Gobble Gobble: ASIA is a top Thanksgiving destination??

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Forget about an autumnal nip in the air: Americans are looking for sun this Thanksgiving.

Florida and California are the most popular destinations for Americans flying for the holiday, according to data provided to CNBC by travel website Priceline.com. Almost half of the states don't appear on anyone's top five.

Priceline.com ran the numbers on the top five flight destinations for residents of each state over the week of Thanksgiving to see where people are headed. Residents departing from local airports in different states were excluded (so New Yorkers flying out of Newark aren't counted as spending the holiday in New Jersey).

Forty-seven states and Washington, D.C., have California as a top-five destination, according to the data, and travelers from 43 states made Florida a hot spot.

If an 80-degree day sounds unusual for roasting a turkey, think about this: Asia is a top travel destination for residents of 14 different states, the data show. That's one more than the number of states sending people to Illinois. Asia has an average rank of 3.4, compared with Illinois' 4.1, so it's a more popular destination in the states from which people are going.

"A lot of people are using the holiday period to visit families overseas," said Brian Ek, a travel analyst at Priceline.com. Ek also said international travelers were taking advantage of attractive airfares.

Holiday merrymakers are benefiting from airfares that have fallen over the past year following the dramatic decline in oil prices. In August, airfares dropped 6 percent from the previous year, but only after jet fuel futures fell 53 percent in the same time. In October, airfares were down 0.2 percentage points from six months prior.

More than 3.5 million people are forecast to be flying for Thanksgiving, and more than 40 million are likely to be driving out of town. That's 0.7 percent more than last year, thanks largely to gas prices that are 75 cents cheaper per gallon than this time last year.

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