By car, by train or by air, millions of Americans will be heading home for the holidays this weekend.
Roughly 44 million Americans are expected to be traveling home for Thanksgiving this weekend, according to Reuters. The majority of those folks will be traveling by car.
Airports around the U.S. didn't see many delays on Wednesday, although in Chicago, there were 40 minute delays reported in and out of O'Hare Internatiuonal Airport, while flights around Midway experienced 45 minute delays.
Not helping matter were reports of "very dense fog" around the Windy City that were expected to gradually ease, while rain, wind and mountain snow were predicted to impede travel in the Pacific Northwest on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service.
The American Automobile Association is forecasting roughly 43.6 million people will travel 50 miles or more for Thanksgiving weekend, up about 0.7 percent from last year.
"We are on a slow climb back," AAA New York spokesman Robert Sinclair Jr. told Reuters on Wednesday in a telephone interview. "It's a climb, but it is a slow one, and perhaps not enough for people to really make a significant commitment to travel."
This marks the fourth straight year of car travel numbers surging since the severe 2008 economic downturn cut travel on the holiday by 25 percent.
"Thanksgiving travel hit a decade low in 2008 when only 37.8 million Americans traveled," AAA President and CEO Robert Darbelnet told ABC's Nebraska TV affiliate. "Since that year we have seen a steady increase in the number of travelers taking to the roads and skies for the holiday. Americans continue to find ways to economize their budgets so they can gather around the holiday table to carve the turkey."
Meanwhile, 140,000 passengers are expected to travel by railroad during the busiest day of the year for railroads across the country, according to Amtrak spokesman Steve Kulm.
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