With Thanksgiving travel slated to return to within 5 percent of 2019 levels, AAA predicts that upwards of 54 million people are traveling for the holiday—an 80 percent increase from last year. This year—perhaps more so than in years past—the issue of holiday travel is a particularly interesting one.
Thanks to two major overlapping events—the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election—the last two years have seen a lot of families and loved ones fall out over irreconcilable differences about politics or Covid-related grievances. While some relationships came to an abrupt end (Cornell University professor Karl Pillemer found that "about 25 percent of the population is living with an active estrangement"—the equivalent of almost 70 million people in the US), my suspicion is that many of those traveling to see loved ones are about to endure a tricky holiday season together.
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