Travellers are increasingly turning to online user-generated content for vacation planning. Previous studies have looked at a variety of factors to explain differing levels of social media consumption between travellers. Previous research, however, has not examined the role of the role of trip characteristics (such as familiarity with a destination, location of a destination, trip length, travel planning lead time, and travel party composition) in this context. This study found that trip characteristics seem to play a key role when it comes to travellers’ engagement with user-generated content for travel planning – a higher percentage of travellers turned to user-generated content when visiting a destination for the first time, as well as visiting an international destination; a lower percentage of those who travel on their own engaged with social media. This study did not find differences regarding trip length or travel planning lead times.