AAA seeing last-minute interest in Labor Day travel

Traffic appears to be a wild card this Labor Day weekend amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“We’re seeing a surge in families planning last-minute trips for the holiday weekend,” said John Townsend, manager of public and government affairs at AAA Mid-Atlantic.

“We’re seeing an upsurge in the number of requests for road trip travel tools at AAA, such as travel guidebooks, maps and TripTiks.”

Still, he said to expect 500,000 to 750,000 Washingtonians to be traveling this year. Townsend said in a normal year, those numbers would range from 900,000 to 1 million.


Get the latest from the WTOP Traffic Center


Additionally, he said to expect 98% of those travelers to go by car this year, compared to the normal 91%.

His advice for travelers includes packing hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes, along with gloves for pumping gas. And the usual rules of being patient, and avoiding driving drowsy, drunk or distracted, of course still apply, Townsend said.


More Coronavirus News

Looking for more information? D.C., Maryland and Virginia are each releasing more data every day. Visit their official sites here: Virginia | Maryland | D.C.

John Aaron

John Aaron is a news anchor and reporter for WTOP. After starting his professional broadcast career as an anchor and reporter for WGET and WGTY in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he went on to spend several years in the world of sports media, working for Comcast SportsNet, MLB Network Radio, and WTOP.

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