The Thanksgiving travel season will be notably different this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. GasBuddy, the travel and navigation app used by North American drivers to save money on gas, has released its 2020 Annual Thanksgiving Travel Survey, finding that only 35 percent of Americans will be taking to the roads this year, a decrease from 65 percent last year, amidst some of the lowest Thanksgiving gas prices the country has seen in years.
The national average gas price is projected to be $2.17 per gallon, lower this year as oil prices plunged from year-ago levels due to depressed demand because of the coronavirus taking people away from their normal driving routines.
Nearly half (46 percent) of respondents in GasBuddy’s Annual Thanksgiving Travel Survey said that their travel plans are impacted by the coronavirus. When asked in what ways they were impacted, 71 percent said they are staying home instead of traveling this year. Five percent said they are not celebrating Thanksgiving this year due to the coronavirus. The remainder are either celebrating Thanksgiving at a different location this year (20 percent), or driving instead of taking other forms of transportation to their Thanksgiving destination (11 percent).
Those who are traveling are taking shorter trips than in years past, with survey results seeing a 75 percent increase in those who are traveling less than one hour to their Thanksgiving destination compared to 2019.