Travelers hit the road for July Fourth weekend

The road trip, it seems, is back.

After a two-summer hiatus in the face of high gas prices in 2008 and the onslaught of Great Recession layoffs last year, travelers are planning to hit the road this Fourth of July weekend, as they did for Memorial Day weekend. And businesses that depend on travelers are crossing their fingers and hoping that the apparent resurgence in tourism will continue through the summer - and beyond.

According to AAA, which conducts yearly holiday travel surveys, about 4.1 million Californians expect to venture at least 50 miles from home this Independence Day weekend - a 19.3 percent increase over last year, said Cynthia Harris, AAA's Northern California spokeswoman. Most of those travelers - about 3.5 million - will reach their destinations by car, a 20.2 percent increase. Air travel, hit especially hard by the faltering economy, is also expected to be up - by about 10.3 percent. Journeys by train, bus and boat are also expected to rise - by 16.9 percent.

"There is sort of a contained optimism," said Harris. "We are just starting to get back to the numbers we were at a few years ago. It's nothing extraordinary; it's just getting back to normal."

One thing that has changed, travel observers say, is the extension of the holiday weekend - from a three-day weekend to a four-, five- or more-day respite from work.

"The peaks for travel have been starting earlier and earlier," said David Vossbrink, spokesman for Mineta San Jose International Airport. "Getaway day is no longer Friday. This year, it's Thursday."

Roy Stearns, spokesman for California State Parks, has noticed the same trend.

"More people are reserving earlier and some are taking Monday off, too," he said, "making an extra-long weekend of it."

Reservations for campgrounds are up about 9 percent over last year, Stearns said.

"From Mendocino to Mexico, the coastal sites are all full," he said. But campsites are still available this weekend at more than two dozen state parks, particularly those in the Central Valley, on the North Coast or in the Sierra Nevada. A list of parks with available sites can be found at www.parks.ca.gov.

Travelers taking to the skies can expect busy, but not packed airports, though flights will be extremely full, according to airport officials. The holiday travel period is expected to begin today, and continue through early next week. San Francisco International Airport, the Bay Area's busiest, expects to see a 9 percent increase in travelers compared with last year. At Oakland International, a 1 to 2 percent increase is anticipated. Mineta San Jose International expects holiday weekend travel to be about the same as last year.

Still, San Jose airport officials suggest that travelers show up earlier than usual for their flights because they just opened a new terminal, closed an old one, moved some airline counters and opened a new rental car center - all on Wednesday.

"Some passengers may need some extra time to get used to everything," he said. "The airport just doesn't look the same as it used to."

E-mail Michael Cabanatuan at mcabanatuan@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page C - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle