Avoid these highways like the plague around Thanksgiving.
A holiday vacation is a magical experience , whether you ’re going back to yourcharming home townlike a rom - com main character or escaping to aresort to decompress . But actually getting to that holiday vacation is an unavoidable nightmare , stressful and disorderly like a unsound improv show . Airportsare insane , travel essentialsare sold out in store , and there is so , so much traffic . Californians live this last bit most of all , and now we have the data to prove it : fit in to newresearch from The Vacationer , California highways have the bad Thanksgiving travel traffic in the country .
The Vacationer broke its data down into specific stretches of each main road , and conceive it or notthe 5 freewayin SoCal took both of the top spot — I-5 between LA and Orange County was the bad in the rural area , and I-5 in San Diego turns out to be just a little behind it . In fact , 11 of the 20 worst freeways for Thanksgiving travel are in California , and this part willshockyou : they ’re all heavily concentrated around LA . Those include the 405 , the 60 , the 101 , the 10 , the 210 , the 91 , the 110 , and even the 57 makes the leaning . pluck a freeway around LA and you ’re pretty much guarantee it ’s going to blow for Thanksgiving travel .
This will do as no surprise to Angelenos , of course : most of us have been stick in Thanksgiving travel traffic at some stage , and most of us are planning to be stuck in it again in just a few workweek .
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Why is LA so terrible for Thanksgiving driving ? Well , we ’re initiate at a disadvantage with main road that are incredibly congested on a daily basis , but the sheer volume of people driving home for the holiday takes it to another level . common people from Orange County , San Francisco , Las Vegas , Arizona , and everywhere in between are within a reasonable drive , and it would take a circle of courage for those people to tell family that they ’re not extend to make the normally easy cruise dwelling from LA for a major holiday .
There is a silver lining to all of that , though : Thursday , Friday , and Saturday are wonderful days to be in LA . When transplantation and vacationist are out of town thing are quiet and relaxed , and it ’s a great time to drive across town to hit up thathyped restaurant you ’ve been eyeing .
If you have to make the drive , Redditors recommendgoing early . Wednesday is the worst day , they say , with some sept account the typical six - minute driving force to San Francisco strike as prospicient as 13 hours , and 20 - arcminute drive in defective spots taking up to two hours . So contract out on Tuesday if you’re able to , and leave as early as you’re able to too , ideally before dawning boot minute . Or else you may end up stuck in a Modern version of the iconic viral dealings video :
