The automobile era was still in its infancy when Dr. Jackson took a grueling 63 days to make the first cross-country trip from San Francisco to New York in 1903.By the 1920’s, ‘auto-camping’ was the rage and with it came the birth of the motel. The federal government created the national highway system in 1926 and instituted standardized signage and greatly improved the roads. By 1931, the Airstream had been born. America had discovered the summer road trip. (https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-america-joined-its-two-great-loves-cars-and-the-outdoors)
Through the good times and the challenging times, Americans have been loading up the car and heading off into the great unknown. Countless thousands have driven the mother road (US 66) from Chicago to Los Angeles, taken the family to a national park, or just driven to the motel near a beach somewhere.
The development of the Interstate Highway system just made it so we could go further and faster during our two weeks of summer vacation. America is a vast land and despite the fact that most of us live in big cities, the frontier mentality persists. Freedom encapsulated in the summer vacation trip.
Interesting patterns here – between who rents a car, who takes their own, and who takes an RV – those in the southeast are much more likely to have or rent an RV to take their road trip. The maps below are hexagon level 5.
- Affluent travelers are much more likely than others to fly to a destination and rent a car – this is highest in the wealthier cities like NY, SF, or LA
- People in rural America, and especially in the Midwest, are most likely to take a road trip using their own car – but in lower income rural areas, they are unlikely to take a trip in the first place
How we get there has changed over the years. Using MRI-Simmons data, we looked at the various ways that Americans go on vacation. The ultimate expression is the RV, which many of us will rent for a couple of weeks. Taking the RV on the summer road trip is prevalent in the southeast, and in the suburbs of many of the larger Midwest cities.
Many more take their own cars, especially those in the great plains and in the rural west. A smaller number, but concentrated in the affluent cities of the coasts, grab a flight somewhere and rent a car when they are there.
But no matter how you get there, it is going to cost more this year than last. While gas prices have come down in recent weeks, they remain just shy of $4.00 nationwide, up about 25% from the summer of 2025. They are well below the 2022 peak (https://www.macrotrends.net/3591/us-gasoline-prices):
Drivers in California would love to pay the $3.91 national average reported by AAA. The average in the state as of June 19 was $5.61 (with a high of $6.88 in isolated Mono County). Compare this to the average price of $3.19 in Orange County, Indiana. Even those in California who switched to electric vehicles discover that they pay above the national average to charge them (0.467/kWh compared to 0.418 nationwide) – second worst in the lower 48 to West Virginia. Kansas sports the lowest EV pricing at 0.304/kWh.
How does this affect summer travel plans? According to the Bank of America Institute, not so much — https://institute.bankofamerica.com/content/dam/economic-insights/summer-travel-2026.pdf
The great American road trip doesn’t get cancelled because of high gas prices – it gets modified – maybe shorter trip, maybe cheaper accommodations – but the trip still occurs. Only 10% of respondents to a survey said they were going to cancel their summer trip, while over 30% said it would not change their plans. Nearly half of survey respondents have planned a trip for the summer of 2026 and a further thirty percent say they are planning to go somewhere but haven’t planned it out.
High gas prices or not, lure of the great American summer road trip calls. And we will answer. We always do.