This Labor Day travel weekend is gearing up to be a very busy one, with experts and officials warning travelers to give themselves extra time and to check real-time status updates to the most out of their trip.
Here are some simple tips on how to travel smarter:
Traveling by air
Labor Day weekend will cap off a very busy summer for the Transportation and Security Administration, which reported performing 239.8 million screenings since Memorial Day. The agency expects that 17 million people will travel from Thursday, Aug. 29 to Wednesday, Sept. 4.
In fact, it’s been so busy that the top 10 travel days in TSA’s history have all happened this summer. The agency set a record of 3 million screenings on July 7.
The busiest travel day is expected to be Friday, when TSA expects to screen 2.86 million passengers. That’s slightly more than this summer’s daily average of about 2.7 million screenings per day.
Though the agency said in a statement it’s increasing staffing to keep up with demand, TSA still recommends arriving two hours before your boarding time for domestic flights and three hours before international flights to make sure you have enough time to pass through security.
Speaking of security, this may be the last Labor Day weekend you won’t need a REAL ID while flying, as those requirements kick in on May 7, 2025. (Assuming they aren’t pushed back once again, that is.) If you haven’t started on that yet, see the DMV’s website.
Hitting the road
If you plan to start a road trip Friday, the best time to do so will be after 7 p.m., and you’ll want to avoid peak traffic times between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., according to AAA’s projections….
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