It's a big travel weekend: How costly is it to vacation these days?

It seems everyone is itching to get out this Memorial Day holiday, with plans to hit the roads and the air. LAX expects 218,000 passengers to go through the airport on Thursday alone.

So aside from airline tickets and gas, what is the cost of travel these days?   

We can all feel inflation, the U.S. Department of Labor reports that prices rose on average 8.6% for the past 12 months.  Obviously, this impacts travelers as well. 

Year-over-year, hotel room rates are up 3.5%, restaurant prices are up 8.6% and admission to movies, theaters, and concerts is up 6.9%, according to NerdWallet.

NerdWallet's travel inflation report for May 2023 breaks it down.

• Airfare: Dropping, with April 2023 prices down 14.6% from those May 2022 record highs.
• Car rentals: Still high, but dropping. Prices are up 51.4% versus the same month in 2019, but down 11.2% year-over-year. Record high prices were seen in July 2021.
• Hotels and motels: Room rates are, on average, nearly 15.3% more than what prices were in 2019, pre-pandemic.
• Food away from home: Prices are far higher than pre-pandemic, with March 2023 prices coming in at more than 24% higher than what they were in March 2019.
• Movies, theaters and concerts: Year-over-year prices are up just 6.9%.