These Are the Worst Times to Drive Over the Memorial Day Weekend

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published May 12, 9:15AM EDT

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AAA says more than 45 million people will travel this Memorial Day weekend.
The most popular destinations include some of America’s largest cities.
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These Are the Worst Times to Drive Over the Memorial Day Weekend — © smontgom65 / iStock Editorial via Getty Images

AAA has forecast holiday travel for decades. This Memorial Day, it says 45.1 million people will travel, breaking the record of 44 million set in 2005. The period measured stretches from Thursday, May 22, to Monday, May 26.

Stacey Barber, the vice president of AAA Travel, commented, “Memorial Day weekend getaways don’t have to be extravagant and costly.” Of the total, 39.4 million will travel by car. One reason is that gasoline prices are at a multiyear low.

Air travel will hit 3.61 million. Some of America’s largest cities–Chicago, New York, Orlando, Denver, and Seattle—are among the most popular destinations. Orlando is home to some of the country’s largest theme parks.

AAA also provides data on roads with the most and least congestion and when. The data is provided by day and time. These are the best and worst times to travel by car based on congestion:

Date	Worst Time	Best Time
Thursday, May 22	1:00 – 9:00 PM	Before 12:00 PM
Friday, May 23	12:00 PM – 8:00 PM	Before 11:00 AM
Saturday, May 24	2:00 PM – 6:00 PM	Before 12:00 PM
Sunday, May 25	1:00 PM – 5:00 PM	Before 1:00 PM
Monday, May 26	4:00 PM – 7:00 PM	Before 2:00 PM

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.