Why the summer road trip trend is back in 2025

Somewhere between your phone’s gas rewards app and a Spotify playlist titled “Highway Solstice,” the modern American summer vacation quietly rebooted. Forget flights, passports, and pre-dawn security lines. In 2025, more Americans are choosing to drive—often long, sometimes aimless, but always intentional. The road trip isn’t just back; it’s evolving. And behind it is a quiet shift in how people think about time, cost, risk, and connection.

This isn’t just a budget-friendly alternative to air travel. It’s a cultural reset. The road trip has always carried a kind of mythology in American life. Kerouac, Springsteen, sepia-toned postcards of open highways. But this time around, it’s not about chasing freedom. It’s about regaining agency.

After years of flight disruptions, rising fares, and geopolitical turbulence, many travelers no longer view the airport as the gateway to adventure—it’s the beginning of stress. For some, especially families and older adults, that stress is enough to reroute plans entirely. Enter the car.

“Right now, I live very close to Newark Airport,” said Dan Pieraccini, a New Jersey-based road tripper. “The delays alone are making people rethink flying.” What used to be a tradeoff for time savings is now being questioned on every front—cost, comfort, certainty.

The decision to drive isn’t always dramatic. For many, it’s practical. But its popularity points to something deeper: a desire to move through space, not just skip across it.

AAA projected 39.4 million Americans would take a road trip over Memorial Day weekend—over a million more than the year before. That’s not just a blip. It’s part of a rising pattern.

Enterprise Mobility, the parent company of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National, and Alamo, reports year-on-year increases in leisure rentals from neighborhood (non-airport) locations for June and July. Meanwhile, Airbnb says bookings within 300 miles of a guest’s home are up 32% for the Fourth of July weekend. Translation? People are staying closer—but still getting away.

Travel agencies are adjusting, too. Lillian Rafson, CEO of Pack Up + Go, says 47% of her clients in June booked road trip–style surprise vacations—nearly double the rate from 2024. And when money feels tight, demand shifts from deluxe packages to minimum-cost bookings.

“We’ve had a few trips cancelled due to layoffs or fear of layoffs,” Rafson noted. “But what we’re seeing more often is quiet recalibration. People aren’t cancelling summer. They’re editing it.”

Yes, prices at the pump have dipped from 2022 highs. That matters. A long trip—like the 4,500-mile loop James Willamor takes each year—still runs $500–800 in gas, but loyalty points and rewards apps help. But lower gas isn’t the full story.

What the road trip offers—especially in 2025—is control. In a volatile news cycle filled with border policy shifts, climate emergencies, and cost-of-living tension, the car becomes a cocoon. You choose when to stop. What to eat. Where to stay. You can cancel your day, but not your journey.

“You really have the choice to stay in a motel or a campsite one night or ten nights,” said Scott Reing, a father planning a 2,500-mile national park road trip. “It’s different from a cruise or all-inclusive resort. You’re not locked in.”

Even retirees are leaning in. Cathy Keibler, 65, is planning her first cross-country road trip this summer, explicitly to avoid flying. “We want to see what’s really happening in the country,” she said. “Not from 30,000 feet.”

For some, the road trip has moved from occasional vacation to lifestyle pillar. Willamor, a seasoned camper, spends 30–40 nights a year on the road. He maps his trips with financial efficiency in mind—portable fridge, prepped meals, credit card perks. But the reward isn’t just savings. It’s presence.

“My favorite part is watching the landscape change slowly,” he said. “You feel the transition. It’s different than flying, where everything shifts instantly.”

That slowness is part of the appeal. In a world that accelerates everything—notifications, schedules, content—a journey that unfolds over days feels almost rebellious.

This isn’t a full rejection of global travel. Plenty of Americans are still heading abroad this summer, including Reing’s family—just not this year. In many cases, the road trip alternates with international travel, especially among middle- and upper-income families.

But something else is quietly being replaced: the vacation formula. The tightly curated itinerary. The flight-hotel combo. The Instagrammable all-inclusive. The road trip doesn’t offer perfection—it offers participation.

It also doesn’t pretend to be fully relaxing. Long drives are tiring. Gas prices can fluctuate. Motels can disappoint. But that imperfection is part of the new contract. You’re not buying an escape. You’re designing an experience.

This new wave of road trips carries echoes of pandemic-era behavior. Remember 2020? When people were buying RVs, converting vans, and escaping cities for national parks? But 2025 road trippers aren’t just pandemic-weary. They’re culture-weary. And the road, with all its Americana, now feels like a place to reorient, not just retreat.

There’s also a generational layering happening. Millennials, now in peak parenting years, are revisiting their childhood road trip memories—but with tech-savvy updates. Spotify over static-filled radio. Google Maps instead of fold-out atlases. Solar-powered coolers. Campground Wi-Fi.

Even Gen Z is joining—often for the aesthetic. TikToks of roadside diners, quiet lakeside mornings, and scenic overlooks are surging. But behind the filters is a sincere desire for something that feels real. Not broadcast, not branded—just honest.

The return of the road trip tells us more than where people are going. It tells us what they’re avoiding, what they’re willing to give up, and what they now value. Fewer are chasing luxury. More are craving control. Instead of convenience, they want coherence—between values, budget, and experience.

It also reveals a rising skepticism toward polished travel narratives. The idea that vacation must mean crossing oceans, or that adventure requires boarding passes, is quietly dissolving.

Instead, the steering wheel is the new departure gate. And the road ahead—bumpy, flexible, sometimes spontaneous—is the real destination.

This summer, people aren’t rejecting travel. They’re reclaiming it. In a culture that increasingly sells speed, convenience, and escape, the road trip offers something slower and stranger: presence, process, participation.

So if you’re wondering why more coolers are getting packed, playlists updated, and miles logged—it’s not just because gas is cheap. It’s because, right now, the road feels like the only place that still belongs to the traveler. And that may be the most luxurious thing of all.