We read the warnings of horrific travel during the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday – whether via air or road. In Atlanta alone, airport officials estimated about 1.8 million people would pass through Hartsfield-Jackson during the long holiday weekend, including about 324,000 people on Sunday and 305,000 on Monday of this week. That is about a 4.6 percent increase in holiday weekend traffic from last year. AAA said its surveys indicated a record 38.7 million U.S. residents were likely to travel 50 miles or more for the holiday period of Wednesday through Sunday, up about 1.5 percent from last year. About 4.7 million were expected to fly, and about 31.2 million travelers were likely to drive in spite of rising gasoline prices, AAA said last week.

With fuel prices at high levels ($3.39 in California), Americans still have a thirst for gasoline. SUVs continue to grow in popularity. Just look at the roads and highways and you’ll see that a severe gas shortage would practically cripple the country. Americans drive more than 2.5 trillion miles per year in automobiles, light trucks and SUVs, according to a Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association report. That’s equal to 14,000 round trips to the sun. The U.S. transportation system is the largest in the world and accounts for one-third of America’s greenhouse gas emissions – more than 515 million tons of CO₂ each year. That’s nearly 70 percent of the oil consumed in the U.S. and more than we as a nation produce.

The problem is the lack of alternatives to travel. Relatives live across the country or even in neighboring states. More and more families are moving away from their hometowns to find jobs, making major cities hubs for transients.

True Green, a book published by National Geographic, offers eight tips for travel that you can implement for long trips or just getting around your community:

1. Hoof It - get in those 10,000 steps a day you need to stay healthy.
2. Get on your bike - half of all car trips are 3 miles or less… a distance that can be covered just as quickly on a bike.
3. Become a passenger - six in ten Americans have public transportation available but only ten percent use it with some frequency and only four percent use it as their primary means of getting to work.
4. Choose a hybrid – a family driving a hybrid car will spend only $800-1500 per year in fuel compared to $2500-2800 driving a conventional car.
5. Soft Pedal – at 75 mph, your car uses 15 percent more fuel than cruising at 65 mph.
6. Small strokes – we’d save eight billion gallons of gas each year if every commuter in the U.S. just carried one more person.
7. Fuel around - high-octane fuel, which contains up to one-third less sulfur than regular unleaded gas, provides more engine power, more efficient consumption and cleaner exhaust emissions.
8. The Sky’s the Limit – a single, one-way coast-to-coast flight will dump an additional ton of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases, per passenger, into the atmosphere. That’s double the emissions you’d release by driving cross-country in an SUV.

Useful, if not obvious, tips to keep in mind when planning your holiday trips in the coming weeks.