This holiday travel season could be one of the busiest on record but, thankfully, not the most expensive.
According to AAA, 115.2 million Americans will travel 50-plus miles from home during the 10 days between December 23 and New Years Day, 104 million of whom will drive to their holiday destinations. That’s the most travelers seen since 2019 and the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The number of travelers is a 2.2% increase over last year and the second highest since 2000 when AAA began tracking holiday travel, behind only 2019,” the travel agency said in a Monday release.
Drivers will see the price of travel reduced slightly, with fuel prices down to $3.15 per gallon on average nationally, a decrease of 12 cents per gallon over 2022 and 22 cents per gallon in the last month. Massachusetts drivers are paying somewhat more than that, averaging $3.32 per gallon, down 15 cents over last month and 22 cents from a year ago.
Andrew Gross, a AAA spokesperson, said about half of gas stations nationally advertise prices below $3 per gallon, and that “by the end of the year, the national average may dip that low as well.”
With average ticket prices down, airports are “expected to be the busiest they’ve ever been over the year-end holiday travel period,” according to AAA, with a record 7.5 million people expected to take to the skies.
“This year-end forecast mirrors what we’ve been observing throughout 2023,” Senior Spokesperson for AAA Northeast Mark Schieldrop said. “More Americans are investing in travel to make memories with loved ones and experience new places.”
Saturday, December 23, and Thursday, December 28, are expected to be the busiest travel days this year, with most traffic impacts expected in the middle of the day.
“The best times to hit the road in general are before lunchtime or after 7 p.m.,” AAA advises.
The highest gas price recorded was in June of 2022, when it was selling for an average of $5.02 per gallon in the months after Russia launched an unprovoked war on its democratic neighbor Ukraine. The resulting conflict upended the world’s oil markets, skyrocketing the price of crude oil.
President Joe Biden responded to the surge in oil pricing by releasing oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve. His efforts netted a 40-cent drop in gas prices and resulted in the lowest SPR levels since the Reagan Administration. The reserve currently holds 351.9 million barrels of oil, after the sale of about 180 million barrels.
According to Forbes, the U.S. is producing more oil now than it has at any other point in history, averaging 13.2 million barrels per day through October, “well above the recently set monthly record from August 2023, as well as the previous record of 13.0 million bpd from November 2019. Further, the previous annual record, set in 2019, was 12.3 million bpd. Every monthly production average this year has been above that level.”