It's a busy day at the airports, while most who drive will strike out Friday.
Travel is significantly more expensive because of gas prices. They are still above $5 a gallon in Chicago.
AAA says the worst traffic over the Memorial Day holiday travel period is expected between 3 and 6 p.m. Thursday and Friday as well as Monday afternoon.
A majority of people traveling this weekend are opting to drive.
Faith Pritchard is filling up at the pump, before leaving tomorrow morning for her holiday plans.
"I'm going to drive back to Cleveland for Memorial Day weekend," Pritchard said.
She expects this to be one of several gas stops she'll have to make to get home.
Nationally, AAA predicts over 39 million people will drive to their weekend destination.
But for Illinois, there's a slight pullback in road trips as families adjust to higher gas prices because of the war with Iran.
"I typically like to do road trips because I have a dog and we want to make sure we take him everywhere but with current gas prices it's a little hard to do," Rehan Shairali, who is flying over the holiday weekend, said.
Shairali instead opting to fly to a bigger destination this year. Thursday is expected to be the busiest travel day at airports.
The Chicago Department of Aviation is expecting to welcome more than 2 million passengers between O'Hare and Midway over the holiday travel period.
"I'm going to Portugal tomorrow for a week," Shairali said. "My in-laws are celebrating their 50th anniversary so I'm tagging along with them with my wife meeting them in Portugal."
GasBuddy forecasts this will be the most expensive summer at the pump in years.
AAA says the regular gas price average for Illinois: $5.41 a gallon, compared to around $3.478a gallon last year.
The national average is about $4.56 a gallon, compared to $3.18 a gallon.
Faith has just that, believing drivers will feel relief sooner than later.
"I do I have faith," Pritchard said. "They're gonna go down soon."
Others, sticking around, to take advantage of everything Chicago has to offer.
"I mean, what place better than Chicago?" Brandon Moore, who is saying for the holiday weekend, said. "Memorial Day is going to be awesome and I think there's a ton going on this weekend actually there's a lot so I'll find my way into something."
AAA says in Illinois around 2.1 million people are expected to drive this weekend. That's a slight decrease from 2.11 million last year.
Many people are choosing shorter getaways or staying closer to home.