Tips for Stress Free Travel (So You Can Actually Enjoy Vacation!)
Make your next vacation a breeze with these tips for stress free travel!
Vacation is supposed to be the time when we recharge our batteries.
It's an escape from the regular ins and outs of life: the bills, the commute, the school run. It's a chance to explore the world around us and experience life in one of the many beautiful places around the globe.
Traveling is fun. Until it's not.
Planning might not eliminate every issue you encounter while traveling, but these tips will go a long way to ensuring you have a calm, relaxing vacation.
Here are the apps, planning sites, and other tips that I use to make sure our vacations are focused on fun, and not the logistics.
When Travel Goes Wrong
No one wants something to disrupt their carefully planned and budgeted trips, but sometimes things happen. I've been traveling since I was a little kid, and the majority of our trips have been wonderful.
They've gone exactly as planned, and generally exceeded expectations.
But there have been a few that have gone south for a variety of reasons.
There was the time when my family and were on a cruise ship that got caught in Hurricane Erin as she made her way across the Yucatan peninsula.
I was 11, and got so sick that I would've paid big money to leave Mexico and that trip far, far behind.
When I was 19, my family and I went to Paris. On that trip, my dad got mugged and several important things were stolen.
When I was 20, I was studying abroad in London when the 7/7 terrorist bombings occurred.
When I was 30, I was hospitalized and had to receive a blood transfusion while visiting Walt Disney World with my mom and daughter.
On our Las Vegas to Denver road trip, my daughter fell and busted her chin wide open on the hotel bathtub. She was right on the cusp of getting to go to the ER.
Especially when you have kids, nothing seems to go perfectly to plan. Add in the fact that I'm seriously allergic to shellfish, and we often travel during hurricane season, and you've got the opportunity for things to really go south when I'm traveling.
Thankfully, they don't most of the time, but I’m always doing my best to learn from these situations so I can have an even smoother experience on my future trips.
1. Reach out for suggestions
If you've never visited the area before, or if it's been a while since your last visit, a great place to start your planning is by reaching out to the local convention and visitor bureau.
Not only can the CVB give you great recommendations on everything from activities to dining, but it's also a wealth of information on the safest places to stay, shop, and explore.
Often, these people are incredibly nice and welcoming. After all, it is literally their job to bring visitors to their area and ensure that they have a good time.
I love to get local brochures mailed to me (for free!) to help me plan my trips. Simply go to the local or regional CVB’s website and sign-up for their most recent literature.
I also ask my in-real-life friends who’ve visited a location before to see what they liked or didn’t like.
Additionally, I’ve been known to email other travel bloggers who’ve written excellent posts on the places that I plan to go. They are another excellent source of information.
If you’re still wondering about something when you arrive at your destination, don’t be afraid to see out the local information office.
These are centrally located so that visitors can quickly pop in to get suggestions on where to dine, where to buy tour tickets, and the like.
Just make sure that the location is legitimate and not a front for a tour company. You can find the official tourist information kiosks by going onto the city or region’s website: the locations should be on there.
Also, look for signs with a lowercase “i” on them. This also indicates that it is an official information office.
2. Confirm before you arrive.
Even if I have a reservation number, I make sure to call the hotel the day before I show up; this allows me to double check that everything is as it should be.
You never know if the hotel website had a glitch as you were making your reservation, or if the telephone reservationist made a mistake when entering your information.
You don’t want to arrive to find there's no record of your reservation (I've been there, and it's a headache!). That's a mess that you can easily avoid by double checking before you show up.
In the last 5 years or so, I’ve found that hotels, tours, and campgrounds send out a confirmation or reminder email a day or two before I arrive.
Having this in hand means I don’t need to call the hotel, and adds some piece of mind that I won’t be searching for alternatives last minute.
3. Print out all documents, and have them on you.
Most people never travel anywhere without their phone, but sometimes, Wi-Fi or internet access isn’t good, and you can’t access documents and emails. In those moments, the last thing I want to do is scramble to find an online reservation number.
Before I leave home, I make a small folder with all of my emailed reservations and put it in my carryon luggage or backpack.
For particularly long trips overseas or road trips, I’ll pack an entire binder full of hotel reservations, car rental agreements, and tour descriptions.
When I'm ready to pick up a rental car or check in at the airport, I've got a hard copy of everything, with no Wi-Fi needed.
While it might seem a bit old-fashioned to haul around a bunch of paper in this day and age, that folder or binder has saved me more than once.
Recently, we were traveling to Louisiana, and the campground we were staying at couldn’t find my reservation.
The problem is usually with the way that my hyphenated last name is entered into the system, so it is incredibly helpful to have a paper copy of the confirmation number that I can slide across the counter for quick access by the desk clerk.
4. Facebook is for more than checking on your old high school boyfriend.
If you're wondering if your destination is safe, if it’s a good time of year to go, or if it's as pretty as it looks on the internet, the best thing you can do is ask someone who's been there.
There are SO many Facebook groups out there that are designed around city and regional travel. Some focus on the U.S. national parks, specific cities, or UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
You can find groups like Girls Love Travel who cater specifically to women traveling solo or in small groups, and will offer up suggestions on outfits to pack, safe areas to stay, and more.
Others like World Schoolers are great for families who want to incorporate education into their global travelers (if you’re here at Cosmos Mariners, that probably describes you!).
These groups are usually warm, welcoming places where the other users want you to have a great time traveling.
Don’t be put off by groups that require sign-up questions. These are valuable for the moderators to determine who wants to be part of their group. In turn, those questions allow for a more robust and honest discussion since the contents are private to general Facebook users.
5. Have an arsenal of travel apps at your fingers.
We really do live in an incredible time. The computing power of the phone you’ve got on your right now is great than what was available to send people to the moon back in the late 1960s.
(CRAZY!)
So, make use of that to keep that planning and travel possible carefree.
Some of our favorite travel apps include:
Google Translate
This free app provides on-the-spot translation services if you’re traveling in an area where you don’t speak the language.
It’s not always perfect with the translations, but you can get the general gist of what the sign or person is trying to say.
Since I travel with an allergy, it is really important for me to be able to quickly check what menu items in foreign languages mean.
That could be the difference between me having a great vacation and me spending days in the local hospital.
RV Life
If you’re planning to rent or use a travel trailer or RV, this app is a must have. I use it to plan all of our camping trips, big and small, over at CampingKiddos.com, and it is a lifesaver.
It will help you calculate when you need to fill up with gas based on your specific RV or tow vehicle, and you can read reviews on hundreds of campgrounds across the United States.
It will also provide specific routes that are the right height and width for your vehicle and trailer.
I really could not live without this app. Even at $59 a year for the full spectrum of features, it’s worth it.
Roadtrippers
Do you love finding the weird, obscure, and unusual on your trips?
This is the app for you!
You can search for points of interest, hikes, and restaurants nearby or on a specific route.
You can also look at campground reviews and plan road trips on this app, but I much prefer the functionality of RV Life (above).
NPS
If you’re visiting a bunch of national parks or other NPS sites (national monuments, national historic sites, or national battlefields), this is a helpful app.
You’ll get digital copies of maps, and up to date information on ranger talks and programs.
Some of the parks, like Yellowstone, offer up times for consistently occurring opportunities—like the next showing of the Old Faithful geyser.
I like that you can save entire parks off-line, which is helpful, since many areas of the parks have little to no cell service.
GuideAlong
Another of our must have apps, GuideAlong has been our co-pilot on many road trips!
If you want a guided tour of the national parks or scenic highways in the U.S., but don’t want to pay big bucks for one, this app is the solution.
Once downloaded, it uses your GPS coordinates to automatically tell you about points of interest, geological formations, and local history as you approach related areas.
We love being able to repeat or skip sections depending on our kids’ interest level.
We used these at multiple national parks and highways out West, and they were worth every penny. Individual tours are about $15-20, and are well worth it.
Drive Weather
When we’re covering large distances on a road trip, it can be tedious to check the weather for every single place I’ll pass through.
Instead, I can put in my day’s route in this app, and it will show me wind speed, precipitation and weather alerts for the entirety of the route.
Especially when we’re road tripping with our travel trailer, it is important to know things like wind speed since high gusts can literally push over an RV.
But, even if you’re using a car, this app helps you better anticipate what that drive will look like.
Airline-specific app
Whenever we’re traveling by air, I always download the specific app of the airline we’re using.
Through the apps, I can save digital versions of my boarding pass, get alerts of gate changes, and keep track of my luggage.
You can also see layouts of the entire airport—or at least the portions that the airline uses. This is helpful for determining where you can go to the bathroom or grab a meal on your layover.
Taking kids through an airport is stressful enough. Make use of the information in these apps to keep you from hauling the entire family from gate to gate unexpectedly.
And download these before you leave the house so you’re ready to use them as soon as possible. There’s nothing worse than trying to download a new app when your only option is some sketchy wifi in the middle of nowhere.
6. Check the news before you go.
The world is constantly changing, and you want to make sure that you’re as up to date as possible on what the situation is on the ground in your destination.
So, create a Google alert a couple of months before you leave for your trip, and you’ll receive breaking news in the place that you’re visiting.
While bad things happen around the globe, it’s important to note local activity so you can take additional precautions if necessary.
Or, in a worst case scenario, cancel your trip. I recently had a friend who decided to cancel her cruise to the Middle East after the previously safe areas she was planning to visit erupted into violence again.
Thankfully, she was carefully watching the news—and keeping in touch with the cruise line—so she was able to rebook on a new cruise at no charge.
7. Make use of Reddit.
If you’re not using Reddit to help you plan stress-free travel, you’re missing out.
This forum-based shop is FILLED with sub-reddits that are devoted to everything from city-specific forums to minimalistic packing.
If you’re planning to visit New Orleans, for example, and you’re unsure if a specific street is safe to walk down at night, you can pop over to r/NewOrleans to get local feedback.
The previous threads are archived, so you can check through years of questions and answers to help you learn about a city’s layout, must-try foods, activities, and more.
8. Anticipate the bad stuff.
Even if you’re an experienced traveler, some times, there’s nothing you can do to avoid the dreaded I’m-a-tourist situation.
When I studied abroad in London, I would sometimes sit in Trafalgar Square eating lunch, and I could pick out American tourists from 100 yards. (It’s a combination of U.S. college sweatshirts and the tennis shoes that are popular in the U.S.).
Although I tried to Euro-fy my wardrobe, I know that’s not always easy, especially if you’ve never been abroad before.
When I was in Paris, others could pick me up as soon as I opened my mouth to talk with my family. We’re from America, and we speak English to one another. Even when we spoke quietly, it was obvious we weren’t Parisian.
On that trip, probably because our accents did make us stand out, we were mugged on the Metro.
Thankfully, my dad had on a travel belt under his shirt, so the thieves didn’t get the important stuff like his passport and stash of cash—just the museum pass he had in his pocket.
While I hate to assume that others mean me harm, you have to take some precautions when traveling because you are going to stick out among the locals to some degree.
That means:
dividing your cash, and putting some of it in a money belt or travel scarf.
using the hotel safe to keep valuables in while you’re out of the room.
having the number of the American embassy with you at all times.
photocopying your passport info page and keeping it (and the original) with you at all times, preferably in a money belt.
wearing a crossbody purse instead of a handbag or backpack. These are harder to pickpocket.
Chances are, you will only encounter gracious, helpful locals who want to show you the highlights of their part of the world. But ensuring you’ve done these few things puts you in a much better situation if you’re targeted by a bad apple.
8. Take a small bag of medicine with you.
There’s nothing worse than being away from home when you get sick.
On a cruise my husband and I took to the Bahamas, I got a horrible stomach virus. This is when we discovered that you can’t buy Pepto-Bismol or anything stomach-flu related on a cruise ship. You have to see the ship’s doctor.
Since then, we always pack the essentials when traveling: Band-aids, Neosporin, Pepto-Bismol, Tums, and Tylenol to name a few.
While you probably won’t get sick on your vacation, if you do, it’s nice to have everything on hand. That way you’re not wandering around an unfamiliar city looking for a pharmacy.
Especially if you’re traveling with kids, it’s never a bad idea to expect the bumps, scraps, and messes that come with little ones.
You won’t be sorry that you added a few bandages and pain relief to your suitcase when your kid falls for the 4th time that day and scrapes the other knee.
What’s your best tip for staying stress free while you’re traveling?
