Labor Day Travel Numbers Hit Record Levels

Millions of people traveled on Labor Day weekend in the United States this year, breaking records amid one of the world's busiest summers for the travel industry.

Over 17 million people booked flights from Friday through Wednesday, leading to long lines at airports. Millions of others chose to drive to their vacation destinations, which were swarmed with tourists.

According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), Seattle, Washington is the number one city for Labor Day travel, and it was up by 30% from last year, in which it also reached number one on the charts. Next were Orlando, Anchorage, New York City, and Boston. Alaska was a big craze this year-- two of Alaska's top three most populous cities, Anchorage and Juneau, made the top ten most visited cities, and Alaska cruises were sold out for the weekend.

As a whole, domestic travel over Labor Day weekend came up 9% from last year, and costs for traveling within the US are down 2%. However, international travel came down 4%-- that was most likely caused by an 11% spike in prices for international flights. They reported that most of the travelers heading abroad were flying to Europe, as eight of their top ten most visited cities for the weekend were located in that area. Popular European cities like Rome, London, Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and Athens all landed on the list, but it was Canada's Vancouver that took number one.

This summer has been crazy for tourist hot-spots, as the industry has seen a major resurgence in summer travel following the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Over 71 million people traveled on the July 4th weekend, and the TSA screened a record-breaking 3 million people in one day on July 7. The TSA also stated that all of the top ten busiest days in their history took place this summer, beginning in May. They have already screened over 240 million people since Memorial Day weekend, which averages out to a staggering 2.7 million people per day.