Summer road trip plans take a detour as gas prices continue to soar across the country

Wayne Gass was planning a scenic road trip for the summer: drive along the Gaspé Peninsula, hit the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia, then loop back up to Prince Edward Island.

But with gas now costing upwards of $2 a litre in the Greater Montreal municipality of Vaudreuil-Dorion where he lives, Gass says he'll be sticking closer to home — perhaps taking shorter trips to Ottawa or Mont-Tremblant, Que., instead.

"Nothing on a large scale of going down the East Coast, which I'm going to miss because I love going down there. It's beautiful country."

Gass is one of many Canadians who may be rethinking their road travel plans as gas prices hit new highs across the country, topping $2 a litre in several places.

Those record prices, plus rising costs for everything from food to housing, are adding extra uncertainty to the post-pandemic bounceback that the travel industry was banking on.

"What might have been a terrific year [for travel] is going to be a little more subdued than what we might have hoped for," said Pedro Antunes, chief economist at the Conference Board of Canada.

A new report from the Conference Board says there is huge pent-up demand for travel after two years of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it notes that higher prices for gas and other goods will be a "significant deterrent" to travel. And although more Canadians are likely to take road trips this year, they probably won't be "bucket list" trips like Gass was planning.

Linda Schaeffer and her husband, Don, changed their August vacation plans when they realized it would be much cheaper to fly from Calgary to Halifax and rent a car there so they could visit family than to drive across the country.

"We figured that with the price of gas, by the time we drive down there, accommodation and food and whatever else we want to do on our way ... it was going to cost us about $10,000 to $15,000. That's crazy," Linda Schaeffer said.

"It's way too much money to go across Canada."

Instead of the month-long road trip they had planned, the couple will now be away for two weeks, using airline points and credit card rewards to cover most of the cost of their flights and a rental car in Halifax.

"We're going to have to buy gas to drive around, but it's going to be a lot less than driving across Canada," she said.

But flying might not be a cheaper option for everyone — especially for those paying with cash instead of reward miles, warns Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at fuel price comparison website GasBuddy.