Over 115 million people are expected to travel to their holiday destinations this year, with the majority planning to drive, according to AAA.
AAA said the year-end travel forecast is the second-highest since 2000 when they began tracking holiday travel. 2019 remains the busiest Christmas and New Year’s travel period on record with 119 million travelers.
Out of those travelers, 90% are expected to drive to their destinations.
The good news for those drivers? Gas Buddy said travelers can expect to pay nearly 80 cents less per gallon than they did this fall. That's because nearly 100,000 gas stations are offering gasoline at $2.99 or less per gallon.
Compared to last year at this time, drivers will be paying about the same on average for a gallon gas.
With less people traveling long distances in the winter months paired with the winter blend of fuel being cheaper than the summer, GasBuddy said prices have been declining for the last three months.
In West Michigan on Thursday, December 21, Grand Rapids sat at an average of about $2.85 per gallon of unleaded, and a lot of those sub-$3 prices are also being seen throughout much of southwestern Michigan.
GasBuddy said while they will go up slightly by Christmas, experts are not expecting to see much of a change into the early months of the new year.
"I do think that for the course of the winter, prices will sometimes be below $3," said Patrick De Haan, the Head of Petroleum Analysis for GasBuddy. "Somedays they’ll be above $3. That’ll continue until mid-February, so some of the lowest prices will stick around for a little bit, but the lowest prices we are currently seeing, they’ll probably just go up just a little bit here by Christmas," he said.
GasBuddy said within the rest of the week if you do see prices under $2.75, you should fill up your tank.
"Price increases could potentially be back over a $3 a gallon mark. However, after prices go up, they usually start declining at a pace of about a penny or two every day or so. We won’t see prices going up much beyond that," said Patrick De Haan, the Head of Petroleum Analysis for GasBuddy.
To find the cheapest prices, you can download the GasBuddy website or app or use apps like Waze or Google.
AAA expects to see several days of bad traffic during the 10-day travel period (Saturday, December 23, 2023 to Monday, January 1, 2024). They report Saturday, December 23 and Thursday, December 28 will see the most congestion on the roadways.
