TEXAS \u2014 Millions of Texans are\u00a0traveling for the holidays, either by catching a flight or driving.<\/p>\n
AAA says more than 9 million Texans will travel at least 50 miles from home\u00a0for Christmas and New Year\u2019s.\u00a0That\u2019s nearly 2% more than last year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do see an increase in the number of people that are traveling by car this year,\u201d said Daniel Armbruster, a spokesperson for AAA.<\/p>\n
Out of the millions of Texans traveling for the holidays, one of them is Tawana Franklin.<\/p>\n
Instead of flying to Mississippi to see her family for the holidays, she and her 3-year-old daughter are taking an eight-hour road trip instead.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s much cheaper to drive to Mississippi. Gas is much cheaper right now, which, which is great. But then, you know, the cost of two airline tickets \u2014 that\u2019s an expense that I didn\u2019t want to take on especially with now all airlines require you to pay for checked bags,\u201d said Franklin.<\/p>\n
According to AAA, the statewide average gas price is about $2.51 per gallon, 40 cents cheaper than the national average.<\/p>\n
Compared to last year around the holiday season, Texas gas is 10 cents cheaper per gallon.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you go into these major holiday periods where you have a lot of people driving, you will see gas prices fluctuate a little bit, but nonetheless they are going to likely be a little bit lower than where they were a year ago,\u201d said Armbruster.<\/p>\n
This year marks the fourth year in a row that Texas gas prices are lower\u00a0around the holiday season.<\/p>\n
But why are gas prices so low? There are many factors at play, according to GasBuddy.<\/p>\n
\u201cOPEC+ announcing rapid increases in oil production output. That\u2019s putting pressure on the price of oil and wholesale gasoline in a downward trend,\u201d said Matt McClain, a GasBuddy expert. \u201cOf course, Texas is known to produce oil. TV shows have even been produced out of it, and we understand that. And that\u2019s always a great thing. You refine a lot of the product in Texas as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the winter, gas experts say the gas demand\u00a0also\u00a0decreases\u00a0to\u00a0help bring the cost down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can gas up maybe once or twice at most. And then, you know, I\u2019m just on my way,\u201d said Franklin.<\/p>\n
But for her, cheaper gas is an opportunity to road trip with her daughter while saving money.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo to me, this is it just gives us more time to bond, less busyness, and to me it seems more economical,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TEXAS \u2014 Millions of Texans are\u00a0traveling for the holidays, either by catching a flight or driving. AAA says…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[2160,30626,30627,132,134,133,1570,102,138,9979,223,82,27,1569,2053,29499,835],"class_list":["post-98797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-app-top-stories","tag-app-traffic-transit","tag-app-traffic-and-transit","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-ctv","tag-dallas","tag-el-paso","tag-marcine-graham","tag-news","tag-san-antonio","tag-texas","tag-texas-what-you-need-to-know","tag-top-stories","tag-traffic-and-transit","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98797"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98797\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}