Mike Pitts, 19, can't wait to get to Minneapolis for Thanksgiving, where he'll load up on stuffing (his favorite), pumpkin pie and lively conversation around the table. The only bummer for Pitts, a sophomore at Purdue University in Lafayette, Ind., is that two key elements of the holiday will be sorely missing: Mom and Dad.

Mike's parents, Amy and Steve, and younger brothers, Jeff and Dan, moved from the Twin Cities to Phoenix a few years ago. When Steve Pitts priced a round-trip ticket for his son at about $750, the family shifted to Plan B: Mike will hitch a car ride Tuesday to Minneapolis with his childhood buddy, Chris Mottaz, also a Purdue sophomore, and eat that stuffing with Grandma and his extended family in Blaine. Amy, "who's a little bit sad" about the decision, takes heart that her son "will be with people he knows."

The Pittses are hardly the only American family winging it this Thanksgiving, particularly those with college kids studying far from home. While in years past many parents thought nothing of flying their budding adults home twice within a matter of weeks, this year they're letting the economy do the talking. And it's saying: See you at Christmas.

A survey published last week by AAA reported that, while average gasoline prices have dropped to their lowest since early 2005, Thanksgiving road travel still will decrease by 1.2 percent. Air travel is expected to drop by 7.2 percent, largely due to 2.6 million fewer seats, and airfares throttling up: The average domestic airfare at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport rose nearly 18 percent in the second quarter of this year compared with a year ago, according to the U.S. Transportation Department.

Amtrak spokesman Marc Magliari isn't predicting an increase in rail travelers, either, "mostly due to the economy and the fact that gasoline prices have been falling. The car, truck and SUV are our primary competition," he said, "and those are cheaper to operate this Thanksgiving." Greyhound spokeswoman Abby Wambaugh remains hopeful. The number of new riders increased slightly from the second quarter of 2008 to the third; 19.2 percent up to 20.8 percent. "The majority of our customers purchase on the day of travel, so as far as predicting trends, we can't do that until after the holiday." But Thanksgiving is one of their busiest times of year, Wambaugh said, with about 500,000 passengers.

Drawing the line

Tim Caugh isn't picking planes, trains or automobiles. The 41-year-old from Plymouth plans to stay put and go pheasant hunting instead. Caugh, who is divorced, was planning to fly home to St. Louis as he does every year, until he priced airfares at double what he's accustomed to paying. "My family's begging: 'Can't you come home?' It's not that I can't afford it," says Caugh, a marketing director for a food service company, "but I don't want to be part and parcel to it. I just have to draw a line somewhere."

He'll make the 10-hour drive to St. Louis at Christmas, assuming the weather cooperates. "It just makes more sense," Caugh says. "And I can load the car up with presents."

Some guilt-ridden parents aren't waiting until Christmas to send packages. On Friday, Amy Hauge, owner of Amy's Classic Confections in downtown Minneapolis, was packaging up a handful of delectable gift baskets that will be shipped to college students from California to Kentucky to New York City, to arrive before Thursday. She filled them with cookies, brownies, popcorn "and chocolate turkeys and candy corn to make it look a little more like Thanksgiving."

She might want to save a few chocolate turkeys for one of her young workers from Iowa. "She's hanging around here until Christmas," Hauge said.

Bill Ihle, executive vice president of the luxury fruit purveyor Harry & David, said he's also seeing an increase in shipments this month with "Dormitory" or "University" on the mailing address.

Creativity is showing up in other ways. While Mike Pitts will be home for Christmas, his folks are flying to Lafayette the first weekend of December for a Purdue-Duke basketball game. Round-trip tickets during this off-peak time: a reasonable $335.

But deferred gratification isn't necessarily a bad thing. For some students, this economic reality check offers a good opportunity to give thanks for what they do have, even if they don't have it this year. Shaly Borgen, a theater student at New York University, lives just outside of San Francisco.

"Flights are really expensive and my family is just barely affording the cost of NYU," she wrote in an e-mail to the Star Tribune. "My mom is a violinist and my dad works for a wine and spirits company, so I'm pretty sure the bad economy is going to hit us soon. I really miss California and moderate weather and my friends and family, but I'm adjusting more and more to staying here over breaks."

Gail Rosenblum • 612-673-7350