MW The road trip is back as more Americans search for savings on summer travel. Here's how to pull off a great road trip.
By Venessa Wong
'All in all, that's roughly $3,242 in savings,' said one traveler who canceled plans to fly to Mexico to drive with her family instead
On July 4, Jazmin Eusébio will pack into an SUV with her sister, her brother, her boyfriend, her mom and her dad, and embark on an 11-hour journey from San Jose, Calif., to Ensenada, Mexico.
Originally, the family of six had planned to fly to San Diego and drive a rental car for the remaining leg of the trip, to save money rather than flying direct. But when her parents found out it would cost about $500 per person for the 1.5-hour flight, they started to reconsider whether they would join. "We said, 'Why don't we make a road trip out of it?'" Eusébio told MarketWatch.
Such a crowded trip might sound like a lot for most people, "but we grew up doing a lot of road trips," she said. Traveling by car rather than plane will save them thousands on flights, and they'll save an additional $769 by not renting a car in San Diego. "All in all, that's roughly $3,242 in savings," according to Eusébio.
Many Americans are using similar money-saving tactics for their summer travel. Some 66% of American travelers are planning to take a road trip this summer, up from 56% last year, according to research by Deloitte. Most are traveling by road to save money, the report noted. When asked what downgrades they were making compared to last year, 28% of people said they are driving instead of flying.
Also, "travelers across all income groups had an increase in intentions to stay in RVs as the accommodation for their longest trip this summer," said Stephen Rogers, managing director of Deloitte's Consumer Industry Center.
Most Americans planning a summer road trip expect to drive 399 miles or less and spend less than $1,000 for their travels, according to a new survey by Experian (UK:EXPN).
The cost of owning a vehicle has skyrocketed in recent years as prices for cars, auto repairs, and auto insurance have soared. The average car payment is now $766 a month, while auto insurance is $192 per month on average. Using their vehicles for summer travel gives drivers a way to get more value from their costly cars.
While the global travel industry is expecting a record year, higher-income households are largely fueling the travel boom. Those earning more than $100,000 are expected to account for 44% of travelers this year compared to 35% in 2023, according to Deloitte. Baby boomers are also expected to represent a larger share of travelers this summer (34%) compared to last year (28%), while millennials' share is down to 30% (from 35% last year).
Yet across all income levels, people are hunting for deals, the Deloitte report said.
Driving instead of flying is the most common way (42%) that summer travelers plan to save money, according to a survey by NerdWallet (NRDS) earlier this year. For solo travelers planning trips that aren't too far away, it is almost certainly more economical than flying, while for families and groups, riding together in one vehicle reduces costs significantly - on both short- and long-distance trips - compared to booking flights for several people, according to a separate analysis by NerdWallet.
Related (May 2024): Spirit and Frontier just scrapped some fees, but brace for extra charges on these 10 U.S. airlines
Per an analysis conducted by Deloitte for MarketWatch, the average cost of a plane ticket is $384.86, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. For a family of four, that would add up to $1,547.44. The average distance of a passenger flight is 941 miles, or 1,882 miles for a round trip.
"Most families wouldn't take an 1,800-mile road trip, but they'd spend $294 on gas if they did," noted Deloitte's Rogers. This calculation assumes they drove a midsize SUV that averaged 23 miles per gallon - so that's 82 gallons for 1,882 miles at $3.593 per gallon. "Even with adding in an additional night or two of hotel accommodations, families would likely still save money," Rogers said.
Still, road trips don't save money for everyone - especially solo travelers. Individuals planning long, cross-country trips may find that flying can actually be cheaper when factoring in maintenance costs for the vehicle, NerdWallet said. As of February, airfare from Los Angeles to New York was about $257 for Fourth of July weekend, while driving would have cost $670 for gas and maintenance. (This estimate does not include expenses for hotels or food along the way).
Besides cost savings, Americans say road trips offer other benefits. Travelers in a survey commissioned by Michelin in February said the best parts of road trips were seeing new landscapes and scenery (50%), listening to music (43%), getting a break from their routine (26%), enjoying driving (25%) and trying local food along the way (24%).
The drawbacks of going by car: losing cell service (36%), needing to make frequent bathroom stops (35%) and passengers asking, "Are we there yet?" (27%), the Michelin survey found.
Road-trip season - aided this year by moderate gas prices, now $3.78 per gallon compared to $4.27 in 2022, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data - has already begun. Memorial Day weekend, widely considered to mark the beginning of summer travel, set a record for road travel this year with 38.4 million people traveling by car, according to AAA projections.
"People are prioritizing travel now more than ever, and budgeting their lives accordingly," Aixa Diaz, an AAA spokesperson, told MarketWatch.
Any road trip comes with a litany of unpredictable factors: whether all the luggage will fit, traffic, and the fact that "we all have different music tastes - I don't know who's going to be in charge of the aux cord," said Eusébio, the traveler from San Jose. Still, "we're just really excited that we're able to do this as a family," she added.
If you are planning to take a road trip this summer, here are some tips to save money.
1. Comparison shop for gas. One of the biggest expenses on a road trip is fuel. Use apps like GasBuddy, AAA or even Google Maps to compare prices along your route.
2. Obey the speed limit to maximize fuel efficiency. Drivers get more miles per gallon driving at 55 miles per hour than at 65 mph or 75 mph, according to Consumer Reports.
3. Inspect your car and your tire pressure before you depart. Properly inflated tires improve fuel efficiency, according to Consumer Reports. The recommended tire pressure is listed on a door-jamb sticker.
4. Drive during off-peak hours. Not only will you save time, you'll also reduce the amount of gas wasted sitting in traffic.
5. Pack the cooler. Eating at restaurants has become prohibitively expensive for many families, even with the deals that many fast-food chains are launching to bring cost-sensitive customers back to their dining rooms and drive-throughs. If you can, bring your own food, even if it's just a few sandwiches, snacks and a simple breakfast. It will also likely be healthier than whatever you find at the highway rest stop.
Read next (May 2024): These are the most popular flights in the U.S. this summer - and how much they'll cost you
-Venessa Wong
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June 05, 2024 06:00 ET (10:00 GMT)
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