Travel expenses as dictated by the industry fall into three basic categories, depending on the time of year, called high season, shoulder season and low season. Throughout the USA, with the exceptions noted within each region below, the high season is summer, the low season winter, the shoulder seasons spring and autumn, generally speaking.
As a very rough rule of thumb, if you expect to pay full tariff (100%) for transport and lodging in high season, you might anticipate paying about 10% to 15% less in the shoulder season, as much as 15% to occasionally even 50% less in the low season.
Naturally, costs will be higher in the big metropolitan areas than in suburbs and the countryside, and special events anywhere (such as spring training baseball camps in Florida or Arizona, for example) will drive prices up at the most unexpected times.
When talking winter sports in the mountains, the high season, of course, is in winter, the low frequently in fall and spring, the shoulder in summer, when the outdoors can be heavenly.
For sunshine and the beach scene in winter (as in Florida), the high season is also in winter, the low in summer, shoulder seasons in spring and fall.
It's nearly 3,000 miles from Maine to California, and more than that (about 3,300 miles) from Alaska to Texas, so you should consider the country's seasons and weather in big chunks, as we've done below:
