Tips for Fighting Holiday Traffic

We are in the midst of moving, so we've got a lot going on! But we recently were kind of forced to brave the madness of holiday traffic - yes, I'm talking about road tripping the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and the Sunday after. And I can confirm - it was awful. I do not recommend traveling at peak times! And that's tip #1.

Don't Travel at Peak Times if You Can Help It! If you can leave on Tuesday before Thanksgiving and drive back Saturday or Monday, I HIGHLY recommend you do so.  There will likely still be traffic, but not nearly as much. However, if you absolutely can't avoid it (like us this year!), I've still got some advice for you.

Leave Early. If you can sneak out from work a little early on Wednesday or leave at the crack of dawn on Sunday, you'll thank yourself later. Traffic will still likely be rough, but the sooner you get out the door, the lighter traffic will likely be. Don't get me wrong - it will still take forever, but it will be better than leaving late!

Leave Yourself Plenty of Travel Time. This tip is really important for the sake of your mental well being. For example, the road trip we took normally takes 6 hours or so and it took us 9 1/2 hours. If you go into your day expecting there to be traffic and for it to take hours longer than normal, you are setting yourself up for success. If you go in expecting to make good time, you will inevitably be frustrated when you are sitting in traffic watching your ETA creep later and later.

Keep an Open Mind. It's important to be flexible. If a highway is jammed up due to an accident, consider letting your GPS take you on the scenic route. Or maybe take a break for a long lunch and break up the drive. Try to make your drive as fun as possible - don't get frustrated! Listen to music, podcasts or even books on tape.

Take Turns Driving. You'll be on the road for hours surrounded by grumpy, tired drivers. It's important to be on your a-game! It can help you avoid a nasty accident. The reality of life is it's hard to be on red alert for 8 hours straight, so maybe consider trading off driving shifts. You'll find it really makes a big difference.

These tips can also be very helpful for the upcoming Christmas drive - though it typically won't be near as bad as Thanksgiving. That's mainly because people come and go at different times depending on their work schedules. Regardless, you'll find properly preparing for a holiday road trip can help cut back on some of that holiday stress.

Happy travels!

Planning Our Road Trip Around Portugal

We are coming up on our honeymoon! We are so excited to road trip around Portugal this September and our plans are finally coming together! Ordinarily, I would have had this trip planned out long ago but we got married and moved so we've been busy! Here's our general gam plan:

Start our in Porto: We are pumped to fly into this city and spend the day exploring (especially the world famous bookstore!!!)

Move on to Lousa and visit Tomar. We are excited to explore some smaller towns on our way down to Lisbon. We are even staying in a palace!! It's going to be epic.

Spend a couple days in Lisbon living the good life! We are pretty excited to dive into the architecture and heartbeat of this city.

Next stop? The Algarve! We will be spending 3 days down in Lagos hiking, laying on the beach and enjoying ourselves. We splurged a little on the hotel and are excited to see what it offers. I'll definitely do a review once we've stayed!

Close out the trip by road tripping back up to Porto. We will be stopping a few local towns to explore along the way.

Lucky for us, Portugal is a relatively small country, so we will be able to cover quite a bit of ground! It's only 5 or 6 hours between Lagos and Porto so we are doing it up right! Hopefully, we've left enough time in our schedule for relaxing. Depending on how we feel, we may even bop over to Spain for a day! We shall see.

We are so excited for this trip,and can not wait to celebrate our new marriage and our new adventures together. Get ready for some Portugal-heavy content coming your way soon!