{"id":207041,"date":"2026-06-17T20:42:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T01:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=207041"},"modified":"2026-06-18T20:37:44","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T01:37:44","slug":"lots-of-people-to-hit-the-road-for-the-july-4-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/06\/17\/lots-of-people-to-hit-the-road-for-the-july-4-holiday\/","title":{"rendered":"Lots of people traveling for July 4 holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>VW independent staff\/submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AAA projects&nbsp;72.2&nbsp;million Americans, including 3.4 million Ohioans, will travel at least 50 miles from home for Independence&nbsp;Day between Saturday, June 27 and Sunday, July 5. This year\u2019s&nbsp;domestic travel forecast&nbsp;surpasses last year\u2019s record of&nbsp;71.8 million travelers, but the increase is smaller than recent&nbsp;year-over-year&nbsp;gains.&nbsp;The number of&nbsp;travelers driving and flying to their destinations is&nbsp;relatively flat&nbsp;compared to last year,&nbsp;while travel&nbsp;by&nbsp;other modes, including&nbsp;cruises,&nbsp;is the category seeing the biggest increase.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cFor many Americans, traveling the week of July 4th&nbsp;is tradition,\u201d&nbsp;said Stacey Barber, Vice President of AAA Travel.&nbsp;\u201cThe 9-day&nbsp;travel&nbsp;forecast&nbsp;includes&nbsp;travelers who are vacationing all week&nbsp;and people just getting away for the long holiday weekend. While the overall number of&nbsp;Independence Day travelers appears to be&nbsp;plateauing,&nbsp;we\u2019re&nbsp;still expecting&nbsp;record&nbsp;volumes this year.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AAA projects&nbsp;61.4&nbsp;million people&nbsp;will travel by car over July 4&nbsp;week,&nbsp;nearly the&nbsp;same number as last year when&nbsp;61.3 million travelers&nbsp;took road trips. 85 percent of&nbsp;Americans traveling for Independence Day are expected to drive to their destinations, despite gas prices reaching four-year highs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" src=\"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/ODOT-travel-photo-2025.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-193021\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">AAA is projecting 72.2 million Americans will travel during the July 4 holiday travel period. <em>AAA photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Last year, the national average for a gallon of regular gasoline was $3.15.&nbsp;This year, prices are&nbsp;higher&nbsp;but&nbsp;remain lower than 2022, when the national average was $4.80 on&nbsp;Independence Day.&nbsp;Despite&nbsp;higher gas prices,&nbsp;filling up the tank during a road trip is still cheaper than&nbsp;purchasing&nbsp;flights&nbsp;for many&nbsp;travelers,&nbsp;especially for families&nbsp;with&nbsp;kids.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>AAA projects&nbsp;5.85&nbsp;million travelers&nbsp;will take domestic flights over&nbsp;July 4 week, a&nbsp;0.2 percent&nbsp;increase over last year. Air travelers make up eight percent of the share of&nbsp;holiday&nbsp;travelers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Travel by other modes&nbsp;is&nbsp;seeing the biggest year-over-year growth compared to&nbsp;car and air travel. AAA projects 4.93 million Americans will take buses, trains, and cruises over Independence Day week, a 5.3 percent increase from last year. This&nbsp;year&nbsp;is&nbsp;also&nbsp;expected to&nbsp;surpass&nbsp;2019\u2019s figure of&nbsp;4.79 million travelers, due&nbsp;in large part to the&nbsp;post-COVID cruising&nbsp;boom.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>VW independent staff\/submitted information AAA projects&nbsp;72.2&nbsp;million Americans, including 3.4 million Ohioans, will travel at least 50 miles from home for Independence&nbsp;Day between Saturday, June 27 and Sunday, July 5. This year\u2019s&nbsp;domestic travel forecast&nbsp;surpasses last year\u2019s record of&nbsp;71.8 million travelers, but the increase is smaller than recent&nbsp;year-over-year&nbsp;gains.&nbsp;The number of&nbsp;travelers driving and flying to their destinations is&nbsp;relatively [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-207041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-31 09:27:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207041"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207084,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207041\/revisions\/207084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}