Time for a road trip! Great sunny weather and a long weekend are what road trips are made of. Despite high gas prices and a stagnant economic recovery, AAA predicts a spike in Memorial Holiday travel from Thursday, May 24th to Monday, May 28th.
According to AAA, 34.8 million Americans will travel during the Memorial Day weekend. Compared to last year, the coming weekend should result to an increase of 1.2 percent, or 500,000 more travelers, than the 34.3 million travelers last year.
Despite the increase in the number of travelers, studies by AAA suggest that travel distances may decrease. To explain the findings, AAA President and CEO Robert L Darbelnet said, "The overall domestic economic picture continues to improve slightly, however, American consumers faced a new challenge this year as steadily increasing gas prices throughout the spring significantly squeezed many household budgets. Americans will still travel during the Memorial Day holiday weekend but, many will compensate for reduced travel budgets by staying closer to home and cutting entertainment dollars."
From a nationwide survey recording traveler behavior this weekend, the average trip distance during Memoria Day is expected to be 642 miles, 150 miles less than the 792 mile average recorded last year.
What's more, the number of air travelers are expected to decline by a whopping 5.5 percent as well. Approximately 2.5 million leisure air travelers are expected to fly during the weekend, a drop from last year's 2.7 million. Based on these findings, one can intelligently deduce than the expected decline in air travel directly correlates with the slight growth in automobile travel.
