Still figuring out your plans for the 4th of July holiday? You’re in luck. According to the travel app Hopper, prices for domestic flights are 27 percent lower than last year ahead of the holiday weekend. Unlike soaring international airfare—flights to Europe are the highest they’ve been in five years—travelers can find domestic roundtrip flights for about $100 less than they were last year.
The catch is that you have to choose your dates wisely. You can save an average of $74 per ticket if you fly out on Saturday, July 1 and return on Monday or Tuesday. Friday, June 30 and Tuesday, July 4 are shaping up to be the busiest and most expensive travel days. To beat the crowds in addition to higher fares, you might want to avoid late morning (8am to 12pm) and early evening (4pm to 8pm) departures as these tend to be the busiest travel times.
Hotel rates are about the same as last year at this time—$197 per night on average—but if you can hold off on booking your room, the Hopper tipsters say that major cities like NYC and Vegas tend to drop prices closer to check-in dates. Car rentals are down 25 percent from last year, coming in at around $47 per day.
If you still have the itch to travel internationally for the holiday, look to Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean for fares that won’t break the bank—flights to these destinations are nearly half the cost of flights to Europe or Asia.
Find Hopper’s full Fourth of July travel outlook report here.