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The Fourth of July weekend is just days away, and millions of Southland residents are getting ready to hit the roadways or airways for holiday trips.
The Automobile Club of Southern California estimates that nearly 3.3 million SoCal residents will be traveling for the holiday, the third-highest number for a Fourth of July holiday, behind only 2019 and 2018.
Across the country, 48 million people are expected to be traveling for the holiday, according to the Auto Club, with the vast majority reaching their destination by driving — despite near-record-high gas prices.
According to the Auto Club, 2.7 million Southern Californians will drive to their destinations for the long weekend, while 426,000 will fly. About 168,000 will travel by other means, such as bus, train or cruise ship.
The top destinations for Southern California residents are expected to be Las Vegas, San Diego, the Grand Canyon, Mexico and Yosemite.
Some people are also likely to be traveling overseas.
“We expect that the recent lifting of the COVID testing requirement for air passengers re-entering the U.S. will continue the increase in demand for international vacation bookings that we are already seeing this summer,” Heather Felix, the Auto Club’s vice president of travel products and services, said in a statement.
For people driving, the transportation-analytics firm INRIX recommended that motorists avoid driving on Thursday, Friday and Saturday afternoons, which are expected to be the busiest travel times, with the 5, 10, 405 and 57 freeways anticipated to be the most congested. INRIX recommended that people do their driving early in the morning.
