More and more, holidays are for travel

by Gwendolyn Glenn

Every year, for the past 14 years, Lois Davis and her youngest daughter have headed for Williamsburg, Va. on the day after Thanksgiving for a few days of shopping, dining and relaxation.
This year will be no different.
"We do dinner with the rest of the family on that Thursday, and we always leave for Williamsburg early on Friday morning," said Davis, a senior sales associate at Hallmark in the Laurel Shopping Center. "We always drive down and stay in different places. My daughter goes on line and makes the reservations.
"We haven't made our reservations this year yet, but last year, we waited until the first or second week of November to make them."
The Davises are among the 30 million Americans who plan to take to the roads for the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, and the seven million more who will board flights, according to the American Automobile Association. More than 1.5 million Maryland residents are included in those figures, which AAA said represent a 3 percent increase over last year. Figures for Christmas and New Year's are expected to be up as well.

Many travelers are making trips to visit family for the holidays, but more and more people are traveling on the holidays these days - with and without family - for vacation getaways.
Unlike the Davises, a lot of travelers are seeking warmer spots, like beaches in the Caribbean, where airfare and hotel reservations are needed.
Camilla Reid of Laurel plans to travel to Houston, Texas for Christmas, but said she has not purchased her ticket yet.
"I will get my ticket sometime next week," Reid said. "I'm not worried about it."

Deals going fast
Travel agents are warning would-be holiday vacationers to get a little worried, since Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's are just around the corner. They are advising travelers to make their reservations as soon as possible if they haven't done so already. Deals are almost nonexistent at this point, fewer seats are available on airline flights and fares are starting to rise.
"It's hard to get holiday specials at this point, because most people made bookings in June," said Shirley King, owner of Main Street Travel. "It's going to be even harder for those looking to go somewhere Christmas or New Year's because those are the highest seasons of the year for travel."
King said the end-of-the- year holidays are becoming a heavy travel season for her clients, especially parents who take advantage of their children being out of school.

For those who have waited until now to start frantically surfing the Internet for holiday deals, Karen Gurley, owner of Athena Travel in Laurel, suggested being very open in terms of departure and return travel dates.
"For Thanksgiving, the rates will be high on Wednesday and Sunday, but if you're flexible, you can get good prices if you fly the day before Wednesday and the day after Sunday," Gurley said. "On any of the upcoming holidays, if you go through the week, and have flexible dates, you might find more availability."
One Laurel resident who plans to surprise his significant other with a trip to Paris and Ireland for Christmas and New Year's said he got a great deal because he chose to leave town on Christmas night.
"Christmas Eve and the day after Christmas were higher fares, so we're going to leave on Christmas night," said the traveler, who asked to remain anonymous since the flight was a surprise. "We'll leave at 10 p.m. and sleep all the way to London, so it will be fine."

Cruises popular
Gurley said many of her clients have booked land trips to the Caribbean, Las Vegas, Florida, and some will be giving thanks and exchanging gifts on cruises.
"Many of my clients have booked cruises out of Florida and Puerto Rico and the most popular destinations seem to be Mexico, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica," Gurley said.
Because of this year's brutal hurricane season, some travelers were hesitant about booking Caribbean vacations.
"Some didn't want to chance it, even though few areas have been affected," Gurley said.

Travelers who are going to resorts in the hurricane belt in and out of the country, are advised to check with their hotels before leaving for their trips to make sure their accommodations have not been damaged by a hurricane. Several resorts in the Bahamas, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and other islands suffered severe damages and have had to close for repairs.
"Most resorts in Cancun are OK, but until the hurricane season is over, we don't know what's going to be there for Christmas," King said.
Cruisers are also advised to make sure their port of departure has not been damaged in a hurricane, because that could mean having to purchase a new airline ticket to get to a ship's departure port.
"We had a group that was going out of New Orleans, and now they're going out of Houston," King said. "A lot of the boats had to be rearranged due to ports like Mobile and New Orleans being hit hard in the storms. The airlines were nice and have let us change the tickets."

Holiday packages
Travel Web sites still had a few attractive packages available for the holidays. This week, Sunburst.com had an air and hotel package from Baltimore to St. Thomas for $1,000 per person, if the couple left on Christmas Day and returned on Dec. 29. The price jumped to over $1,800 per person if the trip was booked with a return date of January 4, and $2,200 per person if the return date was Jan. 2.
Priceline.com had a hotel air package for five nights from Baltimore to Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, for as low as $900 per person, if travelers are willing to leave on Dec. 24, and return on Dec. 29. Agents recommend booking a deal when you see it because it will probably have increased on the next look.
For those who want a shorter trip, Amtrak has specials to New York, where many families can go for the day or overnight, to see the Christmas decorations and the annual Rockettes show.
"You can go on Amtrak and see the Rockettes (included) and come back the same day for $200 per person," King said. "They also have lots of one-, two-night or more packages that include Rockettes tickets, which runs through Jan. 4."

The good news for that majority of mobile holiday families who are driving is that even though gas prices are an average of 40 cents more than last year's, they have fallen in Maryland by 62 cents in the last month, according to AAA. On Nov. 2, regular unleaded gas cost an average of $2.43 a gallon, compared to $3.05 a month earlier.
The good news for those who want to travel now, but not necessarily on the holidays, is that there will be lots of deals after New Year's Day.
"You can save a lot then, because there are not a lot of people who want to travel right after the holidays," Gurley said.

E-mail Gwendolyn Glenn at Gwendolyn Glenn@patuxent.com