The best day to travel — and hit the bars — before Thanksgiving

Going home for the holidays is great, but flying there can be a challenge. You could always pre-order your ride to the airport to make it a little easier. You could link your DoorDash DashPass and Lyft accounts to save 50% on your ride, up to $25.* Another way to reduce holiday stress? Fly on less-crowded days.

To find the best opportunities for Thanksgiving air travel, we looked at Lyft ride data to determine which holiday-adjacent days see the most (and least) airport drop-offs. The conclusions are clear: Try not to fly the day before Thanksgiving, which is by far the busiest period for drop-offs. Instead, try Thanksgiving itself or, if that's not possible, the previous Saturday or Sunday.

Once you get to your Thanksgiving destination, you're probably ready to unwind. At least, that seems to be the case based on an analysis of "Drinksgiving," the day before Thanksgiving, which found that rides to bars more than doubled that day compared with other Wednesdays throughout the season.

Interestingly, the cities that saw the biggest jump in pre-Thanksgiving bar visits weren't stereotypically bustling urban centers. For instance, Omaha experienced the largest increase in bar rides - more than six times the average - followed by the likes of El Paso, Texas, Bakersfield, California, and Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Big cities like New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C., didn't see any increase at all, or even saw a small decrease. It seems the Hallmark movies are right - big city dwellers really do head home for the holidays.

*Max of four rides, only available through December 31, 2024.