U.S. road trip travel over Thanksgiving was down 35 percent compared to last year's holiday, according to travel data company Arrivalist and its Daily Travel Index .

While health experts have advised Americans to stay put this holiday season amid a surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths, the trend is somewhat surprising given that Thanksgiving prompted the busiest day of the pandemic in terms of air travel .

This year's dramatic decline in road trips of 50 miles or more initiated on November 25-26 makes Thanksgiving the least traveled major holiday of 2020 in terms of road trips, seeing less activity than Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day.

The largest impact was felt in the Northeast where travel restrictions are more common as Vermont (-66.4 percent); Rhode Island (-64.9 percent); Connecticut (-57.6 percent); Massachusetts (-52.7 percent); New Hampshire (-52.6 percent); Illinois (-52.1 percent) and Ohio (-52.0 percent) saw the greatest reduction in road trip activity. The West was impacted less by comparison, with Utah (-13.9 percent); Nevada (-20.4 percent); Montana (-24.5 percent); South Dakota (-27.6 percent); Wyoming (-28.7 percent) and North Dakota (-39.3 percent) reporting the smallest declines.

Arrivalist also found that Thanksgiving road trippers were slightly more likely to stay overnight (69.3 percent) this year compared to 2019 (68.2 percent) and more likely to take a shorter trip, with those of 50-100 miles accounting for 46.1 percent of trips, up from 44.8 percent last year.

"Travel by private car—generally regarded as one of the safest and most available means of leisure travel during the pandemic—had begun establishing itself as a leading indicator of travel's rebound," said Arrivalist CEO Cree Lawson in a statement accompanying Monday's report. "That appears to have taken a back seat to people's desire to protect themselves and each other from a surge of COVID-19 cases."

"From a travel perspective, Thanksgiving 2020 looks just like any other weekend in 2020—and a light one at that," Lawson added. "It's a bitter pill today but travel demand overall is as strong as ever, and I expect delivering a vaccine will give the industry a shot in the arm."