Thanksgiving Travel: Prep Without Stress

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Here comes Thanksgiving travel preparedness time. Thanksgiving is two days away, and you know what that means—awesome Thanksgiving leftovers, and the busiest travel day of the year is tomorrow, the day before Thanksgiving. 82 million people will be hitting the roads and skies this weekend, leading to packed airports, traffic jams, and inevitable delays. It’s a recipe for stress and frustration.

As a preparedness-minded person, you already know the basics of travel safety. You’ve packed your bags, checked your routes and times, and added a few prepping extras—just in case. But holiday travel throws a few extra curveballs. In this episode, I’m not just going to rehash the standard travel tips. I’m going to dive into how to apply your preparedness skills specifically to the chaos of Thanksgiving travel, hopefully alleviating any potential aggravations.

TL;DR: Thanksgiving travel tests your patience with crowds and delays. Focus on mindset: accept problems, build mental buffers, and prioritize patience to turn frustration into opportunity.

Mindset: Your Mental Foundation

Traveling this week can be a test. Crowds can easily push our patience, and delays can pile on the stress. How do we prep for and counter that—by being ahead of the game. By already thinking through the causes and effects of the problems that we may encounter while making the trek to the turkey dinner.

Accept That There Will Be Problems

Here’s the deal. It’s Thanksgiving. It’s the worst travel time of the year. The system is overloaded with stressed-out people—both the travelers and the worker bees making the travel happen. That combination alone means the odds are you will have an issue during your travels—possibly several.

Driving: In addition to everyday commuters, 73 million Americans will drive at least 50 miles this holiday weekend. That means that in addition to the 18-year-old college student heading home for the first time since leaving for school, you’ll have battalions of distracted families hitting the roads en masse. Those and others who are likewise challenged by the concept of a steering wheel will be swarming around you like a hive of freshly mown over yellow jackets. They’re going to cut you off, cause traffic jams, irritations at the gas pumps, and pure insanity in Buckee’s. The busiest travel weekend = the worst time to travel.

Flying: Do I even need to get into the problems you might run into with flying somewhere? Yes, this is the weekend when the young Crys-alot family decides to take little 3-month-old twins Johnny & Judy Crys-alot on their first trip to see family, not that they’re getting any Turkey or anything. So, let’s add their first learning experience, by standing in front of you in TSA, to the already stretched-thin airport staff, working on their busiest workday of the year. And let’s not forget that they do that on the weekend when the airlines overbook their flights, causing mayhem in overstuffed terminals when Mother Nature decides to throw in some random act of hers to shut down, divert, and delay flights all across the country. Add in the random software glitch (aka successful hacker), and what could go wrong on the busiest travel day of the year?

Pregame Your Trip

Pregame your trip by mentally breaking it into its most basic segments and elements. Walk through each element—what bags are you bringing, is your car ready, what about your tickets and backups? What do you need to do? When do you need to have it done? Where do you need to be? Write it all down—every prepper loves a good list. Prime your situational awareness pump with the infromation you need to make your trip happen. Then, when you need to, you’ll be better prepared to make decisions on the fly as the curveballs head your way.

Build Mental Buffers

Visualize bottlenecks before they hit. Mentally observe the different legs of your trip—what could go wrong, why, and how to mitigate or recover from the problems on each leg. Think of things like getting stuck in traffic on the way. What if the flight is delayed or overbooked? What if your checked bags or items go missing? How about if someone gets sick on the way? What about a breakdown?

Manage Expectations

As you mentally walk through the problems you might face during the worst travel time of the year, prepare for the frustration that comes with them. Part of your plan should be that the situation will be frustrating. And as part of your frustration planning (aka prepping), tell yourself that, while it’s understandable, allowing yourself to become frustrated, agitated, irritated, or even angry doesn’t make the problem(s) any better. It just makes you feel worse—and increases the likelihood that the central nervous system will inject some less-than-optimal thought processes into your problem-solving efforts.

So, as a prepper, work on priming your situational awareness by visualizing yourself getting frustrated, irritated, aggravated, or worse, because, despite your best efforts, there’s a hitch in your travel plans. Something is happening to cause your perfect travel plans to go haywire. As you visualize your plans going off course, tell yourself, “Of course, there’s a problem—it’s the worst travel day of the year. Of course, that person is irritating you. Of course, the flight is delayed. Yes, you’re stuck in traffic. Of course, Buckee’s ran out of fresh hot pralines. Of course, of course, of course—it’s the worst travel day of the year.

Would you expect anything other than problems on the worst travel day of the year? You shouldn’t. If you do, then that’s something to work on.

Prioritize Patience

Now that we all agree there will be travel problems, we should also agree that getting upset, stressed, etc., isn’t the most effective way to handle them. The most effective course of action, however, is to prioritize and practice patience. Might the situation be so screwed up that you have to work hard at being patient? 100%—and since you’re into preparedness, that shouldn’t be an issue. At the heart of it, what you’re doing is managing emotion (aka our central nervous system’s response) during a stressful situation. Practicing patience now and stopping yourself from getting irritated, overwhelmed, etc., over the situation is preparing for when lives may depend on it. Another name for that is seizing opportunity.

Road Trip Prep: Beyond the Basics

By now, you should be picking up what I’m putting down. 25% of the country is hitting the road this weekend. Roads are going to clog with families heading to see other families. Some stats show vehicle accidents jump 17% this weekend. As someone who plans ahead, you’ve got your vehicle prepper-packed and ready to go.

Here are some other things to consider:

• Check Your Route: Do a Google search for the highways you’ll be travelling, along with the states and cities you’ll be driving through. See if there are any issues you can identify ahead of time and plan for them. There are also tools like state DOT apps and others that give real-time feeds.
• Vehicle Checks: Check tires for winter tread if heading north. Add chains if snow’s in play. Double-check your toolkit, including jumper cables and a portable compressor. Check your spare—don’t assume it’s good. Do you have a jack?
• Fuel and Supplies Strategy: Top off early and often. Carry extra cans if rural stretches loom.
• Prepper Checks: Stock non-perishables beyond snacks—think MREs or energy bars for gridlock stranding. Double-check your vehicle emergency kit and the other preps you’ve packed.
• Navigation Redundancy: Do you have paper copies of maps? If not, grab a map book of the USA when you stop for gas. For fun (and education), have others follow along in the map book while you drive. Learning about the map and how to use it is always a good thing.
• Fun Stop: If you’re traveling a long way, find a scenic spot or two along your route to get out, take a short break, and enjoy the beauty of America.
• Drive Defensively: Keep an eye out for distracted and fatigued drivers. Don’t sit next to semi-trucks when it’s avoidable—pass them or let them pass you. Pull over at first yawn. Stay vigilant and have fun. You’re seeing family—this is a great weekend.

Airport Chaos: Navigating the Human Storm

Airports are a madhouse during the holidays. The day before Thanksgiving is an extra madhouse. Lines snake. Tempers flare. Security bottlenecks. You’re aware of all that.

Start with intel. Check TSA wait times via app. Factor in holiday surges—arrive at least 3 hours early. Book off-site parking to avoid the packed lots.

• Check for Delays: Review your route to the airport to see if there are any detours or delays that could throw off your timing. Check TSA wait times. Are there any flight delays? What about your connecting flights?
• Carry-On Optimization: If you board in a later boarding group, you should expect to have no overhead space for your bags. Plan to keep only what you can fit under the seat in front of you. Do you have what you need when your flight ends?
• Health Defenses: You’re flying in fall, during cold and flu season, on a plane load of unsanitary boger-flickers. So, boost your immunity pre-trip with good sleep and vitamins. Stay hydrated.
• Delay contingencies: Flights get canceled. Pack a power bank for devices. Include compact food and any necessities. If you’re stuck at the airport, find a place for everyone and own it.
• Lost Luggage Spikes: Tag bags inside and out. Carry essentials in carry-on—meds, change of clothes, gifts, etc.

The Bottom Line on Thanksgiving Travel Preparedness

Thanksgiving travel can push the limits. But mindset leads. You know it’s going to happen. So, you’re ready to not let it get the best of you mentally. And practical steps follow—because now that you know it’s going to be a mess, it won’t be as bad when it happens. You’re a prepper. You got this.

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