Worst Holiday Travel Times: When Not To Leave NYC For Christmas

NEW YORK — Heading home for Christmas? In your dreams. Getting out of New York City for the holidays could be hellish as a record number of travelers hit the roads, skies and rails this year, travel experts say.

More than a third of Americans — some 112.5 million people — are expected to travel for the year-end holidays including Christmas and New Year's Eve, up 4.4 percent from last year, says the American Automobile Association.

More than 102 million of those travelers will be going by car, meaning trips in New York and other big cities will take more than three times as long, according to AAA and INRIX, a mobility analytics company.

"Our advice is to avoid traveling during peak commuting hours," INRIX transportation analyst Trevor Reed said in a news release. "If schedules allow, leave bright and early, or after the morning commute."

Thursday, Dec. 20 will be the worst day to travel both nationwide and in New York City in particular, with delays here expected to be 3.75 times as bad from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m., according to INRIX.

Those heading to the airports on Dec. 22, 23 or 26 should expect long waits, as those are the busiest days for holiday air travel, an analysis of AAA flight booking data found.

Airports should be less hectic on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the lightest days for travel around the holiday. Christmas Eve is also the cheapest day to fly, with a three-year average ticket price of $512, AAA says.

(Lead image: Heavy traffic moves along the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in November 2018. Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)