Here are the worst times to leave New York this Memorial Day weekend

Get ready for heavy traffic on Friday afternoon

Planning a trip out of town for Memorial Day weekend? So are a record number of travelers in the U.S.: Approximately 42 million people will go on some sort of trip over the long weekend, according to AAA, and you can bet that a lot of New Yorkers are going to be among them.

Getting out of New York City can be a soul-crushing experience under the best of circumstances, and it will be a lot worse over the long weekend. According to INRIX's annual report, travel times out of the city are expected to nearly triple this coming Friday, with peak congestion in the late afternoon.

Per the report, traffic out of the city will be at its peak from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. "Our advice to drivers is to avoid peak commute times in major cities altogether—traveling late morning or early afternoon—or plan alternative routes," Graham Cookson, INRIX's head of research, said in a statement.

The Port Authority has yet to release its travel projections for the region's airports and bridges, but based on previous years—more than 2 million travelers passed through city airports over Memorial Day weekend in 2017—those are also going to be plenty clogged.

So aside from, well, staying home, how can you make your out-of-town travel as easy as possible this weekend? Consider leaving at an odd time, or get a playlist ready and just lean into the traffic.

And if it's any consolation, it may not be any better if you stay in town this weekend; the INRIX report predicts that New York will be the 10th most popular destination for Memorial Day travelers this year.