Holiday Travel Tips

Since the holiday travel season is often when airports are at their busiest, here are a few holiday travel tips.

• Don't wrap your gifts before you go. Instead, wait until you arrive at your destination, as airport screeners may ask you to unwrap them for inspection at a security checkpoint.
• Take along a collapsible bag to bring back gifts that you receive.
• Avoid the need to pack gifts by shipping them ahead of time and ship back any received gifts home prior to your return flight.
• If you are planning on wrapping a gift at your destination, be sure to pack the scissors in your check-in bag. While the Transportation Security Agency has relaxed the restrictions against small tools and small scissors, you should still pack any sharp instruments in your checked luggage to avoid having them confiscated by security personnel. Or, avoid the wrapping altogether by using gift bags.
• Avoid connecting flights if possible. If weather or some other common delay causes you to miss a connecting flight, the likelihood of catching a later flight is significantly diminished when the planes are solidly booked with holiday travelers.
• If you must use a connecting flight, choose a connection with a longer layover such as two hours. If you have just 30-45 minutes to catch your connecting flight, even a slight delay can cause you to miss your connection.
• To avoid the crowds, you may want to consider flying on the actual holiday, when demand is lower.
• Bring along plenty of reading material. Delays are common at this time of year.
• Pack plenty of snacks (especially if traveling with children). You may be counting on picking up something at the airport only to find the lines at the airport shops are exceptionally long or even sold out of basic food items.
• Arrive early. At peak travel times the security checkpoints can take 30 minutes or more to get through. Add in a bit of holiday traffic and long baggage check lines and all of the sudden the time cushion to make your flight has evaporated.
• Wear slip-on shoes to make your trip through security checkpoints easier. With your arms full of carry-on bags, snacks, jackets and such, it is much easier to slip off a shoe than to attempt to untie and retie your shoes when you pass them through the security scanner.
• Dress in layers and avoid pullover garments when possible. You may find you need to add a layer when standing at the curb for the airport shuttle but need to remove it once the blast furnace within that shuttle starts to blow. When you need to add or shed a layer in a crowded area such as a shuttle bus, plane or terminal, it is much easier to manage when you do not have to pull them over your head. Keeps your hair from getting mussed too!

Happy Holiday Travel!