Best & Worst Days to Travel for Memorial Day

Traveling around any holiday can be a pain. We’ve all heard the horror stories of how busy the airport gets before and after Thanksgiving, and Christmas is only marginally better. You might not expect Memorial Day to be a terrible time to be at the airport, since most people drive to their holiday weekend destination – but you’re still going to see more people at airports just before and after Memorial Day weekend than you do the weekend before or after.

With that in mind, are there what you might consider “best” and “worst” days to travel for Memorial Day weekend? The short answer is – sort of. The long answer? Well, that’s the rest of this article.

Because most people will have Memorial Day itself off of work or school, moving your travel plans around to avoid what some might think are the best or worst days to fly isn’t really a feasible option. Besides that, as mentioned above, the vast majority of people who are going to be somewhere other than their own backyard for the three-day weekend are going to drive there – so the airports aren’t as busy over Memorial day weekend as they are for Thanksgiving anyway.

But having said that, because airports are a bit busier over the holiday weekend than they are on a non-holiday weekend, if you’re someone who absolutely loathes a busy airport then you may want to adjust your schedule a bit.

>> When is Memorial Day? In 2012, it’s on May 28.

Best Days to Travel for Memorial Day Weekend

Your best bet for avoiding the worst days to travel around any holiday are to either move the day you actually get off of work or school or (if you can’t do that) to shorten your trip. The first option is better, but may not be possible.

If you can adjust your travel plans, then try leaving on the Thursday before Memorial Day weekend – or even early on Friday morning (since most people still have to work on Friday and won’t be headed to the airport until the afternoon at the earliest) – and then returning on Sunday instead of Monday. Or leave on Saturday and come back Tuesday. You’re getting the same amount of vacation, you’re just shifting it a little to avoid most of the crowds.

Worst Days to Travel for Memorial Day Weekend

Just as the best days to travel are when the rest of humanity isn’t also traveling, the worst days are the ones when everyone else is at the airport with you (or so it seems). Sometimes there’s no way around it, since most people can’t just move their appointed holidays around willy-nilly, but if you can avoid them, these are the worst days you want to steer clear of.

Generally speaking, the worst days to travel over Memorial Day weekend are Friday and Monday – because most people are traveling on those days. Airports can get really clogged later in the day on Friday (and even sometimes first thing on Saturday morning) and later in the day on Monday.

photo by ronnie44052