7 Travel Tips for the Thanksgiving Holiday
No matter where you’re going, and no matter how you plan to get there, traveling during the holidays can be extremely busy, expensive, chaotic, and stressful. Although, with careful consideration and planning, you can certainly make your travels much more manageable. Check out these seven tips to make this year’s travel a bit easier on yourself.
1. Avoid peak travel days. This applies to both flying and driving. Choosing to travel on the right days will help you to save money, time, and energy. For the Thanksgiving holiday, the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after Thanksgiving are the biggest no-no days for traveling. This is because everybody else travels on those days. Flights will be incredibly expensive and the roads will be filled with impossible traffic. If traveling on Thanksgiving Day isn’t too much of a burden, this would be your best option. Since nobody wants to travel on this day, airfare is considerably cheaper and there are much less cars on the road. As for the return home, Friday morning is your best bet. Again, this is because not many people choose to return home so soon after the holiday. Each successive day from Friday through Sunday gets a little bit busier, more difficult, and more expensive.
2. Book your travels early. Stop holding out on booking your flight in hopes of a late holiday sale on airfare. Fares are only going to increase as Thanksgiving approaches, and it is approaching rather quickly. Considering today’s airline industry, it is never too early to book your holiday flight. When doing so, be prepared to be flexible with flight dates and times.
3. Be familiar with your airports. This includes details such as traffic to and from, parking, rental cars, nearby hotels, and the like. You may even have the opportunity to pre-pay for airport parking, possibly for a discount. Becoming somewhat familiar with the size and layout of your airports is important too. Some airports are so large and spread out, you just barely have time to make it to your second plane. Although there is not much you can do about the size of an airport, you can at least be prepared for how fast you’re going to have to move.
4. Leave early to give yourself enough time. As if traveling isn’t chaotic and stressful enough, it is even more so during peak travel times, such as holiday seasons. Flights are even more packed than usual, which means processes are probably moving a little slower, and if you end up missing your flight, there may not be another option for you. Be sure to consider traffic, detours, parking, shuttles, check-in, and security when planning your itinerary. Afterall, it’s always better to be a little early, than to be late, especially when flying.
5. Pack wisely. If at all possible, pack everything into your carry-on bag so that you don’t have to check any baggage. This means that you may have to leave some items behind - liquids, gels, large items, etc. - and just buy new items when you arrive. Chances are, buying a few new items will be much cheaper than paying for baggage. In addition, it is much more convenient than waiting at the baggage claim area when all you want to do is get to your destination after a long day of flying.
6. Use the Internet as much as possible. It may actually be far more useful than many people even realize. When flying, most people use the Internet to book their flights, and they may not realize what else they are capable of doing right from their computers or smartphones. First, you will most likely be able to check the status of your flight using social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. If your flight has been delayed, chances are you can hear about it on Twitter before anywhere else. Second, you can check-in and print your boarding passes from your computer or smartphone. This saves a ton of time on flying day. When driving, be sure to look into a traffic app, in order to best avoid any road work or high-traffic areas.
7. Make sure all of your electronics are fully charged. Again, this is a helpful tip when driving or flying. If driving, be sure to bring along any car chargers you may have for your electronics: phone, tablet, gps, portable dvd player, and the like. The last thing you need is to get lost because the battery of your phone or gps dies and you no longer have directions. If flying, consider getting a portable charger or power pack to take along with you. After flying hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home, you’ll certainly want to be sure you have a way of getting ahold of someone if your layover flight has been delayed. Remember, those charging stations at the airport are always over crowded not everyone is willing to let you borrow their charger.
Whether driving or flying, traveling around the holidays is certainly very stressful. Be sure to have at least some control over the stress and chaos this holiday season, by taking into consideration these seven steps for traveling around the Thanksgiving holiday.
*Photos source Pinterest
