Fourth of July holiday travel
Top destinations are San Diego, Las Vegas, San Francisco, the Central Coast and Disneyland
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—After a major increase in Fourth of July travel last year, the number of Southern Californians expected to hit the roads and airways over the approaching holiday weekend is expected to dip by 2.3 percent from 2010, the Automobile Club of Southern California announced today.
According to the Auto Club, nearly 2.9 million Southland residents are expected to travel 50 miles or more over the Fourth of July weekend, a slight drop from last year’s 2.97 million travelers.
The drop comes one year after a large surge in July Fourth travel. Last year’s holiday weekend saw a 38.6 percent increase from 2009 in the number of people who traveled, according to the Auto Club.
“Last year we saw a big return of the summer vacation among our members and this year started out well for travel bookings also,” according to Filomena Andre, the Auto Club’s vice president for travel products and services. “High gas prices this spring have started to impact travel, but the good news for consumers is that gas prices are continuing to drop and more vacation bargains are being offered this summer because travel providers have available space they need to fill.”
Of the people traveling this coming weekend, 79 percent—or 2.29 million—are expected to drive. That’s a 2.9 percent decrease from last year’s 2.36 million. About 337,000 are expected to fly, a 1.7 percent increase from last year. Another 271,000 people will travel by bus, RV, train, ship or other means, a 2.6 percent drop.
Statewide, 4.66 million people are expected to travel this weekend, down from 4.77 million from last year. Of those, 3.68 million will drive and nearly 542,000 will fly. Nationally, 39 million people are expected to travel, a dip of 2.5 percent.
The top five destinations for Southern California residents are expected to be San Diego, Las Vegas, San Francisco, the Central Coast and Disneyland.
Whether you’re on business or vacation, if you’re sleeping in anything more sophisticated than a zippered sack, staying connected is a necessary part of travel.
For years, a crusty USB jack and some intermittent Wi-Fi were enough to constitute a full suite of technological hotel amenities.
Today’s future-forward lodge has to offer in-room nightclub lighting and 3D television just to keep up with the Skywalkers.
The new breed of techie lodging is no less a hotel than a Best Buy with blankets.
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—For the 15th year in a row, the Automobile Club of Southern California will offer free towing during the Fourth of July weekend in an attempt to keep drunken drivers off the road.
The Tipsy Tow program will be available to intoxicated drivers from 6 p.m. Saturday until 11:59 p.m. Monday 13 counties served by the Auto Club.
Motorists, bartenders, restaurant managers, party hosts or passengers of a drinking driver can call (800) 400-4AAA for a free tow to the driver’s residence of up to seven miles away.
PALMDALE, Calif.—The City of Palmdale has threatened to sue the state High Speed Rail Authority if it does not abandon a $700,000 study of an alternative route along the Grapevine (5) Freeway for a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco high-speed train line.
The authority announced it would study the alternative last month after it found the existing route from Los Angeles to Bakersfield through the Antelope Valley would be more expensive and have greater environmental impacts than originally expected.
Summertime is just around the bend, and that can only mean one thing: Vacation time. If long-distance domestic and/or international travel is beyond your means this year, consider a road trip to one of the historic Black landmarks peppered throughout California. The bulk of them range from old-fashioned towns to national parks and memorials, to an assortment of intersecting pathways used by old settlers and freed slaves during the Gold Rush era. Here are a few suggestions:
Allensworth State Historic Park
LOS ANGELES, Calif.—Millions of dollars would flow back into the economy of the Greater Los Angeles area if just half of the high school students who dropped out last year completed their education, according to a study released today.
The Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan statistical area was among 16 MSAs in the state analyzed by the nonprofit Alliance for Excellent Education, which studied the economic returns lost as a result of young people leaving school early.
