Christmas isn't just about cooler climes, conducive to the cliché of a snowy setting. Madrid, for example, is the most coveted Christmas travel destination for people in Colombia and Argentina, while those in Thailand and Jordan prefer Tokyo.

Europeans tend to want to stay in Europe for Christmas, while many Canadian, American and Australian travelers are happy to travel further afield. In fact, beyond individual cities, Europe holds sway as the broader global region considered a top choice for Christmas getaways. It is most often cited in this analysis, notably thanks to the popularity of a European capital that you might not immediately think of as being all that festive: London.

With its Christmas markets and legendary New Year's concert, Vienna is often singled out as the ultimate festive destination, but it's the UK capital that is the dream destination for the world's travelers when it comes to celebrating Christmas. The city is cited 20 times as the preferred destination among the countries included in this research, compared with 15 times for the Austrian capital. New York comes third in the list (cited eight times), tied with Paris.