Memorial Day Weekend traffic expected to suck even though gas is expensive

Gas prices continue to be high, as you already know from nearly gritting away sll of your teeth the last time you filled up your car, but that’s not stopping nearly 3 million Southern Californians from taking a road trip of over 50 miles during Memorial Day Weekend which should result in the typical traffic jams if you happen to leave at the wrong time.

According to AAA, 3.35 million people in SoCal will travel this weekend either by car, plane, train, or whatever is getting the kids around these days – which is a 4.3 % increase over last year. Of those, 2.78 million — or 83 percent of all travelers — will travel by car.

So where are they all headed?

The top five Memorial Day destinations for Southern California travelers, according to a survey of AAA Travel agents (via NBC 4), are Las Vegas, San Diego, The Grand Canyon, San Francisco and Anaheim – so, if you are heading into Vegas, you might want to leave pretty early on Friday or take the back way or else risk getting stuck in some bad I-15 traffic.

The worst time to travel, according to AAA, is Friday afternoon from 4:30 to 6:30 – and, looking at the forecast, maybe just plan on kicking it in the Coachella Valley this time around as two of the three days this weekend are going to be in the 80s. THE 80S!! IN MAY!!!! Lord knows we are going to have to pay for this with 150 degrees in July, so try to enjoy it now the best you can.  Plus, hey, there’s lots of stuff going on in the desert this weekend.

And if you do head out on the roads, drive safe.

Related: Looking for cheap gas in the Coachella Valley?  We can help with that.