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Record Number Of Travelers Expected This Independence Day Weekend

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Flickr Creative Commons
Traffic in Kansas City.

More than 3 million people in Kansas and the region are expected to travel this July Fourth weekend—most of them by car.

It will be the highest number of Independence Day travelers since 2007, according to Triple A. Across the country, nearly 43 million people are set to travel this weekend.

Jennifer Haugh with AAA says low travel costs are a factor: Airline tickets are low and hotels prices are down, and in Kansas, gas is the cheapest it’s been since 2005.

"People, I think, are feeling a little more confident because gas prices are down," Haugh says. "And they’re taking longer road trips because of it. They’re piling in a car and going a little further than they have recently. It makes for a more interesting trip, and also that they're going to be on the road a few more days, too." 

Credit AAA

Among the more popular destinations will be the national parks as the Park Service celebrates its centennial this year.

Haugh says the whole summer is on pace to see a record number of travelers.

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Follow Nadya Faulx on Twitter @NadyaFaulx.

To contact KMUW News or to send in a news tip, reach us at news@kmuw.org.

Nadya Faulx is KMUW's Digital News Editor and Reporter, which means she splits her time between working on-air and working online, managing news on KMUW.org, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. She joined KMUW in 2015 after working for a newspaper in western North Dakota. Before that she was a diversity intern at NPR in Washington, D.C.