ORANGEBURG, S.C. — Holiday travel is well underway and travelers are getting a head start.
"Who's going to go tomorrow? Go on Tuesday," is the advice from Fran Shelton, a traveler from Asheville heading out early to her Thanksgiving destination.
Shelton is doing so because the day before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year.
AAA is expecting more than 55 million travelers to take to the road and skies and 750,000 traveling from Wednesday to Thursday will be South Carolinians. Drivers traveling on I-26 this holiday season speak about what they’ve been seeing out on the road and their strategy for beating the traffic.
"We’re traveling from Ohio to Florida for Thanksgiving with family and friends, and we decided to leave early because of traffic," says Rita Sablar.
Floridian Mike Moretti and his family are coming back from vacation, but are following the same rules as everyone else heading out early for the holidays.
"Yeah, we’re coming back home. We were in North Carolina on a family vacation, and we just wanted to get back on the road a little earlier. There’s still a bunch of traffic out there already, but we still wanted to beat a little bit of traffic," says Moretti.
With the nearly 650,000 South Carolinians on the road, there are a few extra items AAA travel expert Ernie King says drivers may want to pack.
"If you’re able to put anything in the trunk of your vehicle, whether it be some jumper cables, spare batteries and a flashlight, warm blankets, bottled waters and an extra tire filled with air - these are very important things to have so you can be prepared," says King.