Skift Take

Americans put big-time miles on their vehicles this spring as the pandemic weary exercised their pent-up travel demand on the open roads.

More Americans hit this road in the spring, driving a total of 249 billion miles in April, a 56 percent jump over the same period in 2020 from the height of the pandemic.

The latest traffic volumes trends, released by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration on Thursday, show the majority of miles driven was on urban streets and roads, while driving on rural roads accounted for nearly 80 billion miles.

For More on Road Trips From Skift, Read: American Road Trips Surpass 2019 Levels as Latest Indicator of Travel Recovery

While the seasonally adjusted miles show a tremendous appetite for domestic road trips, the numbers of April road trips represent close to a 5 percent decline or 12.3 billion less miles than March 2021, the Federal Highway Administration said.

The Northeast region of the United States experienced the largest leap in growth with 31.5 billion miles or a 62.3 percent gain in April, compared to April, 2020. And the region in the West traveled the most for a total of 58.1 billion miles, more than 50 percent than the region drove during the same period last year, the agency said.

The American Automobile Association said Memorial Day showed a popularity in road trips and they are anticipating holiday travelers to be stronger over the upcoming July 4th holidays.

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Tags: coronavirus recovery, highways, road trips, rural tourism

Photo credit: Americans took to the roads en masse this spring, as pent-up demand travel demand translated into lots of road trips. Amador Loureiro / Unsplash

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