Many Illinois residents will be hitting the roads for Thanksgiving travel this week. Officials with the Illinois Tollway say they're expecting 8.3 million vehicles on its 286 miles of roadways over the next handful of days.

The good news? Tollway officials say they'll suspend construction lane closures to make way for the traffic. The bad news? That's still a large number of vehicles. So how do you arrive at your destination on time?

Aleksandra Glustsenko, ThinkStock
Aleksandra Glustsenko, ThinkStock
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Google Maps crunched the data on Thanksgiving traffic conditions over the last two years to find info you can use to make your holiday trip a little easier.

At the top of the list is: Don't Travel on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. But, if you must, then specifically avoid travel between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. Leaving before 2 p.m. or after 7 p.m. should smooth your journey.

And on the way back home, Google Maps recommends staying an extra day and making the return trip on Sunday instead of Saturday. Traffic can be up to 40 percent worse on Saturday.

 

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