Wednesday, November 25, is officially the busiest traffic day of the entire year. In 2009, there's going to be even more traffic out on the roads and more delays in the air. On the east coast, Manhattan has already posted their "Gridlock Alert Days" citing 11/25 as the worst of them all, compounded by all the street closures for the Macy's Parade. Over on the west coast, I-5 should be a veritable parking lot starting midday on Wednesday. This year should be particularly bad for driving, as more people opt to go by car than spend on plane tickets. But that doesn't mean air travel will be substantially easier.

For the holiday week and weekend, delays should be expected in airports as well. As a general rules of thumb, the smaller the airport, the less likely it is you'll see delays, and the colder/snowier the airport is, the more likely cancellations or delays become. So basically, if you're flying out of tiny Pensacola airport in Florida, you'll be just fine. But as for the rest of us traveling to and from hubs like LAX, JFK, and ORD, bring a book or ten and expect long security lines. If you want more airport-specific information, you can check out the Bureau of Transportation Statistics interactive holiday-specific data, which lets you select your holiday, your airport, your airline, and then shows you the likelihood of you missing turkey altogether.