Pat Ouedraogo is standing next to his Nissan SUV at a Shell station in Boston, where the price board shows $4.99 per gallon. He is determining how many gallons he can justify. Not a full tank. Several gallons. Enough to get through the week without giving it too much thought. He told a Reuters reporter back in April, “It’s a situation where you feel powerless about these prices,” and the way he phrased it stuck with me because people don’t typically use the word “powerless” at the gas pump. Yes, I’m annoyed. Angry, sometimes. However, being helpless implies that something more significant has taken hold, and it has.
A portion of it is explained by the numbers. The average price of gasoline in the United States was $4.16 per gallon in early April and has only increased since then. By mid-May, the national average had risen above $4.50, and in a few states, it had surpassed $6. Since diesel is what moves groceries, Amazon boxes, and pretty much everything else, it is more important than most people realize that it is currently at $5.67 and still rising. The Iran War and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a route that most Americans could not locate on a map but now feel every Friday in their wallets, served as the catalyst. What worries me the most is that analysts at Rystad anticipate that the suffering will continue even if a ceasefire is maintained. It’s not a spike. The floor is brand-new.
Observing the road trip itself—that enduring American custom—be subtly rearranged in real time is peculiar. A small absurdity that says it all is Skyler Burke, an aspiring law student who now drives extra miles to get to less expensive pumps, burning fuel to save fuel. Kari DyLong, who lives close to Denver, has completely stopped going on weekend trips and is reconsidering her voting choices. When you listen to people like her, it seems like the calculation has shifted from “where should we go” to “can we afford to go anywhere,” and this change is occurring in driveways all over the nation without much notice.
Then there is Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, who chose this precise moment to launch a five-part YouTube series titled “The Great American Road Trip,” which he and his family filmed over seven months of open highway and mountains. “To love America is to see America,” he stated. The optics were difficult. Critics noted that it would cost nearly $900 in gas to recreate his route. It’s difficult to disagree with Pete Buttigieg’s description of it as “brutally out of touch,” but I will concede that there is something almost poignant about a government honoring a tradition at the same time that its economics are collapsing. Perhaps that’s the only occasion when people celebrate anything.
It’s not just the highways that are collapsing. Spirit Airlines, the low-cost airline that allowed people on tight budgets to take impromptu trips, abruptly shut down on May 2, citing jet fuel prices as the final blow. Photographer Chelsea Blackmore of Massachusetts opened the app to discover that her flight to Orlando had been canceled. She spent five hours sobbing and rebooking, ultimately paying $800 for Southwest tickets without a checked bag. “We could drive to Florida” is an instinct that everyone has. The backup plan is meant to be the road. However, the fallback now costs almost as much as the replacement.
However, people continue. Over Memorial Day weekend, 45 million Americans are expected to travel, the majority by car, according to AAA. The parent company of Greyhound reported a 30% increase in ridership. Amtrak saw an increase. According to travel agents, customers are using credit cards for trips that are out of sight, out of mind, and unwilling to give up the experience—even if it means cutting down on the number of days and comfort. Blackmore stated, “Everybody deserves a vacation,” and I keep turning over that statement because of its stubbornness.
Thus, the road trip isn’t exactly dead. It’s adjusting in the same way that habits do when finances are tight: shorter, closer, financed, and a little nervous. A war thousands of miles away and a price floor that might not rise for years will determine whether it ever reaches its previous level. From a distance, neither the politics nor the barrel prices stand out. It’s the silent recalibration in all those driveways where the tank only fills halfway and the open road still beckons.
