AAA Memorial Day forecast due May 11

Memorial Day travel is already shaping up to be big — and the key thing that changed is that AAA has now put numbers on it. The group’s national forecast says 45.1 million people are expected to travel at least 50 miles from home over the holiday stretch from Thursday, May 22, to Monday, May 26. That is not a wait-and-see situation anymore. It is a record call, and it gives travelers a clearer read on what crowded roads, airports, and rental counters could look like. (newsroom.aaa.com) ### Was the forecast really still due? No. That part of the setup is outdated. AAA published the forecast on May 12, 2025, for the 2025 holiday period, and the release says Memorial Day travel would hit a new record. So the real story is not that guidance is missing — it is that the guidance is already pretty bullish. (newsroom.aaa.com) ### How bi(newsroom.aaa.com)4 million more than the prior year and above the previous Memorial Day record of 44 million set in 2005. Basically, the holiday is being treated less like a cautious spring weekend and more like the start of summer proper. (newsroom.aaa.com) ### Why are roads th(newsroom.aaa.com)elers will go by car, which works out to 87% of all Memorial Day travelers. That is one million more drivers than the year before. If you are trying to guess where the stress shows up first, turns out the answer is highways, beach routes, and short-haul getaway corridors — not just airports. (newsroom.aaa.com)ights? Air travel is still busy, just not the main event. AAA projects 3.61 million air passengers for the holiday, up nearly 2% from 3.55 million a year earlier. That would put air travel 12% above pre-pandemic levels, though still just shy of the 2005 Memorial Day air record of 3.64 million. So airports should be packed, but the bigger mass is still moving on four wheels. (newsroom.aaa. ([newsroom.aaa.com)s helping or hurting? A bit of both. AAA says gas prices had avoided the usual spring spike because crude costs were lower, and it notes regular gasoline averaged $3.59 a gallon over Memorial Day 2024. But the catch is that demand usually rises as summer starts, so pump prices can still creep up into the holiday. Cheaper than last year does not mean cheap once millions of people hit the road at once. (newsroom.aaa.com) ### Where do rental cars fit in? They are a useful stress signal. AAA’s Hertz data says Friday, May 23, is expected to be the busiest pickup day, and the hottest rental-car markets include Orlando, Denver, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Miami, and Seattle. That list tells you something important — travelers are clustering in a mix of beach, city, and outdoor destinations rather than spreading evenly across the map. (newsroom.aaa.com) ### Could weather still wreck the plan? Yes — especially regionally. Weather.com says a system moving from the central U.S. into the Ohio Valley and interior Northeast could affect major Northeast cities by Wednesday and Thursday, while thunderstorms from Texas to Tennessee could slow both road and air travel. It also flags showers in the Intermountain West and heavy snow in parts of Colorado as temperatur(newsroom.aaa.com) but the risk is real. (weather.com) ### So what actually matters for travelers? The useful takeaway is simple. The holiday already has a record-volume forecast, and the pressure is concentrated in road travel. That means the biggest headaches are likely to come from timing, route choice, and weather windows — not from some mystery about whether people are traveling at all. (newsroom.aaa.com)lready made the call, and it is a crowded one: record total travel, road trips doing most of the work, and weather as the main wild card. (newsroom.aaa.com)