The stress of travel can be immense, making you wonder whether the getaway is really worth it. There are many things to remember when you are traveling. You need to plan ahead and be prepared to handle things. It can be particularly stressful when you are traveling with children. One child can be stressful enough but imagine traveling with three. I am the perfect person to talk to about this. Whenever we go on holiday there’s a total 5 of us.
Here are things you should do to make sure it all goes smoothly:
- Good schedule
If you want to reduce stress, make sure that you have well planned schedule. Knowing what you should do each day during the trip could minimize worry and stress. However, the schedule should be treated as a guideline and you need to be flexible. Depending on the present situation, you may choose to do something more enjoyable. However, there are things that you still need to do on time, such as arriving at the airport two hours before departure.
- Make lists
Stress during a trip could happen if you forget to do or bring something. You could always come back to your checklist over and over again. As an example, you should have a house chore list that you should do before you depart, such as putting chlorine in the pool and making sure that air conditioning or heater is turned off. The children are often great when it comes to a list. They want to make sure it’s all complete before they have to go to the beach or have some fun time.D
- Pack light
During a trip, you should bring limited number of toiletries, such as small sized toothpaste, soap and toothbrush. After a good rest at the hotel, you should go to the nearest grocery store to buy supplies. You may also bring few clothing and purchase cheap, disposable tourists’ shirts that you can buy in the destination area. Carrying smaller and lighter luggage will be really helpful during a trip. The last thing you want is for your bags to go missing. If you are a regular traveler it’s worth getting a V-bag tracker to make sure you keep an eye on where your luggage is.
- Check credit card coverage
Your credit cards should include various travel protections, such as lost luggage coverage, trip cancellation coverage and rental car insurance. Being protected financially should give you peace of mind. Proper insurance coverage should save you time and money. You should also have medical insurance. This is one thing that you often find a lot of people neglecting. This is a big no for us due to the fact that hospital bills can be extremely high when travelling to a different country. We suggest that this is looked into before leaving on the journey.
- Sign up for global entry
This program should cut down on the amount of stress during a trip in exchange for a fee. Lines will be shorter or even non-existent. This will make your trip much more enjoyable. You will feel like a VIP with the service and you will no doubt be the envy of the line.
- Enjoy downtime
When things don’t go as expected, you will succumb to stress quite easily. Your first flight could be delayed, making it complicated to reach your connecting flight. Work emails suddenly pop out of nowhere, because there are unexpected emergencies at the office. Your trip is supposed to be stress-free. You should save your downtime by reading a book or listening to music.
- Arrive ahead of time
You should arrive to the airport two hours before departure for domestic flights and three hours before international flights. This way, you can make it through security checks more easily and you can be relaxed in the lounge. Even if you don’t have lounge access privilege, you may get a cup of tea and enjoy some quiet moment before the flight.
- Don’t always assume the worst
It’s true that you should be prepared for worst-case scenario, but it doesn’t mean that you should assume the worst. Flight delays and long lines will happen. In fact, you should also be prepared for best-case scenarios, because they do happen. You need to be realistic and not always expect the worst.