NORFOLK, Va. — AAA estimates a little more than two million Virginians will head 50 or more miles away from home this Thanksgiving.
The organization started tracking Thanksgiving travel data in 2019, and after the pandemic they say the number of people traveling for the holiday keeps growing.
Ryan Adcock with AAA in Virginia Beach said, “2019 was obviously a benchmark for us in terms of travel numbers since that was the year before the pandemic, and we are projecting we’ll surpass that 2019 number with 2.07 million Virginians.”
Adcock added AAA’s numbers show most of the people traveling for Thanksgiving will do it by car. So, he's reminding those drivers to be mindful.
“Give yourself enough time and just make sure we’re following the rules of the road, make sure that we’re following the speed limit, make sure we’re not driving distracted so everyone can get to their Thanksgiving safely,” said Adcock.
This year, Google is using AI to predict the best and worst times to travel.
Google said the Friday before Thanksgiving is typically the busiest for traffic, especially between 1 p.m. to 2 p.m.
The best times?
Google said those would be the Sunday and Monday before Thanksgiving, at around 8 p.m.
AAA predicts that after those days, the busiest time on the road will be next week.
“Next week on Tuesday and Thursday, we’re going to see a lot of congestion out there on the roads,” says Adcock.
For people looking to take advantage of Black Friday sales, Google also estimates between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. is the best time to get out to run your errands.