This post More Families Are Trading Pricey Day Trips for Something Closer to Home first appeared on Crafting Your Home.
A road trip used to be the default plan for a family weekend. Pack the car, drive a few hours, spend money on gas, food, and admission tickets, and call it quality time. According to families and event organizers nationwide, that default is quietly changing.
Instead of chasing a big outing farther from home, more families are choosing local festivals, fairs, and community events instead, and the reasons go beyond simply saving money.
The Cost of Travel Has Become the Deciding Factor for Many Families
In Brookings, South Dakota, this shift is visible in real time. According to South Dakota News Watch, many families in the state are spending summer weekends at festivals, community events, and local attractions instead of boarding planes or planning weeklong vacations.
Erica Quam, whose family lives near Brookings, told the outlet that they often prefer several smaller outings over one major vacation. “It’s close, there were some coupons that made it more affordable, and it’s just a fun, easy activity,” she said. Another local visitor, Sienna Vanmeveren, said she made the same choice this summer specifically to save money.
National survey data backs up what these families are describing anecdotally. According to Allianz Partners’ 2026 survey of more than 2,000 Americans, 79 percent said they were concerned about rising travel costs. A separate 2025 U.S. Family Travel Survey, conducted by the Family Travel Association alongside NYU’s Tisch Center of Hospitality and Good Housekeeping, found that 73 percent of families cited affordability as their top concern heading into 2026, even as the average family reported spending close to 8,000 dollars on travel in 2024, a 20 percent increase from the year before.
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Local Events Offer Something Big Trips Often Can’t: Consistency
Cost is only part of the story. According to organizers of long-running local events, the appeal also comes from tradition and reliability, things a one-time vacation can’t replicate.
Shari Budahl Avery, publicity chair of the 55-year-old Brookings Summer Arts Festival, told South Dakota News Watch that families keep coming back to local events for reasons that go beyond the budget. “What keeps families coming back? Tradition. Joy. Making memories,” she said. Rulito Videla, a ringmaster and comedian who performs at local circus events, made a similar point, encouraging families to stay close to home and support events already happening in their communities, since those gatherings are built specifically around family-friendly entertainment.
That kind of familiarity matters. A festival returning to the same fairgrounds every summer, or a circus setting up in a town square each year, gives families a low-pressure, low-cost tradition to build around, rather than a single expensive trip planned from scratch every time.
Families Are Rethinking What Actually Makes a Trip Memorable
Families are also shifting what they expect a good outing to deliver. According to travel guidance focused on family trips, outdoor, free, and low-cost activities like parks, local markets, and community events consistently rank among children’s favorite memories in family travel surveys, often ahead of expensive, heavily marketed attractions parents feel pressured to book.
That finding lines up with what’s happening locally. A county fair, a local arts festival, or a weekend circus doesn’t require the logistics of air travel, or the expense of hotel stays. Yet, it delivers the same core ingredients families are looking for: time together, a change of scenery, and something to look forward to on the calendar.
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The Data Suggests This Isn’t a Passing Phase
This shift appears to be more than a single stressful summer. According to Deloitte’s 2026 Summer Travel Survey, which polled more than 4,000 Americans, only 45 percent of respondents planned to take a summer vacation involving paid lodging this year, the lowest figure the survey has recorded in six years. Meanwhile, a survey conducted by YouGov on behalf of The Points Guy, involving 783 U.S. parents of children under 18, found that rising costs are directly reshaping how families approach travel, even as the overall desire to spend time together as a family remains strong.
Taken together, the pattern suggests families aren’t giving up on making memories together. They’re simply becoming more selective about where the money goes and increasingly deciding that a well-loved local tradition offers a better return than an expensive trip that may not even feel more special in the end.
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The Bigger Picture
None of this means the family road trip or vacation is disappearing. What’s changing is the default. Rather than treating a distant, expensive outing as the automatic choice for quality family time, more households are recognizing that a local festival, fair, or community event, often free or nearly free, can deliver the same sense of togetherness without the financial stress that increasingly comes attached to travel further from home.
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