INDIANA – If you’re planning on traveling next weekend for the 4th of July, you are certainly not alone.

AAA projects a record-breaking 49 million Americans will travel for the holiday weekend this year.

“That’s up four percent from last year,” said AAA Spokesperson Tamra Johnson. “Which is about 1.9 million more people that are traveling more than 50 miles away from home.”

AAA works with IHS Market, to look at economic forecasting. That includes things like gas prices, unemployment levels, and household net worth. They use those factors to project how many people can travel for each big holiday every year.

“They actually come pretty close,” Johnson said. “We find that it normally ends up being within less than one percentage point of a difference with our projection.”

Of the 49 million Americans that are expected to travel this Independence Day weekend, 41 million of those people will do it by driving.

Johnson says there are multiple contributors to that.

“Gas prices are much cheaper than they were last year,” she said. “Travelers will be paying about 15 cents less than they were at the same time in 2018.”

“But we also see low unemployment and rising disposable income. All of this is coming together, giving Americans some additional money to spend a trip with friends and family this year.”

AAA also projects what days and times will be the most hectic on the roadways during the holiday weekend.

“We are projecting that traffic will start picking up on Wednesday, July 3, between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m.,” Johnson said.

She added that if you are driving on the interstate, and want to avoid the big headaches on July 3, she suggests traveling early in the morning, or just drive on July 4.