Christmas Eve is often a busy day for road travel, but some drivers were a little surprised when they hit the roads Thursday.

A five-hour trip to Maryland on Christmas Eve has been an easy feat for Radford resident Shawn Gordon.

"It's been alright so far. Not a lot of traffic, it hasn't been too bad," says Gordon.

This isn't Gordon's first Christmas Eve road trip, and he says he's been surprised by the low volume of traffic.

"Actually it's a little less this time I think. Usually I come up, try the day before, but today's pretty cool, not a lot of traffic. You can just take your time, not a lot to worry about," says Gordon.

Nashville resident Brian Thiele is heading to Vienna, Virginia and says traffic wasn't his only concern.

"We're just lucky there's been no snow on the highways, but it's been fun to see on the ground," says Thiele.

Thiele thinks there's less traffic because of recent, and expected, winter weather, which would've caused him to change his plans.

"If it had been really bad, we probably would've just backed it up or maybe even tried to fly, but I'm sure that would've been a mess too," says Thiele.

After last weekend's storm and icy conditions expected either late Thursday or sometime Friday, Thiele decided to be prepared.

"We actually have snow tires for our car that we weren't planning on putting on, but we put them on last night, or two nights ago, before we came. So we weren't really accounting for the weather, but it's been great that the roads have been actually clearer than we thought they would be, but we're ready for it though," says Thiele.

Thiele thinks another reason there is less traffic is because many people likely took the week off and have already arrived at their destinations.