A busy travel week is underway as more than 55 million people are traveling across the country this Thanksgiving to visit family and friends, including in Chicago, according to AAA estimates.
“It’s Tuesday right? That’s why we chose to leave on Tuesday instead of Thursday,” one woman from Maryland said.
The Chicago Department of Aviation said O’Hare and Midway International Airports ready for a surge in passengers this week. Airline officials projecting the busiest travel day will be on Sunday with nearly 300,000 passengers expected between both airports.
“We were apprehensive, but everything has been great so far we’ll see,” Shelly Duprey of Virginia said. “Everything is going smoothly so far until we get to Denver—we’ll see how that goes.”
Duprey and her husband from Virginia are flying out of Midway and heading to Colorado Tuesday evening.
“Usually we don’t travel so this is the first time usually we’re home and everybody comes to our place,” PJ Duprey told NBC Chicago. “I hope everything works out.”
According to AAA, this is will be the third busiest Thanksgiving travel period since it began tracking in 2000. If you plan on driving, AAA said expect to see fairly low gas prices through the Thanksgiving holiday in Illinois.
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“The good news about the gas prices they have dropped and as a matter of fact, today’s average is $3.47 and a year ago it was $4.00,” AAA spokeswoman Molly Hart said. “So we got $0.53 cents more in our pocket these days.”
While some decided to travel by plane or car, others are opting to take Greyhound instead to save money. AAA said the number of people traveling by cruise, bus, and train over Thanksgiving is up nearly 11% over last year.
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“I mean taking the bus it’s a little you know, it can be a little strenuous,” Gerald Taylor said, who is traveling to Milwaukee from Chicago. “I men you know it’s still a good experience—it’s a scenic kinda thing.”
As millions hope to get to their destination safely this Thanksgiving, one Chicagoan told NBC 5 she’s staying put this holiday.
“We usually always trave just not for the holidays because there’s a lot of people always traveling so we tend not to do it for the holidays,” Yuliana Vargas said. “We usually do it for others, but not for the holidays.”
AAA said the best time to drive is Wednesday before 11 a.m. and the worst time to be on the road is from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m.
