A recent Travelocity survey indicates more than 40 percent Americans are planning to travel over Memorial Day weekend, and 80 percent of those travelers are planning to do so by car. No doubt the cheap gas prices are a big incentive, and state officials around the country are gearing up for crowded (read choked) highways.
Last year, 37.2 million Americans traveled during this time, which was a 4.7 percent increase from the year before. The pattern shows these travel figures will only rise, especially as the Energy Information Administration released a report in April indicating an average price of $2.04 per gallon across the nation — the lowest fuel prices in 12 years.
AAA has also predicted U.S. travelers will be paying the cheapest Memorial Day gas prices in at least five years. They have also estimated U.S. drivers have saved nearly $12 billion on gas in 2016 already, compared to their savings last year.
Add a strong employment market and more disposable income to this, and we can see robust travel figures even beyond the Memorial Day weekend.
The Travelocity survey, in collaboration with Wakefield Research, also outlined the best places to visit out of the 4 million miles of roads in the United States as the official road trip season kicks off this month. The top places in this list include:
- The California coastal highway: The long stretch between Big Sur on the Central Coast and Los Angeles
- Scenic drive between Denver and Yellowstone: A favorite road trip for even seasoned travelers that includes scenic mountain passes, national parks and the vastness of the West.
- Pacific Northwest Passage: Road trip between Oregon and Washington that includes the breathtaking vistas of the Multnomah Falls and Crater Lake, Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, and Ruby Beach among other jewels.
The AAA survey showed 55 percent of Americans are more likely to take a road trip this year. But lower fuel prices also mean lower airline costs.
Online travel agency CheapOair came up with its own list of top 10 Memorial Day weekend destinations. They saw an upsurge in not just domestic bookings, but international as well. While Las Vegas, Nevada, Miami, and even Atlanta have figured in the top picks list, the international hot spots this year are Manila, the Philippines and Cancun, Mexico. Their data also shows the majority of consumers who are booking flights for the holiday weekend are women between ages 21 and 30, instead of families like earlier years.
Memorial Day is the first long holiday weekend of the year and officially kicks off the summer travel season. As we have seen, plenty of road trips are in the offing, which is great news for the travel and tourism industry. State officials, however, are gearing up for better safety enhancement efforts on the highways as public safety concern is huge for one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.
For example, about 2.5 million Southern Californians travel to nearby hot spots like Las Vegas, Laughlin and Lake Havasu on any major holiday weekend. This is just a small portion of the more than 30 million people who travel to other nearby areas, according to the Auto Club of Southern California. The choked highways are patrolled by understaffed highway patrol and fire departments so their petition for additional staffing needs to be looked into right away.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol is faced with similar problems, and to combat this officers will be participating in Operation CARE and peak travel crash reduction enforcement programs during the long holiday weekend. The focus of the programs is to enforce traffic laws and assist motorists in need on these heavily-traveled roadways and reduce traffic crashes.
