(Radio Iowa) – Even with gasoline prices in Iowa well over four dollars a gallon, a survey finds most Iowa motorists are simply resigning themselves to paying more to fill the tank, and they won’t let it foil their Memorial Day weekend plans. Brian Ortner, spokesman for Triple-A Iowa, says projections for the holiday ahead indicate slightly fewer motorists will be traveling 50 miles or more from home compared to last year.
“It’s a little lower than we saw in 2025, but not much, and air travel dropped a little bit as well from 2025 numbers,” Ortner says, “but when you look at the other forms of travel, which is bus, trains, or cruises, we are up in our region and set a new record, with 406,000 folks opting to take those other forms of travel.”
A recent hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship has generated a great deal of news and concern, but Ortner says based on the numbers he’s seeing, it’s not keeping Iowans from booking cruises of their own, as cruises remain exceptionally popular.
“They are affordable. The itineraries are ideal for short trips, and they’re all-inclusive, which makes it a very attractive option, especially if you’re going in large groups,” Ortner says. “Seeing those numbers increase as we have, and again, setting a new record for the region, show that cruises, specifically Alaskan cruises, are on the rise.”
Gas prices in Iowa are the highest they’ve been in four years, and some analysts project it could be 2027 before we again see pre-Iran war pump prices. Ortner says it’s very difficult to project how long it may take to bring prices down, once hostilities cease.
“The decrease in those prices won’t happen overnight. That’s the unfortunate reality of fuel costs,” Ortner says. “There’s a saying out there that you may have heard that when it comes to fuel costs, they shoot up like a rocket and fall like a feather. Even when things start to get back to normal, there’s still a process to adjust to where we would like things to be.”
Triple-A says the average price for a gallon of gas in Iowa today is four-19, that’s a dollar-31 higher compared to this date a year ago.
