If you are planning to take a road trip this upcoming holiday weekend, you may be surprised to find gas prices higher than expected -- but the good news is, those prices should drift lower in the coming weeks and months.

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"It's all in the averages, and the average price nationwide is a little bit lower than it was during the 2013 Memorial Day weekend, and a little lower than it was in 2012," said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst with GasBuddy.com. "But it is very uneven depending on where you are in the country, and there are some reasons for that.

"The beneficiaries of the U.S. oil shale explosion are mostly in the interior of the country and on the East Coast; we don't have the robust imports from offshore," Kloza continued. "I would suspect that prices are going to drift lower until early August. Then, August will depend on what the tropical systems look like in the Gulf of Mexico."

Prices may be higher than many people predicted heading into the Memorial Day weekend, but that likely will not affect the driving season from now through Labor Day.

"We're in really good shape, we're producing a lot, we've got a lot more crude than we have since the mid-'80s, so I think that's going to manifest itself with temperate prices," Kloza said. "I think if we don't get any hurricanes this year, I think the next big move for gas prices and for crude prices is lower. It's just not clear whether it's going to happen in the next 60 days or, likely, in the last 100 days of the year."

Currently, the average national price for a gallon of regular is $3.64, while the average price for a gallon of regular in New Jersey is $3.49. For more information and to find the least expensive prices near you, visit www.gasbuddy.com.

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