Road Trips are Back as Summer Travel Looks Better
With the summer heat slowly creeping in and great gasoline deals, more Americans have decided to hit the highways and kickoff the summer travel season.
More American families and drivers are enjoying road travel this season. AAA travel and an auto group say that there is a 1.5 percent increase in road travel in this year’s Memorial Weekend compared to last year’s.
The road travel trend is expected to be as good as major summer travel holidays like the 4th of July and Labor Day is coming up. Thanks to lower gasoline prices.
Road trips are said to increase 2.7 percent this year as 27 million Americans enjoy the 40 percent cheaper gas.
The national average retail gas price last week was $2.24 a gallon, a lot more affordable from last year’s $3.71. Gas price is not expected to exceed $2.50 a gallon through out the summer travel season.
But along with better gas prices, travel bargains and contained traveler demands will hopefully outdo the fears brought by the recession.
Around 32.4 million Americans are expected to travel more than 50 miles from home during the 3-day Memorial weekend, better than 2008’s 31.9 million. Among these Memorial Day travelers, 83 percent traveled by car, 7 percent by air and 10 percent traveled by rail, bus, or water.
But as road travel looks good, air travel may not be as great.
Summer air travel decreased by 1 percent during the Memorial weekend because of fixed flight schedules and annoyances like fees for luggage.
Overall, we can say that travel is looking good. Yet there are still some who are troubled with the economy that they are still undecided if they will enjoy a summer travel this year.
With the fear of the possibility of losing their jobs, people tend to wait until their actual date of travel comes until they do their reservations. With the uncertainty of the permanence of their sources of income, booking ahead for a summer travel is risky.
