The festive season is one of the most chaotic times to travel in the UK. With a great number of people returning home for the winter holidays and going away to visit family and friends. To make sure that your travel is as stress-free as possible it is important to know some of the best top tips to make your trip more manageable around the season.
Keep Yourself Entertained
However much you plan your trip, you are likely to meet disruptions and delays whichever form of transport you are taking. You should aim to keep yourself entertained for the duration and beyond with a few key activities. One of the best ways to keep entertained is to play mobile games like a poker app. You can play this over and over again for hours at a time (but play responsibly). At once engaging and simple, their short play time can help you to keep boredom away in between stops.
Check Travel Arrangements Beforehand
It is also important to check travel arrangements before you go. To ensure that there are no delays to your route, ensuring that you are prepared or can find a handy alternative before you reach your terminal. There are many live travel software apps which you can use to determine any issues with your arrangements. These will show you if certain routes are busy or blocked, or if there are any strikes that could affect you. Delays may also be caused by weather. So you should always check weather apps before you travel to ensure that your routes are unaffected.
Allow Extra Travel Time
Whether you find any extra delays or not, it is important that you allow extra travel time for each leg of your journey. This will ensure that you are able to meet your connections through the crowd. It can also prevent stress from leaving you with ample time to find your transport at stations and airports. Extra travel time will also ensure that you arrive in plenty of time to sort out problems if they arise. And it can mean that you can opt for alternative transport if the route that you originally chose is not possible.
Keep Gifts Safe
It is likely that you will be carrying gifts in the holiday season for family and friends, and it is important for yourself and the people that you love to keep those safe. However, packages and parcels tend to get easily damaged in transit due to the necessity of placing them in unprotected luggage racks. To keep your gifts safe, you should ensure that they are wrapped well or placed within protective packaging. Or you can invest in a seat with extra room. Using a suitcase with a hard shell can also keep them from getting damaged.
Travel Outside of Peak Times
To avoid crowds and queues, you should always attempt to travel outside of peak times if possible. This will ensure that you are able to prevent meeting travel chaos. You can find peak times by checking with your provider, and by buying an off-peak ticket for trains, for example. This will mean that you are more likely to reach your destination on time.
