The problem has been especially prevalent this spring in warm-weather destinations including Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, experts say. Social media posts reveal fruitless searches, exorbitant prices and photos of long lines of people waiting for vehicles.

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Woronka said moving vehicles around is expensive and time-consuming for the rental car companies, and the chip shortage is making it difficult to rebuild fleets economically. He said there are still unknowns about how the situation will eventually be resolved, but he doesn’t expect a very quick fix.

“I am not overly optimistic that we are going to have all the rental cars we need for peak summer travel season,” he said.

Weinberg said he expects to start seeing shortages in other areas as summer approaches, especially near national parks. In those cases, he said, it might be necessary to rent a car farther from the attraction and bake a longer-than-planned road trip into the vacation.