AAA is predicting record travel during the Fourth of July holiday week, surpassing figures seen before the coronavirus pandemic.
During this holiday, AAA Predict Of the 70.9 million travelers traveling more than 50 miles from home, the report predicts that “a record 60.6 million people will travel by car during Independence Day week,” an increase of 2.8 million from 2023. Moreover, this figure exceeds the 55.3 million car trips made in 2019, before the pandemic.
Details via AAA:
For the first time, AAA looked at the entire week of July 4, as well as the Saturday before and Sunday after the holiday. Travel during this time period this year is projected to be 5% higher than in 2023 and 8% higher than in 2019.
…According to AAA car rental partner Hertz, Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles and San Francisco are the cities seeing the highest rental demand over the holiday week, with the busiest rental days expected to be Friday, June 28th, Saturday, June 29th and Wednesday, July 3rd.
Last year, 67.4 million people traveled over the holiday weekend, so AAA is predicting an increase of 3.5 million people, or 5.2%, this year, which would be an 8.8% increase over 2019 figures.
Paula Twidale, senior vice president of AAA Travel, said more Americans are taking “longer trips” around the Fourth of July because of summer vacation and the realities of remote work.
“We expect this Fourth of July week to be our busiest ever, with 5.7 million more travelers than in 2019,” Twidale added.
This coincides with the fact that this year’s Fourth of July was the most expensive on record. According to the data A study by the US Farm Bureau found that the cost of groceries for a 10-person barbecue will be 5% higher by 2023 and a whopping 30% higher than it was five years ago, under former President Donald Trump’s administration.
In addition, gasoline prices are rising ahead of the holidays. Averaging $3.50 per gallon.
