Higher prices don't deter Thanksgiving travelers

Whether on the highway or at home, Americans will pay more to celebrate Thanksgiving this year. But higher gas prices and costlier airfare are not stopping millions of people from traveling for the holiday.

About 42.5 million people are expected to drive, fly or ride trains to their Thanksgiving destinations, according to travel tracker AAA. That's the highest number since the start of the recession.

Ninety percent of them will drive. It won't be cheap. Drivers will pay almost 20 percent more for gas, which has reached an average of $3.42 a gallon.

Air travelers will get hit, too. The average round-trip airfare for the top 40 U.S. routes is $212, up 20 percent from last year. Rail tickets on most one-way Amtrak trips have climbed 2 to 5 percent. Hotel and motel rates are also up slightly.

But George Gorham and his fiancé, Patricia Horner, weren't deterred. They flew across the country to visit Gorham's son at North Carolina's Fort Bragg. They used frequent-flier miles and planned to visit tourist attractions in the nation's capital along the way.

Horner said they still would have made the trip without the miles, but “it would have been more painful.”

Travelers were also at the mercy of the weather. The East Coast was expecting rain and scattered thunderstorms Wednesday. Parts of upstate New York and upper New England could see a mix of snow and freezing rain. The National Weather Service predicted showers in the Pacific Northwest and northern California as well.

Plenty of people were staying home.

Damian Buchwald of Buffalo, N.Y., picked up a second job earlier this year. His new work schedule has helped pay the bills but leaves him without time to travel to Connecticut to spend the holiday with his wife's family.

This year, the couple and their teenage son, Raven, will celebrate Thanksgiving with his mother, neighbors and friends in town.

“When you can't travel and people can't travel to you, you gather your closest friends. And that way nobody has to pay an arm and a leg, and everyone can eat well,” Buchwald said.

But having relatives over for dinner is becoming more expensive, too.

A 16-pound turkey and all the trimmings will cost an average of $49.20, a 13 percent jump from last year, or about $5.73 more, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, which says grocers have raised prices to keep pace with higher-priced commodities.

In Pawtucket, R.I., Jackie Galinis was among those looking for help to put a proper meal on the table. She stopped at a community center this week seeking a donated food basket. But by the time she arrived, all 300 turkeys had been claimed.

So Galinis, an unemployed retail worker, will make do with what's in her apartment. “We'll have to eat whatever I've got, so I'm thinking chicken,” she said.

Then her eyes lit up. “Actually, I think I've got red meat in the freezer, some corned beef. We could do a boiled dinner.”

Galinis has another reason to clear out her apartment's freezer: Her landlord is in the process of evicting her and her 3-year-old son. The unemployment rate in Pawtucket, a city struggling with the loss of manufacturing jobs, is 12.1 percent, well above the national average.

Carole Goldsmith of Fresno, Calif., decided she didn't need to have a feast, even if she could still afford it.

Goldsmith, an administrator at a community college in Coalinga, Calif., said she typically hosts an “over-the-top meal” for friends and family. This year, she canceled the meal and donated a dozen turkeys to two homeless shelters. She plans to spend Thursday volunteering before holding a small celebration Friday with soup, bread “and lots of gratitude.”

“I think everybody is OK with it,” she said. “They understand. Everybody is in a different place than they were a year ago.”

In suburban Chicago, the Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry got rid of turkey altogether. Last year, the pantry had a lottery in October to distribute 600 turkeys between almost 1,500 families.

The pantry's management has decided to give all of its families a choice between other kinds of meat — ground turkey, sliced chicken, fish sticks and hamburger patties — along with the other trappings of a Thanksgiving feast. The decision will save $16,000, money that can go to feeding the hungry for the rest of the year.

“Do we give turkeys and hams to half of the people or do we give them to none of them and put that money back in the general food budget?” said the pantry's executive director, Kathy Russell.

Andrew Thomas, a mailroom worker for a Washington, D.C., law firm, had hoped to take his two children to see his grandmother in North Carolina. But with Christmas around the corner, Thomas concluded he needed to save money.

“We're just going to eat real good and stay home for this year,” he said.

But George Gorham and his fiancé, Patricia Horner weren't deterred. They flew to Washington, D.C., from the West Coast and planned to rent a car to drive to Fort Bragg, N.C., to visit Gorham's son, an Army sergeant. They used frequent-flier miles and planned to use their trip to see the tourist attractions in the nation's capital.

Gorham said he still would have made the trip without his frequent-flier miles, but “it would have been more painful.”

In Juneau, Alaska, the Rev. George Silides and his wife will bring turkey to a church potluck, but not much more. Like millions of others, Silides said, the couple was “feeling the economic pinch.”

Juneau, Alaska's capital, is an expensive place to live. The only way in or out is by air or boat. Silides' wife now works as an English teacher to support their family of six.

In previous years, Stacy Hansen would either host a large Thanksgiving meal or fly from her Florida home to be with family in Minnesota. Not this year.

Hansen and her teenage son are staying home in Tarpon Springs, Fla., near Tampa. They picked out a 10-pound turkey and two frozen, buy-one-get-one-free pies at the supermarket. She can't afford to fly herself and her son north, and her two grown children can't afford to fly back to Florida.

“It's going to be a quiet Thanksgiving,” she said. “We're going to be thankful for what we do have.”

Galinis plans a similar holiday using whatever she can find.

“Even if I only had two nickels to rub together, I'd do something,” she said. “I don't have much to give, but I'll be cooking and the door will be open.”