{"id":69672,"date":"2025-11-25T20:49:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/69672\/"},"modified":"2025-11-25T20:49:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T20:49:08","slug":"millions-to-travel-through-region-for-thanksgiving-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/69672\/","title":{"rendered":"Millions to travel through region for Thanksgiving holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"San<\/a>San Diego International Airport on Nov. 22, 2023. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

The Thanksgiving holiday travel rush went into high gear this week, with about 6.78 million Southern Californians expected to hit the roads or airways.<\/p>\n

According to the Auto Club of Southern California<\/a>, which defines the holiday travel period as Tuesday through Monday, the number of projected travelers is about 7% higher than the pre-pandemic level in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cThanksgiving travel has always been popular, but has grown into an even greater priority in recent years after the pandemic limited those opportunities to connect with family and friends,\u201d Auto Club spokesman Doug Shupe said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cSouthern Californians go the distance to spend time with family and friends. This holiday is one of the busiest \u2014 and most meaningful \u2014 times to travel each year.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vast majority of travelers \u2014 5.88 million \u2014\u00a0are expected to travel by car, while 704,000 will fly and 196,000 will take other forms of travel such as train, bus, or cruise ship. The projected number of total travelers is a 2.8% increase from last year.<\/p>\n

The heaviest travel through the San Diego International Airport will continue through Dec. 1, with daily passenger volume anticipated to top 80,000 \u2014 a 3% increase over last year, according to the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The busiest day is expected to be this Sunday, Nov. 30, with as many as 90,000 people traveling through the airport. Other peak days include the Wednesday prior to Thanksgiving Day and the Monday after.<\/p>\n

For those heading to San Diego International to pick up or drop off, expect delays both from heavy traffic and the airport\u2019s Terminal 1 project with ongoing construction. The busiest times curbside will be between 4 a.m. to 6:15 a.m., 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., and 8 p.m. to midnight.<\/p>\n

To help avoid holiday travel woes, San Diego\u2019s airport authority offered the following tips:<\/p>\n

Arrive at least two hours early to avoid the busiest times;<\/p>\n

Be aware of roadway changes: A new on-airport roadway now directs westbound drivers on North Harbor Drive to Terminals 1 and 2;<\/p>\n

Make parking reservations at www.san.org\/parking;<\/p>\n

Take the free San Diego Flyer shuttle service between the Old Town Transit Station and SAN. The electric shuttle buses operate seven days a week, with an average arrival time of every 20 to 30 minutes. The first pick up is at 4:45 a.m. and the last pick up\/drop off at 12:30 a.m.; or<\/p>\n

Have family or friends drop you off or use ride-hailing services.<\/p>\n

Nationally, 81.8 million people are expected to travel 50 miles or more for the holiday, also a record number that tops last year\u2019s figure by 1.6 million, according to the Auto Club.<\/p>\n

The Auto Club further noted that Southern California travelers will be paying some of the highest gas prices of the year, with a gallon of gas averaging about $4.66. Top travel destinations include San Diego, Las Vegas, Disneyland, and the Bay Area.<\/p>\n

According to the transportation analytics firm INRIX<\/a>, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons before Thanksgiving are expected to be the most congested times on area roadways, while the Sunday after Thanksgiving is expected to see the heaviest return traffic.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Diego International Airport on Nov. 22, 2023. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego) The Thanksgiving…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[21448,74,76,815,75,41153,15398,30292,2422],"class_list":["post-69672","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-holiday-travel","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-international-airport","tag-san-diego-news","tag-san-diego-regional-airport-authority","tag-thanksgiving","tag-thanksgiving-travel","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}