While summer vacations may still be underway, Globe Aware volunteers planning for a Labor Day Weekend end of the season may want to take new data into account.

The Busiest Travel Days for Labor Day Weekend — and Where Travelers Are Headed

Time to start planning…

By Michael Cappetta
August 9, 2023
Travel + Leisure

While summer vacations may still be underway, travelers planning for a Labor Day Weekend end of the season may want to take new data into account.

The holiday weekend, which traditionally marks the end of the summer travel season, will see travelers explore popular travel hotspots both in the United States and around the world. Friday, Sept. 1 and Monday, Sept. 4 will be the busiest days for airport traffic as flyers jet to and from their destinations around the world, according to new data from Chase Travel shared with Travel + Leisure this week.

When it comes to popular domestic destinations, Chase found that travelers were mostly looking to big cities including:

1. New York, New York
2. San Francisco, California
3. Los Angeles, California
4. Seattle, Washington
5. Chicago, Illinois
6. Boston, Massachusetts
7. Denver, Colorado
8. Washington, DC
9. Las Vegas, Nevada
10. San Diego, California

While international destinations spanning from Europe to Asia included:

1. London, United Kingdom
2. Rome, Italy
3. Tokyo, Japan
4. Paris, France
5. Athens, Greece
6. Cancun, Mexico
7. Calgary, Canada
8. Seoul, South Korea
9. Barcelona, Spain
10. Dublin, Ireland

While many of the cities listed in the rankings are already popular destinations, the data also provides insights on which cities have surged in popularity from last year based on the rise in bookings. For example, Houston, Spokane, and Kansas City are some of the top domestic rising destinations, where Tokyo, Geneva, and Montreal are some of the top rising international destinations.

These predictions also align with data from the TSA in 2022, that reveals the agency screened 8.7 million passengers over Labor Day Weekend, and the Friday of the weekend was the busiest with 2.4 million passengers screened.