Thanksgiving and holiday travel trends in 2024: What you need to know

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WASHINGTON – As the calendar approaches the busy holiday travel season, a new survey provides insights into who will be vacationing and who will simply stay at home. 
The Vacationer, a travel agency specializing in theme park excursions, cruises and resort vacations, reported that its survey found more than 50% of respondents plan to travel during the Thanksgiving and Christmas period, suggesting that this holiday season will be one of the busiest.
In 2023, AAA projected that 55.4 million people would travel for Thanksgiving and another 115.2 million would travel for the Christmas period – the second-highest amount since 2000.
Of those planning to travel in 2024, around 22% will journey solely for Thanksgiving, and nearly 29% will travel for both Thanksgiving and the holidays of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa.
The travel agency found that residents of New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are the most likely to hit the road or skies, while those living in the Plains are most likely to stay at home.
Spending on travel is also expected to rise, with nearly one-third of Americans planning to spend $1,000 or more on necessities such as gas, flights and hotels.
“American adults over 60 are the least likely to spend any money to travel for Thanksgiving this year. 48.04% of people in this age bracket said they will spend $0. On the other hand, the most likely age group of American adults to spend money on Thanksgiving travel is Americans between 30 and 44 years old,” analysts at The Vacationer stated.
Much of the money will be spent traveling on days such as the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after, which the Transportation Security Administration warns are among the busiest flying days of the year. 
Traffic comes to a stand still on the northbound and the southbound lanes of the Interstate 405 freeway near Los Angeles International Aiprort on November 23, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. 
In fact, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is annually the busiest flying day, with nearly 3 million passengers passing through TSA checkpoints.
During the 2023 travel season, the agency clocked 2,741,610 passengers on the day before Thanksgiving, while 2,908,785 flew on the Sunday after.
The actual holiday itself was the least-busiest travel day of the year, with only 1,547,419 passing through commercial airports in the U.S.
With millions taking advantage of the friendly skies, confidence that the airlines will get passengers to their destinations is rather mixed.
According to the survey, around 46% of respondents expressed little or no confidence that they’ll be able to avoid delays or cancelations this holiday season.
This figure, however, is actually down about 13% from last year’s survey – likely a result of airlines’ stellar performances and favorable travel weather in 2023.
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