Best and Worst Times for Thanksgiving Travel
If you're traveling by car this Thanksgiving in Northern Virginia, try to drive very early in the morning.
About 43.6 million people are planning to travel 50 miles or more for their Thanksgiving meal this year according to AAA—and 90 percent of those people are traveling by car. While Northern Virginia is traffic-heavy throughout the holiday period, the day before Thanksgiving is the heaviest travel day. To help you plan your travel, the Virginia Department of Transportation created this set of maps showing Thanksgiving traffic congestion from Wednesday, Nov. 23 through Sunday, Nov. 27, 2011. Unlike last year, the Beltway Express Lanes will be open for Thanksgiving, which may alleviate some of the Thanksgiving travel congestion on Wednesday. The 2011 maps show the heaviest travel in Northern Virginia last year, particularly around the Beltway …
