Road Travelers to Pay More This Year Than in '06
Most road trips from the Triangle will cost $20 to $25 more this Thanksgiving – due to higher gas prices. WRAL did the math to three popular destinations.
Posted — UpdatedWRAL did the math to three popular destinations. The estimates are based on a Ford Explorer, the best-selling sports utility vehicle in America. It gets 18 miles per gallon on the highway and has a 22 gallon tank.
The 250 mile trip from Raleigh to Asheville will cost $23.62 more this Thanksgiving.
Drive the 226 miles to Columbia, S.C., and you will pay $22.17 more to fill the tank. A road trip north to Richmond will cost $16.72 more. Both Virginia and South Carolina have lowers gas taxes than North Carolina does, which will help.
Air travel seems to be going more smoothly than expected this holiday. Crowds filed into Raleigh-Durham International Airport starting with the first flights out Wednesday morning. RDU expects a 7 percent increase in traffic this Thanksgiving holiday. Nationwide, experts expect a 4 percent jump in air travel.
More than 1.5 million travelers from North Carolina and South Carolina are expected to take car trips over the Thanksgiving holiday.
AAA Carolinas estimates that about 163,000 passengers will travel from North Carolina and 79,600 from South Carolina. The auto club said the number of people traveling is a 2 percent increase over the record numbers of 2006.
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