This City Has the Worst Thanksgiving Traffic in the Country

A holiday vacation is a magical experience, whether you’re going back to your charming home town like a rom-com main character or escaping to a resort to decompress. But actually getting to that holiday vacation is an unavoidable nightmare, stressful and chaotic like a bad improv show. Airports are insane, travel essentials are sold out in stores, and there is so, so much traffic. Californians know this last bit most of all, and now we have the data to prove it: according to new research from The Vacationer, California highways have the worst Thanksgiving travel traffic in the country.

The Vacationer broke its data down into specific stretches of each highway, and believe it or not the 5 freeway in SoCal took both of the top spots—I-5 between LA and Orange County was the worst in the country, 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 will shock you: 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 list. Pick a freeway around LA and you’re pretty much guaranteed it’s going to suck for Thanksgiving travel.

This will come as no surprise to Angelenos, of course: most of us have been stuck in Thanksgiving travel traffic at some point, and most of us are planning to be stuck in it again in just a few weeks.

Why is LA so terrible for Thanksgiving driving? Well, we’re starting at a disadvantage with highways that are incredibly congested on a daily basis, but the sheer volume of people driving home for the holiday takes it to another level. Folks from Orange County, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Arizona, and everywhere in between are within a reasonable drive, and it would take a lot of courage for those people to tell family that they’re not going to make the usually easy cruise home 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 transplants and vacationers are out of town things are quiet and relaxed, and it’s a great time to drive across town to hit up that hyped restaurant you’ve been eyeing.

If you have to make the drive, Redditors recommend going early. Wednesday is the worst day, they say, with some folks reporting the typical six-hour drive to San Francisco taking as long as 13 hours, and 20-minute drives in bad spots taking up to two hours. So cut out on Tuesday if you can, and leave as early as you can too, ideally before morning rush hour. Or else you may end up stuck in a new version of the iconic viral traffic video:

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