Traveling for Memorial Day Weekend? What you need to know

Memorial Day weekend tends to be the kickoff to summer travel for many of us. There’s an estimated 43 million Americans traveling nationally this weekend. More than 38 million people travel are hitting the road. But what should people consider when traveling for Memorial Day?

Skyler McKinley, the Regional Director of Public Affairs with AAA, says this travel season is more busy than last year.

“Travel has finally returned to where we were pre-pandemic. That is good news for everybody in the service industry. It also means that travel supply finally has caught up with travel demand,” McKinley said. “This is the second busiest travel period in our history. It is second only to 2005. The good news is that our DOT crews will suspend a lot of their major construction operations over Memorial Day. This is always the case because the roads are so choked up. So construction probably won’t delay you to the same extent it might if they were out there with road crews.”

People traveling memorial day weekend aren’t only driving, as plenty of people are also taking to the sky in the coming days.

“What’s interesting in our data is we see a lot more international travel around Memorial Day. Historically, this was pack up your car, go to have a picnic lunch somewhere nice looking, and then drive home, right?” McKinley said. “Now, it appears as though folks are flying as far as Japan. They’re using Memorial Day and that extra time off to have extended vacations across the globe.”

McKinley also says people traveling should remember to practice safe driving and be mindful of others while traveling.

“Memorial Day kicks off the period between now and Labor Day, that’s sort of the most dangerous time on our roadways. It’s when we see a lot of fatalities on a percentage basis. It’s a good reminder to you to be on your best behavior out there. We can avoid about 95% of these crashes if we just thought about other folks on our roadways.”

Looking at the Statewide Fatality Count from the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, there were 94 fatal car crashes, around this time last year. At the moment though we are already at 96 fatal car crashes. A reminder to motorists to drive safe this weekend.

If people are planning on staying closer to home for memorial day, we have details on several local events and commemorations this weekend.