Going to New Hampshire? You're probably looking at I-93. North from Boston, 93 winds through the Middlesex Fells and crosses Route 128, passing through Wilmington, Tewksbury, Andover, Lawrence and Methuen before reaching the New Hampshire line.

Transportation Nerd Fact: 93 South is home to Massachusetts' longest permanent carpool lane, from Medford to Boston, all of two miles.

The Mass Pike is the main route west from Boston to New York, and as many people come and go to visit family or friends, is often one of the most heavily traveled road segments in the region. Looking to avoid the Pike traffic? Good luck. You can try 95 through Rhode Island, 395 south from Worcester or even Route 2 to the north, but don't expect particularly light traffic.

Transportation Nerd Fact: Like most toll roads, the Mass Pike was funded and partially built before the Interstate Highway act was signed in to law in 1956, and was grandfathered in to the system.

The infamous Southeast Expressway leads south to Cape Cod. Traffic on the expressway is a given at nearly any time of day, and while it's not peak season to the Cape, expect traffic getting onto the Sagamore Bridge (at least the rotary there is gone). If you ever wondered where your cranberries came from on Thanksgiving, the sandy soils of the region traversed by Route 3 are some of the top cranberry producing areas in the country.

Transportation Nerd Fact: The "zipper machine" (more technically, the "barrier transfer machine" makes a six mile trek twice daily to borrow one lane from each side of the Expressway to provide more capacity in the peak direction for high occupancy vehicles. Here's an article about what it's like inside the machine.