consumer price index<\/a> showed airfares were 20.7% higher in April from a year earlier, the cost of intracity transit, such as buses and subways, rose 5.6%, lodging cost 4.3% more, and eating out got 3.6% pricier.<\/p>\nChanging travel patterns<\/p>\n
Despite elevated prices, industry forecasts suggest Americans still want to get away, even if it means replacing long trips with long weekends, choosing destinations closer to home and finding ways to cut costs by cooking meals or using buses and trains instead of driving.<\/p>\n
AAA predicted that 45 million U.S. residents would travel at least 50 miles from home between Thursday and Monday. The Transportation Security Administration said it expects to screen 18.3 million passengers from Thursday to next Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Many households are planning summer vacations but making tradeoffs such as shorter trips or cheaper lodging, according to Bank of America analysts. Mastercard said in a recent report that consumers appeared increasingly focused on value and were adjusting their destinations and timing instead of not going away at all. <\/p>\n
\u201cGenerally, it\u2019s certainly more of a demand reshuffling than a demand softening,\u201d David Tinsley, a senior economist at Bank of America Institute, said.<\/p>\n
For the Bernaba family, that has meant trading a big vacation for a shorter trip nearby this summer. Their scaled-back itinerary still is pricey: more than $400 for a ferry to Martha\u2019s Vineyard for their car and passengers, and about $800 a night for each of the two hotel rooms the family of five needs.<\/p>\n
Another family that had planned to join them backed out after seeing the price tag.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pinch is being felt all the way around,\u201d Bernaba said.<\/p>\n
Analysts have increasingly described travel spending as \u201cK-shaped,\u201d with higher-income households continuing to spend while lower-income families pull back or opt out entirely. Bank of America said lower-income households were significantly more likely to report having no summer travel plans this year.<\/p>\n
Travelers are confronting other stressors besides cost. <\/p>\n
Airlines around the world have canceled flights and trimmed routes to save on fuel and operating costs, leaving passengers with fewer options. Recent U.S. government shutdowns \u2014 which caused major flight disruptions and long security lines \u2014 are likely still fresh in travelers\u2019 minds. The conflict in the Middle East and broader geopolitical tensions add another layer of concern, especially for those considering trips abroad.<\/p>\n
The various factors impacting travel right now have made planning trips more mentally taxing and may be pushing people toward simpler and more accessible vacations that feel easier to manage, said Marta Soligo, a tourism sociologist at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe keyword here is unpredictability,\u201d Soligo said. \u201cTourists don\u2019t like unpredictability.\u201d<\/p>\n
Quality over quantity<\/p>\n
Jim Wang, a personal finance blogger who lives in Maryland with his wife and four children, said his family\u2019s original plan to travel to Spain to see a full solar eclipse in August began to unravel once they looked at the logistics.<\/p>\n
Beyond thousands of dollars in airfare, the trip would have required multiple connecting flights, plus a car rental to reach northern Spain, where the path of totality is expected to pass.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, I don\u2019t know if I want to see the eclipse that much,\u2019\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n
Instead, Wang\u2019s family plans to head this summer to the Lake Tahoe area straddling California and Nevada, where they can stay at a relative\u2019s cabin for free, hike and enjoy a slower pace with limited cellphone service. His wife\u2019s parents and sister expect to join them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still going to travel. It\u2019ll just be different,\u201d Wang said. \u201cThe vacations are no longer as grand for the adults. But for our kids, it\u2019s still exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nancy McGehee, a Virginia Tech hospitality professor who studies consumer behavior, said travelers are increasingly focusing more on the \u201cwhy than the where\u201d when it comes to vacations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing is people are saying, \u2018All right, we can\u2019t do that big splashy trip we wanted to do, but what else can we do?\u2019\u201d McGehee said. \u201cIt\u2019s more quality over quantity that we\u2019re seeing people go for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back in Rhode Island, Bernaba has accepted that travel may look different for her family for a while.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s probably why my mind has gone to doing more nature-y things,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s learn how to use the earth to enjoy ourselves because that\u2019s not going to cost as much money.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yamat writes for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As someone who is \u201cnot the best person with bugs and stuff,\u201d Stephanie Bernaba never imagined herself becoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326319,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[11432,9261,135725,1750,1431,1073,135726,48,52,51,47,50,49,16208,592,69051,2429,4912,2281,8074,72],"class_list":["post-326318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-americans","tag-bank","tag-bernaba","tag-cost","tag-family","tag-home","tag-jim-wang","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-passenger","tag-people","tag-summer-vacation","tag-thursday","tag-traveler","tag-u-s","tag-world","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326318\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}