The term “foliage trip” appears in a Vermont newspaper in 1909. The term “foliage trip” appears in the Vermont newspaper in 1909. As reproduced in the Chronicling America corpus of US newspapers, it is there modified by ‘autumn’.

They were celebrating their seventh wedding anniversary in taking an autumn foliage trip through the Berkshires, the Green Mountains and the Connecticut valley….

( The Bennington Evening Banner, October 15, 1909.) The term

reappears without a modifying ‘fall’ or ‘autumn’ in 1931, in The True Republican, Sycamore, Illinois. In 1964, an appearance in Lancaster Farming (Pennsylvania) is modified by ’autumn’. This is

important for reference or in the context of publication. Subsequent appearances in 1971 and 1973 are found in newspapers from Missouri and Illinois, where the term is modified by ‘fall’. In 1975 and 1981, the term often appears in Texas newspapers, unmodified. In 1983, 1985 and 1995 the term appears in three more Texas newspapers, modified by ‘fall’. We realised that the term can come at any time.

All the above appearances can be viewed in context by following links from the two pages of an Elephind search for ‘foliage trip’.

Beyond uses (including more recent ones than are shown in the Elephind search) in the Northeast, Mid-Atlantic, Southeast and Midwest states of the US, a search of the NOW Corpus reveals an appearance in Toronto.

The more common variant, ‘foliage tour’, likewise occurs in newspapers (digital and otherwise) published in the western and midwestern regions of the US, as well as southeastern Canada (as evidenced by appearances in San Francisco Star ). In 1916, in the “Travel” section of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, virginia, it is used in the title of an pseudo-news advertisement describing two tours: “Summer Vacation Tour and Autumn Foliage Tour of JAPAN”. By the first change to fall in December 1917, the other two appeared in newspapers from Pennsylvania and New York for an increase of seven votes.

After 1917, the ‘foliage tour’ variant does not crop up again in the Elephind corpus until 1956, in the Lancaster Farming newspaper from Pennsylvania where ‘foliage trip’ turns up in 1964. In the Elephind corpus, approximately 200 instances of ‘foliage tour’ appear.

Why do people

use a “foliage trip”?

As detailed above, to the best of my external-evidence-based knowledge. As detailed above. Having grown up in the midwestern US, I can attest from personal experience that the terms ‘foliage trip’ and ‘foliage tour’ were common there from the 1960s through the 1990s at least. I have no doubt they still are, but can’t attest to it from personal experience.

Does this expression come up very frequently in US people outside of the US North-East (remember that they cant have fall leaves if they go crazy and so on)?

Yes. I know why you say yes. There’s nothing mysterious about the expression, and many English-speaking people will be familiar with the beauty of autumn foliage colors, if not from direct experience then from photographs and films.

Why does the English word ‘British English’ have ‘a similar expression’?

Why isn’t the English expression mystifying if a lot of people in the local English dialects don’t know what is described by fall or autumn but in a ‘liar’. It’s a very personal one. Can people still pass a sneer or a grin at this expression?

What Wikipedia is familiar with is leaf peeping (origin unknown)? I don’t have any British experience from New England, and it seems to be more popular than “foliage trip” which seems to be exclusively used for New Holland tourism.

What does leaf peeping mean?

Is leaf peeping the popular

American pursuit of admiring the dramatic changing foliage colours?

The term is not popular in many areas of US, much less the UK.