Summer Travel 2026 Hits Records as Post-Pandemic Growth Stalls

From recovery story to record story

In late May 2023, the story on New Jersey public television was that summer travel was close to normal again. AAA Mid-Atlantic's Tracy Noble told NJ Spotlight News that highway and airport traffic were expected to reach pre-pandemic levels. She also said the Transportation Security Administration had screened more Memorial Day weekend travelers than it did over the same holiday before COVID-19.1 In New Jersey, road trips led the way, with car travel forecast at 7% above pre-pandemic levels and air travel in the state expected to rise more than 10% over the previous Memorial Day.1 Noble put the surge down to pent-up demand from trips people had postponed. She said travelers were leaving earlier, starting Thursday, and stretching the holiday into the following week. Her forecast was a strong season even with higher costs.1

Three summers later, that forecast reads as an understatement. The 2026 season set records at nearly every holiday checkpoint. But the coverage has changed its tone. Travel is no longer climbing out of a hole. It is running at very high levels, and the increases each year are getting small. The best reading of 2026 is that summer travel has reached a ceiling: demand is strong enough to absorb $4 gasoline, but it is not growing much past last year's levels.

How New Jersey got back

The 2023 broadcast came at the end of a recovery that state officials had tracked closely. New Jersey had 96.6 million visitors in 2021, still 17% below the 2019 record, and the state's forecasters expected a full recovery in 2023.7 In 2022 the state reached about 99% of its 2019 visitor count, with 114.6 million visitors, and visitor spending recovered to $45.4 billion, about 98% of the pre-pandemic level.8 Jeff Vasser, then executive director of the state's Division of Travel and Tourism, said the rebound came a year earlier than expected. He credited New Jersey's regional, drive-to market and its outdoor attractions, such as the beaches, boardwalks and festivals, which felt safe to people during the pandemic.3

The 2023 figures confirmed the early recovery. The state reported 120.5 million visitors that year, 4% above the 2019 record, and spending of $49.1 billion, 6% above pre-pandemic levels.6 Rising prices accounted for part of that spending increase, a point the report acknowledged when it attributed the gain to the combined effect of recovered demand and higher prices.6 The same pattern has continued in national travel since: more money is being spent, but much of the increase reflects inflation as well as more trips.

Noble's point about road trips was also borne out locally. In 2022, the New Jersey Business Magazine reported that most families said gas prices and inflation would affect how far they traveled, not whether they traveled.2 Southern Shore tourism officials made a similar point in 2023, saying the region was still a tank of gas away from most of its visitors.3

The 2026 season: records, but small ones

AAA's 2026 forecasts show the plateau clearly. For Memorial Day, the group projected 45 million travelers, a record. That was just 0.4% more than 2025, though still 5.1% above 2019.19 It projected 39.1 million people traveling by car and 3.66 million flying, both nearly the same as the year before.18 For the Fourth of July week, AAA forecast 72.2 million travelers, up from last year's record of 71.8 million. The group said itself that the increase was smaller than in recent years.14 AAA Travel vice president Stacey Barber described the number of Independence Day travelers as plateauing even as it set a new high.14 Car travel for the holiday was essentially flat at 61.4 million, compared with 61.3 million in 2025.14

The one category growing quickly was the smallest. Buses, trains and cruises were projected to carry 4.93 million July Fourth travelers, up 5.3% and above the 2019 figure of 4.79 million, mostly because of the post-COVID cruise boom.20 In other words, the fastest growth this summer came from package-style travel, not from the car trips that led the 2023 recovery.

Labor Day continued the trend. The New York Times reported that the TSA expected passenger numbers to come in slightly below 2025's, with more than 17 million people screened over the holiday week. It projected about 2.8 million on the Friday before Labor Day, compared with 2.9 million on the same day last year.30 Closer to New Jersey, the Port Authority expected about 2.4 million passengers through Newark, JFK, LaGuardia and Stewart airports, just under last year's record.28

Not every report agrees. A press release from a travel agency claimed a 9% jump in domestic Labor Day bookings over the prior year.21 That figure does not match AAA's description of flat growth or the TSA's expectation of slightly lower volume, and it should be treated with caution. A more careful roundup noted that there is no single official count of total Labor Day travelers. It also pointed out that TSA screenings count each security check, not each unique traveler.25 AAA makes the same point about its own figures. Its forecasts count round trips by domestic leisure travelers, while TSA counts every passenger on every one-way trip, so the two sets of numbers should not be compared directly.14

The airline numbers tell a bigger story

The airlines and the TSA described a stronger season than AAA's household forecasts. American Airlines expected to carry 75 million customers on 750,000 flights between late May and early September, beating its previous summer record from 2019.13 The TSA expected to screen 18.3 million passengers and crew over the Memorial Day week.29 It also forecast a record 18.7 million people screened over the Fourth of July period, with July 2 expected to top 3 million.12 TIME noted that the holiday fell during the FIFA World Cup and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and the TSA said both would add to crowds.15

These figures do not contradict AAA. AAA's leisure-only, household-based forecasts show flat demand, while total airport screenings also include business travel, international trips and events like the World Cup. The busy airports in 2026 reflect several overlapping draws, not just more family vacations.

Higher costs, same number of trips

Cost is the main difference between 2023 and 2026. AAA said the national average for regular gasoline topped $4 this spring for the first time in four years.11 By Labor Day, CBS New York reported an average of about $4.14 a gallon, up from $3.19 a year earlier.28 One report put Memorial Day gas at $4.55. That is well above other figures from around the same time and should be treated as an outlier.16 AFAR reported that airfares had risen nearly 25% since the start of the Iran war. However, AAA found that most summer flyers had booked before the conflict began.18 Domestic round-trip fares for the July Fourth week averaged about $830, roughly 5% higher than a year earlier.20 For Labor Day, the average domestic fare was about $750, up 2%, while fares to the most popular cities ran about 20% higher.25

Travel volume barely changed despite these costs, which shows how firmly demand has settled. AAA projected 85% of July Fourth travelers would drive, gas prices at a four-year high notwithstanding.14 AAA also attributed the Memorial Day forecast to strong consumer spending and 2.5% expected GDP growth, even with lower consumer confidence.19 AAA experts told CBS that high prices would more likely shorten trips than cancel them.28 That is the same pattern New Jersey businesses described in 2022.2

What it means for the Jersey Shore

On the Shore, the season ended on a mixed note. Patch described a summer when rain often spoiled weekend plans, followed by a sunny Labor Day weekend that came later than usual.22 The late holiday caused problems of its own. With many schools reopening before Labor Day, some lifeguard crews were short-staffed and some beaches went unguarded.22 A Point Pleasant Beach bar manager told News 12 that many children and teachers were already back in class by the holiday.27 INRIX's Memorial Day forecast had flagged the Garden State Parkway route from New York to the Jersey Shore as the worst corridor it tracked, with travel times expected to roughly double at the peak.19

With the summer peak no longer growing much, the state is promoting the months around it. In August, the Division of Travel and Tourism began marketing a "Locals' Summer" after Labor Day, along with fall events and visits to small downtowns, in an effort to spread visitors beyond the traditional season.24

In 2023, the main question was whether summer travel would return to normal. It did, and it went well past that. The question in 2026 is what drives growth now that the summer peak has stopped expanding. The coverage points to cruises, longer shoulder seasons and visitors willing to pay more for the same trips, not to more cars on the Parkway.