A personal reflection on America’s changing relationship with travel, leisure, and the open road
The waves are still rolling in, the boardwalk is still there, porpoises play in the surf, and the seagulls haven’t gotten the memo. But something is different at Virginia Beach this Memorial Day season — and if you’ve been coming here for years, you feel it in your bones before you can even put it into words.
This week, the sand stretches out in long, uninterrupted swaths of emptiness. The usual crush of families staking out their territory with umbrellas and coolers? Sparse. The iconic boardwalk, normally buzzing with cyclists, joggers, and tourists licking ice cream cones in the salt air? Quiet. For longtime visitors, it’s unsettling — like a song you know well, played in the wrong key.
So what’s going on? Is this just a blip, a weather anomaly, or is something deeper happening in American life? Let’s dig in.
The Setup: A Perfect Storm of Empty Beaches
Memorial Day weekend — traditionally the unofficial kickoff of summer and one of the busiest travel weekends of the year — and yet we experienced almost no traffic on our drive in on Saturday. Once we arrived, we saw lighter-than-expected crowds. And in the days that followed, the numbers dropped even further. Yes, the weather hasn’t been cooperative. And yes, gas prices continue to bite. But veteran Virginia Beach visitors know that bad weather and fuel costs have never stopped Americans from making their annual pilgrimage to the shore.
Something has changed. Maybe several things have changed at once.
The Economic Squeeze: When the Numbers Just Don’t Add Up
Let’s start with the most tangible culprit: money. Or more precisely, the growing lack of it in everyday American pockets.
Inflation’s Long Tail While headline inflation numbers have moderated since the peak years of 2022-2023, the cumulative effect of that inflationary period is still being felt by middle-class and working-class families. The price of groceries, housing, insurance, and yes, gasoline hasn’t snapped back to pre-pandemic levels. Prices in restaurants are noticeably higher. Families who once budgeted comfortably for a week at the beach are now doing harder math. A family of four — hotel, meals, gas, entertainment, parking — can easily run $3,000 to $5,000 for a week in Virginia Beach. For many households, that math no longer pencils out.
Gas Prices as a Psychological Barrier Even when gas prices aren’t at historic highs, they function as a psychological trigger. The moment you see prices creeping above a certain threshold at your local pump, a mental alarm goes off. Virginia Beach draws heavily from drive-to markets — Northern Virginia, the DC Metro area, Richmond, North Carolina. For a family driving 300+ miles round trip in an SUV or minivan, fuel alone represents a meaningful line item. When wallets are already strained, that cost can be the deciding factor.
The Credit Card Cliff American consumer credit card debt recently surpassed $1.1 trillion for the first time in history. Delinquency rates are rising. For many families who leaned heavily on credit during and after the pandemic to maintain their lifestyle, the bill is now coming due — literally. Discretionary travel is often the first thing cut when monthly minimum payments start competing with rent and groceries.
The Vacation Economy’s Bifurcation There’s a growing divide in American leisure spending. Wealthy Americans are traveling more than ever — to Europe, to luxury resorts, to international destinations. Meanwhile, the middle class is scaling back. Virginia Beach is historically a middle-class destination — accessible, family-friendly, drive-to. When that demographic is squeezed, Virginia Beach feels it acutely.
The Political Climate: Uncertainty Has a Chilling Effect
It might seem odd to connect politics to beach attendance, but the political environment shapes consumer confidence in powerful, if subtle, ways.
Tariff Anxiety and Economic Uncertainty The current environment of shifting trade policies, tariff threats, and economic unpredictability creates a diffuse anxiety that discourages big spending decisions. When people feel uncertain about what’s coming — will their job be secure? Will prices spike further? — they pull back. Economists call this “precautionary saving,” and it shows up first in discretionary spending like vacations.
Government Workforce Reductions This is particularly relevant for Virginia Beach’s primary feeder market. The DC Metro area and Northern Virginia are home to one of the largest concentrations of federal government workers and government contractors in the nation. Recent federal workforce reductions — and the anxiety among those who kept their jobs but wonder if they’re next — have created a specific, regional chill on spending. A federal employee or contractor contemplating a $4,000 beach vacation this week might reasonably decide to hold onto that money until the dust settles.
Military Families in Limbo Virginia Beach itself has a massive military presence, and Hampton Roads is one of the largest military communities in the country. Military families, who have their own economic pressures and who are particularly attuned to shifts in defense policy and budget priorities, may be exhibiting similar caution.
The “Vibes” Economy Is Real Economists have increasingly acknowledged that consumer sentiment — often called “vibes” — can drive economic behavior independent of hard numbers. When people feel pessimistic about the direction of the country, they spend less, even when they technically have the means to spend. Current consumer confidence surveys suggest a significant portion of Americans are in a cautious, hunker-down mindset. Empty beaches may be one of the quieter manifestations of that anxiety.
The Sociological Shift: How We Vacation Has Changed
Beyond economics and politics, something more fundamental may be shifting in how Americans think about leisure, travel, and what a “vacation” even means.
The Post-Pandemic Travel Reset The pandemic created a massive “revenge travel” wave in 2021-2022, when Americans flung themselves at beaches, parks, and destinations with pent-up enthusiasm. I know we certainly participated, hitting Mexico, Panama, the UK, Ireland, and two trips to Europe. But that wave has subsided. Many families who splurged on big trips in those years have satisfied — at least temporarily — their travel hunger. The urgency is gone.
The “Experience vs. Stuff” Pendulum May Be Swinging Back For years, the cultural narrative was that millennials and Gen Z preferred experiences over possessions. But as those generations have aged into family formation, mortgage payments, and student loan repayments, the calculus is shifting. The beach vacation is competing with home improvement projects, child activity fees, and financial goals in a way it didn’t when these now-30-somethings were carefree in their 20s.
The Rise of “Staycations” and Local Tourism Remote work fundamentally changed the relationship between Americans and leisure time. When you can work from anywhere, the desperate need to escape for one precious week begins to erode. People are taking more long weekends close to home rather than saving up for a single big annual trip. Virginia Beach may be losing visitors not to other destinations, but to no destination at all — to backyard barbecues, local lakes, and the simple luxury of staying put.
Social Media’s Unexpected Reverse Effect Instagram and TikTok spent years making us feel like we should be traveling — that the beach, the mountain, the exotic locale was where real living happened. But there’s growing evidence of a backlash. “Doomscrolling” culture, increased awareness of overtourism, and a general fatigue with curated lifestyle content may be nudging some travelers toward quieter, less photogenic choices. Or no choices at all.
The Demographic Squeeze The Baby Boomer generation — which dominated family beach travel for decades — is aging out of the traditional “pack up the kids and go to the beach” model. Their children and grandchildren, the demographics now in prime family-travel years, are facing the economic headwinds described above. The torch hasn’t been smoothly passed.
What Virginia Beach — and America — Should Take From This
An empty beach in the last week of May isn’t just a curiosity. It’s a data point. It tells us something about the state of American economic confidence, about the anxieties filtering down from the news cycle into everyday decision-making, and about how the middle-class relationship with leisure and travel is quietly being renegotiated.
For the businesses along Atlantic Avenue and the boardwalk that count on these weeks to carry them through the shoulder season, this isn’t an abstract observation — it’s a revenue shortfall with real consequences.
For the rest of us, an eerily quiet Virginia Beach serves as an unexpectedly poignant mirror. The shore hasn’t changed. The ocean is still vast and indifferent and beautiful. But the Americans who have always found their way here, year after year, are navigating a harder road than they were a decade ago.
And sometimes the most telling thing about a place isn’t who’s there.
It’s who’s missing.
Have you noticed similar trends at your favorite seasonal destination? The conversation is worth having — share your observations in the comments below.
About the Author: Jim and Rita are the authors of Wherever We May Roam: Finding Your Travel Style and hosts of the podcast Wherever We May Roam — Travels With Jim and Rita. They have been traveling to Virginia Beach during the last week of May for many years.
Leave a Reply