winter holiday car travel tips

Holidays is the ultimate time to go visit your relatives and spend time with those, who live further away. However, since many people have this though to use the free days over the holidays and go visit their friends or family out of town, that also means traffic congestion and increased travel time. Luckily, there are a couple of things you can do to make your holiday travels more pleasant and to not spend most of your free time on the road instead of hanging out with your family or friends.

As weird a it might seem, sometimes it is best to travel on the actual holiday not the day before. The reason behind this is that a lot of people prefer traveling the day before, so they can spend the actual holiday relaxing and enjoying their free time. However, it might be worth waking up earlier on the actual holiday and going to your grandparents, parents, aunts or friends house then, since there is a god chance that this way you will be avoiding holiday traffic jams and arriving at your destination that much faster. And bonus, this way you will also be able to spend one extra night in our own bed, instead of suffer on that old couch or air mattress the night before holidays, not getting good nights sleep.

Another thing you can do is to really utilize your GPS or navigation system, especially if the on you have actually reads real time data and calculates the best routs based on what the road conditions are. One good navigation app, that does this is Waze. It collects real time data from other users and factor that data in to determine if one route would be favorable for you over other, to get to your destination faster.

holiday travel tips

But even taking these precautions, it may not always be possible for you to avoid traffic, so in this case the only thing you can do is to be prepared for it. Plan beforehand and determine what you need. I you are traveling with children, definitely bring snacks, toys and some extra entertainment for them, as kids usually get bored easily on long car rides. The same pretty much goes if you have pet with you, have their food, water and toys in the car to keep them occupied and also make sure that you stop a few times so your pet can stretch its legs and such. Also if you are transporting per-prepared food with you, make sure it is packaged right so it stays fresh (or frozen if it is something cold), even if you do have to sit in traffic for a few extra hours. And of course have essentials like medicine, water and such with you, so if anything happens you are prepared for it.

And lastly also know all your emergency numbers in case something happens on the road, and have at least one pone fully charged or have a charger in your car, so you can use your car in case of emergency. The essential numbers you should have are AAA or other companies that will help you if our car breaks down, the number of the people you are going to visit, so they aren’t worried that you don’t arrive in time and some additional emergency service numbers. You can never know what can happen on he road, especially in the winter time, so be prepared and enjoy your holidays.

Billy Miller
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