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Higher prices don’t deter Thanksgiving travellers

CHICAGO (AP) — Whether on the highway or at home, Americans will pay more to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. But higher gas prices and costlier airfare are not stopping millions of people from travelling for the holiday.

About 42.5 million people are expected to drive, fly or ride trains to their Thanksgiving destinations, according to travel tracker AAA. That’s the highest number since the start of the recession.

Ninety percent of them will drive. It won’t be cheap. Drivers will pay almost 20 percent more for gas, which has reached an average of
$3.42 a gallon.

Air travelers have been hit, too. The average round-trip airfare for the top 40 U.S. routes is $212, up 20 percent from last year. Rail tickets on most one-way Amtrak trips have climbed 2 to 5 percent. Hotel and motel rates are also up slightly.

But George Gorham and his fiancé, Patricia Horner, weren’t deterred. They flew across the country to visit Gorham’s son at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg. They used frequent-flier miles and planned to visit tourist attractions in the nation’s capital along the way.

Horner said they still would have made the trip without the miles, but “it would have been more painful.”

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