Best and Worst Days to Travel at New Year’s

In recent articles we’ve covered the best and worst days to travel at Thanksgiving as well as the best and worst days to travel at Christmas. So it’s only logical that we continue down the calendar and take a look at the best and worst days to travel at New Year’s, too, right? I mean, we don’t want New Years to feel left out or anything…

The trouble with isolating the worst and best days to fly for New Years is that so many people combine Christmas travel with New Years travel for one big trip. I’m going to attempt to focus just on the New Years holiday in this article, which means looking at travel dates after Christmas, so if you need information about pre-Christmas travel dates I suggest you click over to our article about the worst and best days to fly at Christmas to help complete the picture.

Worst Days to Travel at New Years

Let’s assume you’ve had your Christmas holiday with family and you want to get the heck out of town so you can spend New Year’s Eve with friends. The bad days to travel around New Years aren’t quite as strictly limited as they tend to be for other holidays around this time of year, largely because so many people don’t change location between Christmas and New Year’s. But there are still some days you’ll probably want to avoid being at the airport.

Because New Years – like Christmas – is a bit of a moving target in terms of what day of the week it falls on, I’m going to give you some general information about what days tend to be worst and also provide the worst days to travel this year for more specific information.

Generally speaking, flying the day before New Year’s Eve is going to be the worst option. If New Years Eve falls on a weekend night, it’s going to be even worse in terms of both high ticket prices and airport crowds. When it comes to flying home again, the 1-2 days after New Years tend to be the worst – and again, it depends on when the actual holiday falls during the week. The Sunday or Monday after January 1st are typically worst of all.

For 2009, the worst departure day is December 30th (which is a Wednesday) and the worst return day is January 3rd (which is a Sunday), but January 2nd (a Saturday) is only slightly better.

Best Days to Travel at New Years

Again, with the best days to fly at New Years I’m going to go over the days in a general sense first and then give you the best dates to fly this year specifically.

As is the case with other holidays, traveling on the actual holiday can often save you the most money and the most hassle at New Year’s, too. Unlike the other holidays, however, flying somewhere on December 31st still usually will allow you to celebrate the occasion that night – making flying on the holiday itself more feasible at New Year’s than at other holidays.

The other half of the New Years holiday is New Year’s Day, which is another good day to fly out – if you can manage to get up in time for a flight after the previous night’s festivities, that is! Yes, it makes for a quick trip if you fly in one afternoon and out the next, but if it saves you a little money and still lets you party the night away, it might just be worth it.

For 2009, the best days to fly for New Years are December 31st (a Thursday) or, if you’re making a longer trip of it, December 28th or 29th (a Monday or Tuesday). The best days for a return flight are January 1st (a Friday), or January 4th or 5th (a Monday or Tuesday).

photo by *Sally M*