If you’re traveling for Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer in the United States, get ready for crowded highways and soaring gas prices.
AAA predicts that a record 45 million people will travel from Thursday to Monday. Despite the continued pressures of rising gas prices, which are the highest they’ve been since the summer of 2022, most travelers — 87 percent — are likely to drive, AAA said. At the start of the week, the national average for regular unleaded gas was around $4.56 a gallon as of Thursday, according to AAA data. The price was $3.18 at the same time last year.
The average gas price varies widely by state. The highest prices are in California ($6.11), Washington ($5.71) and Hawaii ($5.62); Texas has the lowest cost ($3.92), according to data released this week by the gas price tracking app GasBuddy.
The transportation analytics firm INRIX said travelers should expect the heaviest traffic on Friday from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and on Monday afternoon. Drivers in metro areas headed to nearby vacation spots should brace for more than double the usual congestion on some roads, INRIX added.
For example, drivers headed to Cape Cod Friday afternoon should expect the 70-mile trip from Boston to Hyannis, Mass., to take a little under three hours, instead of the usual 1 hour 15 minutes. And for people returning to Seattle, the 107-mile drive home on Interstate 90 from Ellensburg, Wash., Monday afternoon could take an hour longer than the usual 1 hour 45 minutes.
Only about 8 percent of travelers are projected to fly this weekend, with Friday as the peak travel day. But airports are still likely to be crowded; the Transportation Security Administration predicts that it will screen more than 18 million passengers and flight crew members through Wednesday.
Americans’ top domestic getaways for the long weekend include Las Vegas, New York, Seattle and Orlando, Fla. The most popular international destinations include Athens, London, Paris, Rome and Vancouver, British Columbia, according to AAA booking data.
Overall, all signs point to high demand for air travel this summer. U.S. airlines are expected to fly 263 million passengers from June through August, according to the industry trade group Airlines for America. July is generally the busiest summer month to fly, Federal Aviation Administration data shows.
Airlines said they expected flights to be more packed than they were last year.
American Airlines is projecting a record 75 million customers from May 21 through Sept. 8, and United Airlines forecasts flying three million more customers than it did last summer. Delta Air Lines is offering its largest-ever trans-Atlantic schedule, with flights to new destinations such as Malta and Sardinia.
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Christine Chung is a Times reporter covering airlines and consumer travel.
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