Planning, booking, packing, and then heading out for a trip—big or small—is a roller coaster of emotions for me. The planning and booking phases are usually a caffeine-fueled euphoria. Somewhere within my complex travel-decision math lies a formula that includes all parties involved (typically myself, my husband, and our two young kids, ages 5 and 7) and whether we will all have a good time, whether the time frame fits into our work and school schedules, and whether the destination is calling to me (don’t ask me how this last one works, it’s almost a spiritual experience?).
Finally, the trip is booked. Is there a better feeling than this? The days, weeks, or months following the booking period are spent marinating in my accomplishment and wondering if my family realizes how lucky they are to have such an astute trip planner within their ranks.
But then, the tides start to turn a little, usually at around 3 a.m., as the departure date begins to near. I suddenly wake up in the middle of the night, and the doubts creep in. Did I choose the right destination? What if someone gets sick? Is the flight time too early? Is the connection too tight? Do we have all the gear we need?
The truth is, my pre-travel anxiety has gotten a lot worse since I’ve become a parent for a couple reasons: 1) I’m literally responsible for additional human beings now, and 2) kids (especially small kids) get sick a lot. This latter one is really the key here because it emphasizes a loss of control over the situation that is hard for me to grapple with. And control is a big factor when it comes to anxiety, at least for me. The notion that we could wake up on the day of our flight and that one of the kids might suddenly have a fever or start puking is just a smidge more than my nerves can handle at times. And unfortunately, it can mean that leading up to a trip, I start not just getting stressed, but having anxiety attacks that can result in everything from frustration and rage, to tears of overwhelm and the need to meditate and do box breathing to calm myself and ideally get us out the door with some semblance of the hope and optimism that conjured the trip in the first place.
It has gotten so bad that I have literally whispered to my nerve-rattled self as I stumble over the trip-departure finish line in veritable shambles, “I’m never doing this again.”
As if.
Once we are actually on our way, however, like the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of mental health struggles, I’m in heaven. This is my absolute happiest place, heading out on a new adventure to explore the great unknown. And because I love it so much, not only will I never give it up, I’ve also been working on ways to minimize my pre-travel stress and anxiety. Here are some of the things that have helped me.
Recognizing that the anxiety exists
For me, the first step in conquering my pre-travel anxiety has been recognizing that it exists and getting a better sense of the patterns and triggers. It kind of snuck up on me after I became a parent, so it took me a while to be like, “Oh, I get extremely stressed before trips now. This is new.” But once I did, I could start to better identify the recurring nature of these episodes, and I was able to communicate what I saw happening with my spouse (in a calmer way and not just through hysterical tears as we headed out the door).
Organizing my home
What does cleaning the house have to do with leaving the house? In my anxious mind, everything. If the house is cluttered, my brain is cluttered, and I get increasingly flustered and frustrated. I have found that spending the time to get the house into decent order before I start packing is worth the effort for the amount of stress that is reduced. It also comes with the major added benefit of meaning that we will return to a home that is not in a state of full-blown chaos. Prior to my pre-trip anxiety ticking up, cleaning and organizing my abode pre-departure was an optional bonus activity. But I’ve come to realize that it is now a non-negotiable and I have worked to carve in the time to make it happen.
Starting to pack far in advance
Now that the house is decently clean, it’s time to start packing. One of the things that adds to the pre-travel anxiety for me is when I find myself scrambling to complete all the packing and other to-dos for an on-time departure (I’m an early to the airport girlie after all). That’s because it inevitably takes more time than I think it will. And any need to rush or do too many things at once just starts to pile onto the feelings of being overwhelmed. Given that, I have taken to pulling out the suitcases at least a week or two in advance, so that I can start adding to them and filling them up in a much calmer manner to reduce the last-minute stress.
My packing lists for myself and my kids are pretty much ingrained in my mind at this point, but I do keep an ongoing packing list in my Notes app to help ensure that I remembered everything and I especially rely on it for trips that are a little more complicated, for instance a longer trip abroad or to a hotter or colder destination where we need specific water or snow gear that we don’t usually pack. In other words, I don’t use it or need it for every trip, but it’s there for when I do need it and start to feel the overwhelm building up.
I also now use the laundry day up to about one week before our travels as an opportunity to sort all the clean clothes directly into luggage. Rather than put those clothes away only to have to pull them out again to pack, I fold them up and into the suitcases they go. If it’s a road trip, the same can apply to any gear and dry foods that we will be bringing. Gear can be added to the back of the minivan (aka the world’s best travel car) and the sandwich bread, peanut butter, spaghetti, and sauce are getting piled into our Yeti cooler bag (don’t ask me why we use a cooler bag for dry goods—progress not perfection, right?) several days before departure.
Making peace with the worst-case scenario(s)
The thing that causes me much pre-trip stress, especially in recent years, is my internal battle with “the worst-case scenario,” which in my mind is usually of a medical nature: an unforeseen illness or injury that derails the entire trip either before or during our travels. But just like with many other fears, there’s literally nothing you can do about this (since it’s a fictional future scenario).
So, I decided that rather than resist the spiraling, I embrace the spiraling. I take the “what if” thought process all the way to the end zone. Perhaps one of the kids does wake up with a massive fever. We can’t fly. Now what? Well, we’ll have to cancel or postpone the flights and hotels. We might lose some money. Maybe we’ll lose a lot of money. Okay, well, we have credit cards with some degree of coverage, and we have travel insurance (while we don’t invest in travel insurance for simple road trips and such, when we’ve purchased four pricey round-trip flights either for domestic or international travel, we typically do invest in some added coverage). We’ll recover what we can. So what? No big deal. Life will go on.
I’ll engage in this exercise with any fear or concern that crops up. I’ve found this to be much more effective than trying to suppress those worries, which then haunt the back chambers of my mind, bringing on mounting nervousness. And in so doing, I regain some sense of control when faced with anxious thoughts about all the things that could go wrong—because we all know that what we think will go wrong is not, in fact, what will actually go wrong, anyways (but that’s a whole other can of anxiety worms).
Packing an anti-anxiety tool kit
Whatever is causing me to have worries regarding my travels, I like to think about some of the things that I can have on-hand to tackle those issues head-on when I’m traveling. I keep returning to health issues because that is the root of a lot of my recent pre-trip anxiety, but this can be applied to other anxiety-inducing concerns as well. It helps me to pack a thermometer (this Braun no-touch thermometer has been our go-to for years and has been with us around the world) and children’s Tylenol in our carry-on, along with maybe a plastic bag in case someone gets sick to their stomach. This makes me feel a bit less helpless in light of a health problem that could arise suddenly when we’re on the move.
If I’m worried about connectivity where we’re going, maybe it’s as simple as bringing an old-fashioned fold-up map to know that we’ll still be able to get around if I lose access to Google Maps (the horror). If you don’t know where to find actual, real road maps, head to your nearest AAA office, and they’ll help you out. If I’m worried about getting enough sleep, having a sleep mask, noise-canceling headphones, and a great travel pillow with me helps me to feel that I will find a way to settle into snooze mode.
I find that just having these tools on me is enough to stave off at least some of the stress, a sort of travel anxiety security blanket if you will. (I also like to think that it brings me better luck, too? You know, the whole bring an umbrella so that it won’t rain idea.)
Embracing the pitfalls
In some weird way, I kind of love it when things do (occasionally) go wrong on the road and the so-called worst-case scenario finally (gasp!) happens. When my husband does twist his ankle on our last night in Mexico before our full day of flying back home; or when we do miss a flight connection. Travel has an amazing ability to show us what we’re made of. And when things go sideways, we can look back and say, “Hey, we got through that. We can get through almost anything.” I always tell my kids that travel teaches us how to problem-solve in situations that we don’t get to experience at home, and that’s a big part of what makes it so interesting and exciting. Ultimately, those tougher moments help inform my ongoing struggles with anxiety as I carry with me the knowledge that it was, indeed, worth it after all.
