Holiday Travel Tips Because Oh My God Airports

You can do this without fisticuffs!

Your in-flight crew awaits!

It appears we’ve reached another glamorous, sensual and possibly rage-filled holiday travel week! Whether you’ve already hiked to Mother’s sinister mountaintop lair or are still prepping to take the private jet to Unclefather’s remote isthmus for the annual consumption of figs and flesh, there are ways to make it all a little bit less stressful.

I’ve never taken a PJ, personally — when WILL one of you send yours to fetch me for holiday in Cannes? But I’ve traveled the regular commercial way over the holidays many, many times.

Beyond that, as an agoraphobic person who is agorafabulous — Wonkette cut link! — I’ve spent much of my life learning how to go outside the house without screaming. I have to stay in practice, or the going-out-of-my-bedroom muscle weakens and can even atrophy. (Read my memoir! Fun!)

This is all just to say: I’m not an expert in psychology or in why airplanes always smell that one way, but I can share what works for me.

Most of my life philosophy, and thus my holiday travel philosophy, is encapsulated in the words uttered by my king, the noted t’ai chi practitioner and NYU graduate James Dalton (Patrick Swayze): “I want you to be nice ... until it’s time to not be nice.”

TRANSPARENCY NOTE: Here on the shores of Lake Michigan, I have come down with the famed Wreck of the Edmund Fitzeustachiantubedysfunction with a side of lingering demon cough. I shan’t be flying this year. A handsome urgent care employee told me I am not contagious, so if you see me in Chicago, be afraid of me for regular reasons (my personality and/or suspiciously tiny ears) not for Plague Reasons.

I present to you an array of travel tips fueled by cognitive behavioral therapy, exposure therapy, Prozac, prescription benzonatate, herbal tea with honey, and the seemingly useless steroid pack I just finished! (If you prefer normal advice on this topic, here’s a nice article from Natalie B. Compton at WaPo.)

Travel tips for holiday heroes

It’ll be more chill than this, probably!

Wear a mask and bring some extras, for America — Believe it or not, some maskless people really did just forget theirs at home. It is WILD to me that we don’t have free masks on offer at every airport in the U.S.A., just in case somebody is worried about catching the flu or happens to have a dust allergy or whatever! Masks help! They do!

Would THIS president allow such neglect of public health?!

In case you have such a great time in the sky that you spill your mocktail on your new celebrity lover (a stranger UNTIL you fall in love during a meet-cute over seatbelt confusion!) an extra mask can help soak up the ginger ale (or bourbon). Please do not do sex with your new airborne paramour, it is so gross to see or hear that on a plane!

Prepare a soothing playlist in advance — Listen to it before you travel, perhaps twice or thrice or sixty times. While you do so, breathe slowly and evenly (unless you have the demon respiratory troubles, then just picture nice things). This will tie the playlist — the songs and perhaps even their sequence — to a feeling of relaxation.

It doesn’t have to be anybody else’s idea of chill music. I grew up with a bunch of straight-edge hardcore kids in the New Jersey music scene of the late ‘90s-early ‘00s, and some of them genuinely felt most calm listening to jackhammer-like guitar interspersed with a man screaming about climate change and NAFTA (ah, youth).

Choose your own adventure! Create the kind of Pavlovian relaxation response that can only be triggered by the opening notes of Enya’s “Orinoco Flow” or the theme to Bob Newhart’s show or the original music to Disneyland’s Main Street Electrical Parade.

Cover your ears and pretend to be deep in thought — This recommendation is cosmetic in nature, but meant to send a signal that you are not available for mindless chatter or small talk. (If small talk helps you relax, ignore this suggestion.)

If you forget your headphones at home, buy a pair at the airport. If you discover to your horror that you don’t have any on the plane, buy the dinky little ones from the flight attendant. Pull a knit cap down low over your ears. Put your jacket over your head and pretend to go to sleep. Make a headband out of the tie you packed for church, except it goes over your ears and you look actually very dapper.

This isn’t so much about blocking out sound. It’s giving a visual cue to others to not bother you. I am aware this will not work on your small or medium-size or even large adult children. But it may keep certain chatty Chuckies and nosy Nancys at bay.

Check out the chapel at the airport — You do not have to be religious to take advantage of the one place in most airports that is usually very quiet and nearly empty. They may have a schedule posted for specific worship services, which you may or may not wish to avoid. Sometimes it is called the meditation room. You don’t have to meditate. You can stretch. You can listen to Kirk Franklin on your headphones and unobtrusively shake your ass in your seat. Just be quiet. It’ll be good for you.

Bring paper towels or napkins — Sometimes a baby spits up on you. Sometimes it’s your baby. Sometimes a dog shits its carrier. Sometimes it’s your dog. Sometimes somebody nearby is about to have a fucking meltdown because they’re so stressed and embarrassed and worried and it’s their first time flying with a baby/dog/cantankerous parental figure/broken heart.

One of the kindest things anybody ever did for me on a flight happened when I was 21. I sat weeping in an aisle seat, exhausted from travel and panic attacks and disappointment. A nice lady wordlessly handed me a bunch of toilet paper on her way back from the airplane bathroom. When you are exhausted and scared, even a handful of (CLEAN!) toilet paper from a stranger can feel like a blessing. We had just left Portland, which reminds me of a potential addition to your playlist.

It’s just always good to have some extra wadded-up personal paper products in your purse or backpack. You may have the most glorious, glamorous flight in the world, but if you spill your in-flight chicken cacciatore on your traveling gown, whatever shall Grandmere’s longtime butler think when he arrives in her armored town car to pick you up? (As an aside, Duncanfroth look a LOT like your father, don’t you think? Odd!)

Be good to your flight attendants — Thank your flight attendants. Learn about the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. If you’re flying American Airlines, get to know the Association of Professional Flight Attendants. There are various other airlines with various unions! If you’re flying Delta, the only mainline US airline without a union, STILL BE VERY NICE (especially since they don’t have the same union protections). They are all first responders. They are trained to save your life. Also, they are not your personal hired staff. They are busy!

Say thank you to airport workers — Thank the person cleaning the bathroom. Thank the lady at Auntie Anne’s who doesn’t seem thrilled to be making you a cinnamon sugar nugget bucket during a holiday weekend. Make friendly eye contact and say, “Thank you very much.” Most people won’t be moved by it, but once in a while, you’ll see someone’s whole face just light up. Or they’ll stop being as much of an asshole.

Drink a lot of water — Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. I know this means you may have to get up and pee a few times, but whatever. It’s good for you to get up once an hour on the plane, if you can. At least do some stretching, within your ability.

Alright, time for another fit of a hacking cough! Sending you loads of love, great playlists, quiet seatmates, cats who respond extremely well to veterinarian-prescribed doses of gabapentin, and a pleasant, restorative holiday.

If you are doing a customer service job on a holiday, EXTRA love to you. May everybody be actively, obviously, incredibly nice to you or else shut the fuck up and leave you in peace! You are great.