More Than 74 Million People Will Travel Over 4th of July

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jun 22, 8:06AM EDT

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The Fourth of July holiday, also known as Independence Day, was established shortly after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It is one of only 11 federal holidays, a list that was just expanded by the addition of Juneteenth. July Fourth sits in the center of the summer calendar, which is bracketed on one end by Memorial Day and on the other by Labor Day. Because it is often adjacent to a weekend, it has become one of America’s three-day weekends.

AAA looked at past Fourth of July holiday travel patterns to find what Americans’ travel habits would be this year. It found that 47.7 million Americans plan to travel between July 1 and July 5. This is second only to 2019 and 40% higher than last year, when travel was curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Paula Twidale, senior vice president of AAA Travel commented: “Travel is in full swing this summer, as Americans eagerly pursue travel opportunities they’ve deferred for the last year-and-a-half.”

AAA breaks travel down by category. A total of 43.6 million people will travel more than 50 miles from their homes by car. A total of 3.5 million will travel by air. Air travel will actually surge 164%, almost certainly because carriers have lifted COVID-19-related restrictions.

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The top destinations, according to the research, will be where theme parks are located. The AAA list is led by Orlando, Florida, followed by Anaheim, California. Las Vegas, the nation’s gambling capital, is also on the list. So are two of the nation’s three largest cities — New York and Chicago. Many people who travel will take an unusually long trip. Kahului, Maui, Hawaii, makes the top 10 list as well.

Research firm IHS Markit collected the data for the AAA.

Click here to read Best Summer Destinations for Outdoor Fun

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.