Holiday Travel Numbers Climb Back to Pre-Pandemic Levels | News Radio 1200 WOAI

There’s expected to be a high number of travelers this holiday season across the country and in Texas.

AAA projects 119.33 million Americans will travel over the next few weeks, overtaking the previous record of nationwide travelers set in 2019.

The number of traveling Texans will be 2.2% higher than last year and 3.9% lower than the holiday season in 2019. In Texas, 9.1 million people will travel 50 miles or more from home for the holidays with a majority of them taking a road trip.

AAA Spokesperson in Texas Doug Shupe said even though there won’t be a record broken in Texas this year for end-of-year travel, the state saw record breaking numbers for most other holidays like the Fourth of July and Thanksgiving.

“A lot of people are traveling this year and we’re seeing some of that revenge travel that we saw immediately after the pandemic,” Shupe said. “We’re going to see more travelers in Texas this year than last year, but it will be slightly lower than what we saw over the year-end holidays of 2019.”

According to AAA, 90% of people will travel by road and around 7.8 million are expected to fly to their holiday destination between Dec. 21 and Jan. 1. Some 400,000 Texans are likely to fly.

As anticipated, traffic on the roads and at the airports are expected to be significant. Shupe suggests travelers should be on their way as early in the day as they can be.

“You want to avoid those afternoon rush hours and when people are heading home from work are mixed in with those that are traveling in and out of town,” he said.

The busiest days for travel are expected to be the weekend before Christmas and the weekend before New Year’s Eve.