Labor Day travelers hit Kern County roads as a record summer travel season comes to an end

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — Labor Day signals the end of summer travel season, and despite warnings from AAA about an increase in travelers this holiday weekend, many on the road had a different experience dealing with the holiday travel.

“It’s been fun, very busy with a lot of people,” said traveler Joselyn Gonzalez.

Dozens of travelers heading up and down Interstate 5, stopping at a Fort Tejon rest stop along their trip. Like Joselyn Gonzalez and her family traveling from Los Angeles, she says they didn’t anticipate the holiday travel rush.

“We went to Sequoia National Park for the river and all that, and we made like a little barbecue and now we’re headed back to go to Six Flags,” said Gonzalez. “It’s a lot of people. We thought it was going to be quick in-and-out to get gas, but no there’s like so many people here.”

Travelers like Annie Schneider also felt the impacts of the travel rush as her family headed to Disneyland for the weekend.

“This time around it was a little bit longer because of the Labor Day traffic so we left Friday took over 7 1/2 hours normally it takes about six for us. So, a little more traffic, on the way back a little bit easier but that’s because we left earlier,” said Schneider.

But Schneider said it could have been worse if she hadn’t used a navigation app to cut the time.

“People are using apps. We used Waze,” Schneider said. “That absolutely saved us about 45 minutes.”

Other vacationers were more surprised by other things while traveling than the people on the road.

“I can’t believe how hot it is compared to San Francisco,” said Robin Shaheen, who is traveling from the Bay Area to Orange County. “Everyone thought it was going to be so bad, this is actually the busiest we’ve seen out of our whole trip.”

As some headed back on the road to go home, or to finish the next leg of their trip, many say the key the Labor Day travel is to make someone else do the driving.

“I don’t mind traveling because I watch Netflix and my husband drives,” said Shaheen.

“My husband will drive, so I can sleep, but I would say he’s probably exhausted and when we get home, he’s probably going to want a cocktail or two,” said Schneider.

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