Sunday After Thanksgiving is Heaviest Travel Day of the Year
The most traveled day of the holiday period - and of the entire year - is the Sunday after Thanksgiving, when 13.7 million long-distance trips are made (Figure 2). The day after Christmas is the second most traveled day during the holidays, with 12 million trips. New Year's Eve is less traveled than either Christmas or Thanksgiving, with 8.3 million people traveling. There appears to be no increased pattern of travel associated with the celebration of Hanukkah.
While Christmas and Thanksgiving record about the same amount of travel, Thanksgiving's high volume of travel is concentrated in fewer days, which places a heavier burden on the transportation system. During the five days surrounding Thanksgiving, an average of 10.8 million trips are taken per day, nearly double the average number of daily trips for the whole year; the daily average for the five days around Christmas is 9.5 million trips, but more Christmas travelers leave earlier and stay longer than Thanksgiving travelers so that trips are spread out over a longer period of time.
New Year's is a less traveled five-day holiday period, because the first few days of the New Year are relatively light travel days. During the five days surrounding New Year's Day, Americans take an average of 6.3 million trips per day.
Holiday travel accounts for 8.3 percent of all trips and 9.8 percent of all miles traveled during the year. Trips taken during the five-day periods around Thanksgiving and Christmas account for 6.3 percent of America's annual trips and 6.8 percent of the miles. The five-day period around New Year's Day accounts for 2.1 percent of all annual trips and 3 percent of miles.
source: http://www.rita.dot.gov
