Are you ready for holiday travel this season? Whether for Thanksgiving, Christmas or for the New year, holiday travel can be hectic. A vacation: even the thought of it makes your heart skip a beat. It gives you something to look forward to, dream about and strategize for. However, even the most thoroughly planned trips can end up with blunders that water down the much-awaited experience. Here’re some holiday travel tips that are essential regardless when you travel throughout the holidays.

The Best Holiday Travel Tips to Keep you Sane

Here are some of the most common mistakes to avoid:

Road Trip Tips for Holiday Travel:

If you plan on taking the family on a road trip this holiday don’t forget that the rest of the country maybe doing the same. Road trip tips such as leaving extra time for road closures, detours, and bad weather conditions could delay your trip. Map out your route on your smart phone or on the internet before leaving to gauge traffic patterns, and consider leaving in off-peak hours. If you have to travel through large metropolitan cities plan on rush hour in the morning and night to be the worst times.

Holiday Travel Tips: Don’t Leave Inadequate Time to Connect Flights

Connecting flights is not as easy as it may be made to sound by the travel agents. You may think you’ll disembark from one plane and stroll over to board the other. Far from it. Connecting flights involves security check-ups, documentation and often long delays; all the while taking care of your luggage. The gates could also be far apart, especially in large airports.

How much time is enough? Well, 1.5 hours is a fair bet. Even when the airlines promises to be punctual, allow enough time. You’d better spend some minutes in the café snacking, reading a book or just watching T.V than miss your flight. The New York Daily News gives 10 holiday travel tips to avoid.

Traveling Internationally? Make Sure you Aren’tApplying for Your Passport Late

If you’re not used to it, you may forget the basic essentials of international travel. Normal passport processing can take between four and six weeks. Apply for your passport at least 2 months before the vacation date. If you apply late, you may be required to pay an extra amount for quick processing.

If you already have one, ensure that it’s still valid. Remember some countries require that your passport has a certain period of validity, say 6 months, for you to enter. Apart from validity, ensure that the passport has enough pages depending on the number of countries that you intend to visit.

Holiday Travel Tips: Falling for Hotel Marketing Photos

Professional photography can make the most mundane of locations look like 5 star hotels. That’s what you encounter when you browse through hotels’ websites. Although this can give you an idea of what to expect, it should not fully inform your decision on the hotel to pick.

Sites like oyster.com will give you unbiased third-party images of the place, much to your surprise. You can then make a conscious decision on the hotel that gives you best value for money.

Holiday Travel Pitfalls – Know What You’re Paying For

The idea of a vacation is so exciting, it gets even others excited for you. You may have your family, friends and even community so elated of your travel that they can even come together and fund your travel on online fundraising sites such as Plumfund.com.

In addition, they will give you plenty of ideas about what you should do, see and even eat during your vacation.

Try to avoid these holiday vacation tips and plan in advance!

Although some of the to-dos are obvious, it’s very easy to forget when you’re gathering up all of the information. Unless you’ve taken memory improvement tips to heart, add all those ideas on your ‘to do’ list. Have you stopped to think what you really want to do? Are you really interested in that museum visit? Or the art gallery? Since when did you care about artifacts? If you fall into this category, do not feel guilty about laying on that hammock with your favorite book. 

This holiday uses these best travel tips to enjoy the season and your loved ones, and destination.

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