Denver Thanksgiving Traffic 2019: Best, Worst Times To Drive

DENVER, CO — Thanksgiving is right around the corner, and planning the logistics of your holiday travel can be a stressful affair. The same question seems to emerge every year: When is the best time to hit the road in Denver's metro area?

Google Maps has identified the best and worst times to leave for your Thanksgiving road trip, helping you focus on enjoying family fun and chowing-the-turkey time.

Here are the times you need to know for turkey day related travel in Denver's metro area.

• Best Time To Leave Before Thanksgiving: Wednesday at 2 a.m.
• Worst Time To Leave Before Thanksgiving: Wednesday at 3 p.m.
• Best Time To Leave After Thanksgiving: Friday at 2 a.m.
• Worst Time To Leave After Thanksgiving: Friday at 3 p.m.

Traffic on Black Friday in our city will spike at 9 a.m and reach its peak at 2 p.m.

Google Maps also used aggregated and anonymized popular time data during the Thanksgiving week to identify when crowds tend to be the largest at popular holiday venues.

Bakeries, grocery stores and liquor stores all hit peak crowd levels between noon and midnight on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Movie theaters and shopping centers, though, have the most activity between noon and midnight on Black Friday.

To determine the best and worst times to drive on Thanksgiving, Google Maps analyzed data from the 2018 “Thanksgiving Holiday Period,” which included the Wednesday before Thanksgiving until the end of Sunday after the holiday.

The web mapping service found the volume of cars on the road at a given time during this period, and received the traffic information anonymously from Android users in 25 cities throughout the United States.

And from all of us here at Patch, have a happy Thanksgiving!