Maine Named One of the Best Destinations for Summer Road Trips

The time is here to officially start celebrating summer -- school is out, the summer weather is in full effect, and the world is reopening more and more by the day. Which means it's time for us to (safely) bust out and enjoy our lives again.

According to PR Newswire, over 80% of Americans are planning on taking a vacation his summer, and 59% said they're planning on driving as opposed to flying. All that said, WalletHub decided to look at 33 key factors like average gas prices, average car repair costs, road conditions and more to determine the best and worst destinations for a road trip.

When all was said and done and the smoke cleared, Maine was considered the 4th best state to road trip to in the country. Other New England states didn't do too bad either, with Vermont landing at #13, New Hampshire at #21, and Massachusetts just barely falling into the second half of the country at #26.

In their study, WalletHub broke everything down into three key factors with road-tripping -- costs, safety, and activities. They came up with a weighted points system that totalled 100 over the 3 categories, diving deep into subcategories including gas prices, toll costs, camping costs, vacation rental costs, population, quality of roads, car thefts, etc.

The highest total point-getter was New York with 59.86. Maine wasn't far off at all, earning a total of 57.46, only .2 points behind #3-ranked Louisiana and almost 1.5 points above #5-ranked North Carolina. Maine was also considered the most safe state of the 50 and fairly cost-efficient as well.

Do you agree with the list? Should Maine have done better? Should the other New England states have ranked higher as well? Based on these findings, we may need to prepare to buckle in for an influx of people from away coming to Vacationland this summer...