8 Labor Day Weekend Mistakes Visitors Make in Virginia

Troopers cited more than 3,000 speeders in Virginia over last year’s Labor Day weekend.

Virginia treats reckless driving as a criminal charge, not a routine ticket, no matter whose license plate is on the car.

These are the Labor Day weekend mistakes tourists make in Virginia.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Traffic, alcohol, and hunting rules are subject to change.

1. Bringing a Cooler to the Oceanfront

Virginia Beach bans public alcohol on its beaches, boardwalk, and grassy oceanfront areas, along with glass containers of any kind, according to the city’s own beach rules.

No exceptions.

Visitors packing a cooler the way they would for a lake trip back home often don’t realize the ban covers the sand itself, not just the boardwalk.

City staff and off-duty officers patrol the Labor Day crowds, and a citation ends a beach day fast.

A soda survives the walk from the parking lot to the sand.

The cooler doesn’t.

2. Testing the Reckless Driving Law

Speed limits carry unusually high stakes under Virginia’s reckless driving law.

Drive 20 mph over the posted limit, or hit 85 mph regardless of the limit, and Virginia charges it as criminal reckless driving, not a routine speeding ticket.

That’s a class 1 misdemeanor.

It can carry up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.

A court appearance is often mandatory, no matter where the driver is headed.

Virginia State Police add extra patrols and sobriety checkpoints for the holiday every year.

Last year’s Labor Day crackdown alone produced 3,018 speeding citations and 1,370 reckless driving charges statewide.

A vacation doesn’t buy any leeway on that math.

3. Skipping a Buffer for the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel

The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, one of Virginia’s busiest corridors, carries roughly 100,000 vehicles a day through its twin tunnels under the harbor, and Labor Day traffic pushes that number higher still.

One stalled car or fender bender can trigger a backup that stretches for miles.

Visitors who plug a departure time into their phone and leave right on schedule usually get stuck anyway.

Miles of brake lights.

Virginia’s Department of Transportation names the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel in its own Labor Day travel advisory, since the crossing’s expansion project stays under construction through the holiday.

It recommends Labor Day drivers use the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel, the Route 17 James River Bridge, or the free Jamestown-Scotland Ferry instead, and checking 511 Virginia before merging onto I-64 beats finding out the hard way.

4. Assuming the Bay Bridge-Tunnel Toll Just Dropped

Virginia’s Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel charges a Class 1 vehicle $21 to cross every Friday through Sunday from mid-May through September 13, and only $16 the rest of the year.

Labor Day weekend’s Friday, Saturday, and Sunday all land inside that window.

Many visitors assume the summer surcharge ends the moment the season’s last big weekend arrives.

Not yet.

The surcharge stays in effect for another week.

5. Wandering Into a Wildlife Management Area

Dove season opens September 1 across Virginia’s wildlife management areas (WMAs), and the early segment runs under a strict calendar.

Hunting on those WMA dove fields is permitted only on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Labor Day itself, nowhere else on the calendar.

That makes the holiday one of just a handful of days hunters are legally afield across dozens of named WMAs, from Chickahominy to C.F. Phelps.

Hunters know exactly when.

The Department of Wildlife Resources recommends blaze orange or blaze pink for any non-hunter using a WMA once a season opens.

A picnic or a hike through one of those tracts on Labor Day without that gear catches visitors off guard every year.

6. Trying to Pay Cash on Skyline Drive

Shenandoah National Park stopped accepting cash at its Virginia entrance stations in July 2025, and the $30 standard vehicle pass now runs through debit, credit, or a Recreation.gov pass bought ahead of time.

Skyline Drive draws some of its heaviest holiday traffic of the year on Labor Day weekend.

Staff at the entrance station turn back a visitor who pulls up with only bills in the glove box.

Bookstores and waysides inside the park still take cash.

The entrance station doesn’t.

7. Swimming Past the Nettles

Virginia's Chesapeake Bay still carries a bay nettle jellyfish bloom into Labor Day weekend, riding the same warm, salty water that peaks late every summer.

Researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science track the bay nettle from early summer through its peak in the hottest, saltiest stretch of the season, which typically hasn't faded by the first week of September.

Not this early.

Visitors who wade into bay-side spots like Buckroe or Ocean View, expecting summer's sting season to already be over, walk away with a welt instead.

The open ocean side of Virginia Beach sees far fewer of them.

The bay side is a different story entirely.

8. Arriving at Virginia ABC Stores Late

Virginia's state-run Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) stores are the only place in the Commonwealth to legally buy liquor, and they've kept shortened hours on Labor Day itself in recent years, opening at the normal time but closing several hours earlier than a typical Monday.

A visitor planning a Monday evening cookout, expecting to grab bourbon on the way to the grill, can easily find the doors already locked.

Not that store.

Virginia ABC posts its holiday hours on its own site a few weeks out, and a quick call to the local store settles it faster than guessing.