High gas prices vs. skyrocketing airfares: Millions of Southern Californians opt for Fourth of July road trips

Despite record high gas prices, millions of people plan on traveling for the Fourth of July holiday weekend — and it could be the biggest Independence Day travel weekend since 2019.

According to the Auto Club, 48 million people across the nation are expected to take a trip of 50 miles or more for the Fourth of July holiday weekend, with most of those travelers going by car, even though gas prices remain uncomfortably high. 

Closer to home, nearly 3.3 million Southern Californians plan to take a Fourth of July trip — the third highest volume for this holiday between 2019 and 2018, according to the Auto Club.

Interestingly, with airfare prices spiking even higher than gas, more of those travelers are planning on skipping the airport in favor of their cars. The cost of a plane ticket is reportedly about 14% more expensive than it was last year, and the Auto Club predicts 426,000 people will opt to fly this Fourth of July, an 8% drop from 2019. The drop in demand for air travel is in spite of the recent lifting of COVID testing requirements for air passengers re-entering the U.S., and may have been helped by the recent spate of canceled flights and airline scheduling woes.

Southern Californians' top travel destinations include Las Vegas, San Diego, the Grand Canyon, Mexico, and Yosemite National Park.