As summer vacation nears, teens and adults alike have begun to plan getaways for the months of June and July. While summer travel remains a popular and beloved tradition for many each year, Florida residents may be experiencing apprehension towards booking flights or hotel stays in 2025 due to Hurricanes Milton and Helene’s detrimental impacts last fall. The observable property loss and land damage caused by the storms have created a heightened sense of natural disaster-related vigilance and have ultimately made people realize that the hurricanes many once saw as routine now have the capacity to have negative economic and social repercussions. It’s no surprise that Floridians have observed the high prices of all areas of travel, i.e. flights, rental cars, and hotels, over the past few months, but to what extent did hurricanes play a role in these costs? Or is there another underlying explanation that may be more obvious than expected?

To provide insight on the matter of travelling this summer is St. Pete High sophomore Mia Trakilovic; with a European summer ahead of her, Trakilovic commented on some of the ways her and her mother have observed the recent trends and high costs of travel. “I am flying to Berlin with my art class to visit the city’s many historical landmarks, museums and memorials, including one of the country’s largest Holocaust concentration camps. Then we are flying to Prague, Czech Republic. After that, we are going to Switzerland and visiting Lucerne, and finally, I will be leaving my group to go to my home country, Serbia. There I will be visiting the capital. She offers that “the trip with [her] class from the US to Germany, the Czech Republic and Switzerland comes to roughly two and a half thousand dollars, and the airfare to Serbia and back to the US is about one thousand.” When asked about any effects that the hurricanes last year had on travel, Trakilovic says, “there are a lot of construction areas on the airport and garages, and fuel prices have gone up so as a result, airlines have had to oversell tickets to ensure a full flight and make up for the cost of fuel.” While construction and repairs related to the hurricanes has affected the traveler experience, Mia also illustrates a significant and often overlooked element of travel cost that has especially impacted U.S. citizens over the past year: inflation. Yes, the buzz word that plagues all news channels, sites, radio stations, and social media pages has, in fact, spread to the world of domestic and international travel. High gas prices are no foreign topic to anyone who owns a vehicle or reaps the benefits of one, but it may be harder to connect a pricey plane ticket to increased fuel cost from an average point-of-view.

Adding to this finding is flight attendant and former journalist Lisa Fuss. “Everything travel-related increases in the summer months due to school schedules. Flight prices spike annually during June, July, and August, especially to vacation areas like Orlando that also see an increase in attendance and prices at that time,” Fuss remarks. “With higher ticket costs too comes expensive hotels. Even though prices seem abnormally high at times, due to the state of the economy, this pattern of summer spikes happens every year,” she continues. 

So, despite 2024’s hurricanes impact on certain aspects of travel functionality, the high costs of travel are likely more attributed to issues like inflation putting an emphasis on regular price trends in the summertime. Travel is a lucrative aspect of vacationing that experiences both more local and international consequences, but it is important to monitor trends and look towards experts for advice as to how to navigate this tricky yet exciting time of year.