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Make Holiday Travel Painless With These 8 Tips

Are you planning to travel this holiday season?

Holidays are a special time spent with family and friends. Whether you’re celebrating close to home or far away, getting there can often be the trickiest part of the holiday season. Flight delays, weather complications, and traffic can take all the fun out of your holiday travel. Add in the weight of the holiday gifts you’re lugging around and you may feel like your entire body has been thrown out of alignment, ugghh.

The good news, traveling doesn’t have to be painful. In fact, it can be a great experience if you’re open to it.

Before you head out to the airport or pack up the car for your big trip, take a look these five quick tips to make your holiday travel a painless experience. And remember, wherever you’re headed there is sure to be a Soothe massage near you. Click here to check out where you can find Soothe.

1. Warm up

It’s cold outside, and cold muscles are more prone to injury. Chances are you’ll be carrying luggage from place to place, so make sure to warm up your muscles before heading out the door with your luggage. Take some time to stretch your arms, legs, and back before traveling so you don’t regret it later.

2. Lift smart

Back pain is something 1 out of 5 people experience. Can you guess the period where a lot of back problems begin? If you said “holidays,” you’d be correct. Every holiday season there are thousands of backs thrown out by lifting heavy suitcases, luggage, and gifts.

Don’t forget, always lift heavy bags with your legs and be sure to engage your abs to protect your spine and posture.

3. Travel light

Take too many things with you when you travel? Yeah, guilty as charged. It can be hard to do, especially when you’ve got heavy winter clothes and boots to pack, but lightening your load is key to avoiding a travel-related injury. The last thing you want is to get hurt during your time away.

Your luggage weight (carry-on + suitcases + personal bag) should be under 15% of your bodyweight.

4. Give yourself plenty of time

The holidays are stressful enough alone, the last thing you need is to run late and be in a hurry to catch your plane.

Even if you don’t run into any surprises and the lines aren’t long, at least you’ll make your flight and you can relax at the gate with a good book. Speaking of a book, don’t forget to take one for your flight. If you’re traveling with the kids, don’t forget some activities to keep them busy during the trip.

There is nothing more stressful than almost missing your flight.

5. Consider leaving early to miss peak holiday travel

The holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year to travel. The closer you get to Thanksgiving and Christmas, the more traffic and crowds you’re going to experience.

If you want to avoid the long lines and bumper to bumper traffic, consider leaving a day or two earlier than usual.

6. Plan your holiday activities ahead of time

If you’re traveling to an area you know well, you may be able to wing it and choose your activities on the go. However, if the holidays are bringing you to a new place, it can be stressful trying to plan activities on the run.

Go ahead and start planning your activities now, you’ll be glad you did.

7. Holiday travel with gifts

Traveling with gifts can become a problem. If you have wrapped gifts, airport security may stop you and open them. If you must travel with gifts, don’t wrap them up until you arrive at your destination.

There’s a few things you can do versus traveling with gifts.

  • Send the gifts via the mail
  • Send them a gift card instead
  • Send them cash instead
  • Shop online and have Amazon, Walmart, and others deliver the gift for you

8. Carve out some time for yourself

Set aside time to relax over the holiday. Soothe delivers certified massage therapists to your home or hotel in cities across the U.S., Canada, Australia, and the U.K. at a time that’s convenient for you. Wherever your holiday travel takes you, chances are there’s a massage therapist available to deliver a massage near you.

Click here to book a Soothe massage, facial, and more.

Need help getting a gift for a loved one? If so, check out the Soothe Gift Card. If you want to plan something special with your partner, consider a couples massage.

Throwing an office party? Soothe also offers private massage events and corporate massage events.