Best time to leave for Thanksgiving travel according to Google data

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Djansezian/Getty Images

• Thanksgiving travel can be a headache — but the earlier
  you get on the road, the better, according to Google
  data. 
• Using Maps data from last year, Google engineers
  deciphered the optimum time to leave in dozens of major US
  cities.
• The downside: most of the optimum times are very, very
  early in the morning. 

More than
54 million Americans will hit the road this week to celebrate the Thanksgiving with friends and
family this year, according to AAA.

And as anyone who’s traveled in the days surrounding the holiday
knows, all those cars on the road will only lead to one thing:
traffic.

Engineers at Google took
baseline data from Google Maps to find out the best times
to leave in order to avoid bottlenecks  —
but some of the options might be even less appealing than sitting
in a freeway-turned-parking lot.

In New York, for example, the best time to leave is 4 a.m. on
Wednesday. The best time to return is even worse: Friday at 4
a.m.

Google

Traffic tends to peak at about the same time on the Wednesday
before Thanksgiving, in the late afternoon. There’s also a slight
bump near 7 a.m. as the early birds hit the road.

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“For determining traffic conditions, we considered the
‘Thanksgiving Holiday Period’ to start the Wednesday before
Thanksgiving and end the Sunday after Thanksgiving,” the team
writes. “We analyzed the total number of cars on the road at a
given time, as determined by the speed and location of Android
phones that have location services enabled. All traffic
information is anonymous and taken in aggregate for 25 US cities
and nationally.”

You can use Google’s interactive tool to see the
best times for your city. But be warned, most of the best times
are extremely early in the morning, just like New York.

Luckily, there’s an option for daytime-only travel. But even
then, your best off departing right at 6 a.m.

Check out the handy interactive tool here.