AUSTIN, Texas — The Lone Star State is set to be packed with traffic on the roads and in the skies as people prepare to head home from the Thanksgiving holiday.
AAA Texas expects roughly four million Texans to travel during the weekend, with 3.7 million of people opting to drive between the Wednesday through Sunday time period.
244,000 Texans chose to fly, while 84,000 decided on other methods of transportation.
"The best advice that we can give for travelers heading home is to leave as early in the day as you possibly can," said AAA Texas spokesperson, Doug Shupe.
Shupe said AAA Texas anticipates responding to about 20,000 calls from drivers with the common problems being flat tires, dead vehicle batteries, and some locking themselves out of their vehicle.
Shupe advises drivers to make sure their vehicles' maintenance is up-to-date so they hopefully don't have to make that call to AAA.
Shupe added aside from the maintenance, drivers should remember to be courteous on the roadways.
"We don't want this weekend to be remembered for a horrific traffic crash that could so easily be prevented," said Shupe. "We want we want people to remember this Thanksgiving holiday for those great dinners with their loved ones, the Black Friday shopping -- all of the quality time that they spent kicking off this holiday season."
AAA Texas noted that the number of Texans who traveled during Thanksgiving weekend was a 2% increase from last year's number of travelers. However, it was also a 4% decrease from the 2019 Thanksgiving holiday, which was before the pandemic.
"[Travelers] feel more confident to travel, more comfortable to travel, and that's why we're just seeing this demand continuing to increase every holiday. And obviously here in Central Texas," said Shupe.
Shupe said he expects that trend will continue to rise every holiday season.
AAA Texas also noted the reason more people opted to drive this year was due to gas prices dropping significantly, which has made auto travel more economically friendly.
According to AAA Texas, average gas prices in the state are, on average, about 30 cents less than they were last year.