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Gas is up to $4.50 in Maranara, and I'm sure well over that in the Valley and Flagstaff. Some places out of state are already well over $6. However, in Arizona we are still not yet seeing $5+ as a common price, if at all.

Should this change, will you be likely to alter or change summer travel plans?

I'm considering dropping a trip to the Cabeza Prieta in the next month due to prices, as I can still go next winter if they drop. However, this was in a framework of prices dropping in a few months and prices being more reasonable come summer. If gas around here is $8 on average by June, $4.50 will seem cheap, and I will wish I at least did my desert trip.

My goal this summer was to go to the White Mountains in California, a region not exactly known for cheap gas, so I probably wouldn't do that if it was at $9 or $10/gallon in western Nevada and far east California. Wouldn't drive to eastern Montana or North Dakota, either. Maybe I would visit Flagstaff, instead? Maybe I would just go to the Angle Orchard and gorge on peaches?

@Jim_H
yesterday morning I bought gas at a Speedway in Globe for $3.71 per gallon. In the afternoon the price was $3.99

@DixieFlyer
I bought at the CVX near me at $3.67 on Tuesday. Circle K's were about 3.75. Now they are $3.99

@Jim_H
Gas prices in Globe are usually about $0.25 less than in the Valley

AAA compiles factual statistics which may or may not agree with the conjecture individuals believe based on their own narrow experiences.
https://gasprices.aaa.com/

@Jim_H
Gas prices in Marana seem higher than in other parts of Tuscon, and that didn't use to be the case

To me, gas prices in our local areas are much more relevant than national averages, since we buy gas locally, not nationally

While it looks like there will be some short term pain at the gas pump, I do not think that gas prices will go to the moon...I am a bigger fan of mean reversion than linear extrapolation...but of course I could be wrong!

I think the prices around me might be more than Tucson in general. I saw 3.99 yesterday at a few stations. One at Tangerine and 10, and another at a no name in front of the Fry's on Silver Bell and Cortaro.

1/13/20 Az. avg. $2.83

Gas prices are funny. Since 2005 it's "normalized" at 2.50 and then goes up and down from there, spiking during the financial crisis period. That was 17 years ago, although there was obviously a big jump in the 09 financial crisis that lasted roughly 4 years. I can't think of many things that have stayed roughly the same price for the last 7 years (it basically went back down to 2.30ish at the beginning of 2015), only to grow to the current price during one of the worse economic periods on record. Wages have increased 80%ish on average in the period according to the social security administration, as well, since 2005. Not sure why gas is supposed to be this static thing in the world when nothing else is, although my 12mpg vehicle has hopes and dreams.

In the macro, of course, it's a bit more pain for day to day. If you were hired on to a job making a lower wage just a couple of years ago and you have to drive to that same job making that same wage, this is, effectively, making your take home less, in a consistent manner (until it drops back down again).

For vacations though, is it really a big deal? From here to Minot, ND is 1553 miles (Why not Minot? Freezin's the reason!) and through states that tend to be near the lowest in the national, generally, from a gas price perspective. If you take a vehicle that gets okay mileage but not great, 25mpg, you'd need roughly 62 gallons. So if it's up a dollar, that long trip will only be an extra 124 bucks round trip. I understand some people may be on much tighter budgets than others but if you're making that long a journey, it seems like a small amount "extra".

Ironically, if I didn't go to The White Mountains of California, eastern Montana and western North Dakota are a place I am interested in visiting, but with gas at $5 a gallon, I would postpone both trips this summer (or I think I would) because neither will disappear and exactly as you said, the prices are likely to fall again. Fracking did a lot to lower prices up until the big March 2020 panic, which then made fracking less economical with the reduced demand. I understand many capped wells. I expect those will be re-opened with oil prices up, if they are not already.

Some of it comes down to benefit vs cost. A spring trip to the western desert is already something I am less excited about than going in winter, partly due to allergies, but also due to the likelihood of more people, and the chance for more illegals/ or smugglers (not trying to start that debate, I just was told winter sees fewer of them according to the BP), reduced air quality and therefore reduced long distance visibility for summit sight seeing, and even the chance of allergies. I can wait if it costs twice what I was going to pay, or eve 30% more. Cabeza Head or whatever else isn't likely to go away. There are plenty of things to do nearer to home.

I am not saying I wouldn't go anywhere, but I would change from California or Montana and North Dakota, or the far western desert, and instead go Flagstaff and the Pinalenos. I might take fewer trips to the Pinalenos, but stay longer, too. I was paying less than half of what I paid in 2008, when I was vacationing in 2009 and 2010. $5 is not likely to be sustained forever.

@Jim_H
What draws you to North Dakota? I spent more than a couple of years there and while it has it's... quirks... not much of a destination. South Dakota/Montana are both pretty awesome from an outdoors perspective, though. The badlands is a really cool spot for hiking/backpacking, in particular.

@xsproutx
Something different. A few years ago I read about the American Prairie Reserve and I thought that might be interesting to visit. Same with Theodore Roosevelt NP. Also, I liked the green of the gramma grass prairie when I lived in Alamogordo, NM and drove to northern New Mexico through the extreme western edge of the high plains. I would like to see some vast expanses of green grass, again.

Remember when I worked as a supplier in the RV industry and we'd track stuff like gas prices. At one point gas hit $4.00 a gallon and someone else in the industry commented that your average RV gets 8 miles per gallon, so every mile you drive costs you fifty cents. Watching the mile markers go by on the freeway was painful.

@Jim_H gas up in Bishop or the station just north of Big Pine if you're there. Prices are pretty reasonable due to stations being on reservation land, the further north you go the worse prices get (Mammoth > Lee Vining > Bridgeport can be a $1 difference).

Gas Buddy 3/6/22 has regular between $4.96 and $5.51 in Bishop, Ca..

Should I mention that if I do go to California, I will make all efforts to travel in Nevada, avoid California as much as possible, stay in NV, and limit my money spending in California as much as possible? I did.

$5-6 unlead in AZ would not be surprising at all. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see $7 in AZ. $8-9 in rural areas of CA is not out of the question, some areas are already creeping above $7.

The price of basically everything will go up since trucking companies pass the increased cost of diesel on to their freight customers based on a variable fuel surcharge. That will get passed on to the consumers in the price of goods/services.

Phmsa (basically pipeline DOT) has gotten much stricter under the current administration in regulating pipelines, leading to reduced shipping capacity and increased maintenance/repair costs, resulting in pipelines charging more to move fuel. The prices of fuel chemical additives has increased greatly, which gets rolled into your price per gallon. Fuel delivery driver wages have increased a lot in the past two years, which is also rolled into the price of fuel. Rail has become more expensive, and has a rather unreliable shipping schedule.

A certain AZ utility got themselves backed into a corner by investing heavily in “green” energy in recent years. When they analyzed/estimated the power demand for this upcoming summer, they realized all their pretty green programs won’t be sufficient. Their solution? They bought dozens, and I mean dozens, of…diesel generators to meet demand for the summer. All that diesel is not going to be cheap, and at some point, they will find a way to increase electricity rates to recoup some of that cost.

If you can afford it, you might as well travel and go to the places you want to see because nobody really knows how much worse it could be a year from now.

xsproutx wrote:is it really a big deal?

One person's big deal is another person's nada. Somebody with no job and no reason to drive anywhere daily probably cares only about the random road trips they take whereas somebody who drives an inefficient vehicle 50 miles to work everyday may have a different view.

One thing that's clearly missing in your budgetary assessment is the lack of consideration of the mental, physical, psychological, and of course the monetary value associated with bitching, complaining, and whining about it. Trust me, I know!

chumley wrote:One thing that's clearly missing in your budgetary assessment is the lack of consideration of the mental, physical, psychological, and of course the monetary value associated with bitching, complaining, and whining about it. Trust me, I know!

I knew my world class analysis was missing *something*. I almost wonder if that outweighs the negatives of the increased price

I'll be interested to see what my ride service costs me to take me from Tucson to Sahuarita today. Taking the Toy into the body shop since I got rear ended in Tucson a couple of weeks ago. We all walked away and since a semi was involved it's all good. The FJ is a tank, really minimal damage considering. I used this guy a while back on another had to go to Tucson auto repair and all my friends working or otherwise tied up and he was very reasonable.