At The Poker Table of Travel, they're saying "I'll see your record gas prices and I'll raise you millions of miles in trips.

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No bluff, even with the price of gas soaring, nearly 40 million people are expected to travel long distances over the upcoming May 27th - May 30th Memorial Day weekend.

AAA Says Expect Crowded Roads

The United Press International has the latest predictions from the American Automobile Association (AAA)
The AAA said in its annual forecast that it expects 39.2 million people will travel 50 miles or more in the United States over the holiday weekend. That would be an 8.3 percent increase over the same weekend in 2021.
Of the total figure, AAA expects that most people—about 35 million—will travel by car.

Who Has The Highest Prices

All this travel, despite the fact that as of 5/17/22, the national average for a gallon of regular gas was $4.57. This time last year the average price for a gallon of gas was $3.04.  You'll have more affordable travel if you're in Kansas where the least expensive, gas is at $4.03. And if you're in California, then Toto you are NOT in Kansas anymore with Cali prices average of $6.05 a gallon!  Keep that in mind when you head out on the road.

Airfare Is Up

Another 3 million are expected to travel by plane. The AAA also noted that the average lowest airfare this Memorial Day weekend is a little bit more expensive than last year. CheapoAirlines say they have the best deals, some too low to be published! (C'mon Man)

If you are going by bus or some other way, look for another 1.3 million fellow travelers.

The Covid Connection

AAA Travel Senior Vice President Paula Twidale says:
Memorial Day is always a good predictor of what's to come for summer travel," in a statement....Based on our projections, summer travel isn't just heating up, it will be on fire. People are overdue for a vacation and they are looking to catch up on some much-needed R&R in the coming months.
So what is it that overrides record high prices?  You guessed it.  Covid-19!   Or in this case, busting out from the Covid-19 pandemic. This Memorial Day weekend is the first since the pandemic began during which most coronavirus restrictions will have been lifted.

If you go, wherever you go, be safe.

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

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