Cars and Drivers

Summer Road Trips Cheapest Since 2005

Paul Ausick

Published: May 17, 2016 11:35 am

Last Updated: April 28, 2020 5:38 am

If you’ve delayed taking a road trip due to the cost of fuel, you might not want to wait any longer. The only thing to be wary of is the crowd, because there are going to be lots of you out there.

Gasoline prices are forecast at about $2.29 a gallon across the U.S. this summer, an 11-year low and nearly 50 cents a gallon below last year’s summer average. In its annual summer travel survey, GasBuddy found that more than 75% of Americans said they would be traveling this summer, with nearly 80% of those saying they plan to travel by car. The summer season is defined as the period between the Memorial Day and Labor Day holiday weekends.

More than half of this summer’s travelers (56%) expect to put at least 400 miles on the odometer.

That is good news for hotels and motels, restaurants, gift shops and all other manner of travel-related businesses. The GasBuddy survey noted that 53% of this summer’s travelers are doing it for fun and relaxation, compared with 51% last summer.

GasBuddy’s senior petroleum analyst, Patrick DeHaan, said:

Motorists will be filling up their tanks with the cheapest summer gasoline since 2005 and we are finding that more people than ever will be taking advantage by hitting the road. As we kick off driving season, gas prices will be nearly a dollar per gallon lower than the ten-year Memorial Day average of $3.15 per gallon. The incredible part is nationally, we’ll be saving $2.6 billion over the long weekend versus the highest-priced Memorial Day weekend in 2011 at $3.78 per gallon.

One more note on this summer’s travel: GasBuddy expects a 4% increase in day-trippers. The following infographic from GasBuddy offers more details.

Source: GasBuddy Organization LLC