Skift Take
Road trips in the United States are statistically on the rise due to both economic and cultural factors. These vacations have incredible potential to reflect what's simmering beneath the surface of contemporary America.
The American road trip is about to change dramatically, at least for some people. Electric vehicles have already altered a few basic elements and autonomous cars could eventually make the experience unrecognizable. And yet regular old gas-fueled road trips are surging in popularity right now, for both economic and cultural reasons.
Over the last century, commercial aviation in the U.S. has gone from the so-called golden age, which was only golden for some, to a declining first class and a basic economy cattle car. The experience of train travel has similarly degraded, without the benefit of democratized prices.
But the affordable driving experience is on the rise, helped by new technologies and services. The last decade brought Waze, Spotify, Foursquare, and trip-booking sites like Roadtrippers, just acquired in February by TH2, a joint venture with two of the world’s largest RV companies.
As Americans look ahead to another summer season of getaways, a subset of the tourism industry, from roadside hotel chains to mobile mapping services, is thriving — catering to vacationers behind the wheel.
For some, nostalgia is a motivator. All these years after Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel On the Road, the post-World War II Detroit auto industry boom, the AAA TripTik guides, and even the Model T Ford bringing visitors to national parks for the first time in the 1910s, the American road trip — which we’ll define broadly as any driving vacation that includes multiple stops — runs deep in travelers’ hearts. The enduring appeal of the open highway, with the freedom and serendipity that car travel allows, is still a draw.
But not everyone is motivated by the fond memories. Millennials who’ve never read Edward Abbey’s Desert Solitaire can still hit the road in search of a seminal experience, even though so many millennials don’t own cars and cannot yet afford them.
Despite the rise of the sharing economy, Americans traveling for leisure in cars they already own is a clear first choice nationwide. Seventy-six percent of domestic trips in 2016 relied on the traveler’s own vehicle as the primary mode of transportation, according to the U.S. Travel Association’s 2017 Domestic Travel Market Report.
Road trips are statistically hot across demographics. Thirty-nine percent of U.S. leisure travel in 2016 included a road trip, up 17 points from the year prior, according to MMGY Global's 2017–18 Portrait of American Travelers study.
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