I’ll never forget sitting on my bedroom floor nearly five years ago, just 18 years old and about to embark on my first international

trip as a young adult. Lost in a sea of clothing and close to tears from the agony of trying to pare down a waist-high stack of tops to my top 10 must-haves, I slowly realized I knew next to nothing about Argentina, apart from the name of its airport and Salta, the town where I’d start my 8-week volunteer work. If you’re wondering, it never actually occurred to me to check the weather online—because seriously, when you’ve suffocated for weeks in the sweltering broiler that is a Georgia summer, you kind of lose sight of the reality that any other climate could possibly exist.

That, and I was pretty much clueless about travel in general. I’d only taken my first solo flight a few months prior to the whole sobbing-in-my-suitcase scene (see above) and that was just an hour and a half jaunt to Mississippi for Alternative Spring Break. Granted, that week did drastically change my life  and helped me grow a proverbial pair of crazy cojones that let me do things like this and this and this.

But trust me. If you’d seen me lugging my two 50-plus pound suitcases into that tiny tent at our volunteer campsite in Hurricane-ravaged Biloxi, you’d never have guessed I’d wind up writing anyone advice on making it through hectic holiday travel in one piece—luggage and sanity all in tact.

But, dear reader(s?), that’s exactly what I’m here to do. Sort of.

Despite my Southern upbringing, I’m not really into preaching (go figure) so I won’t bore you with 12-step guides to perfect packing or rants about skimpy Airline snack carts (pick up some friggin’ trail mix at Rite-Aid and call it a day, ya big babies).

What I will do is tell you how I managed to survive my journey between Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson and New York’s Laguardia airports—the two of the craziest hubs in this fine country I call home—despite a horrific blizzard, zillions of flight cancellations and my mother doing everything in her God-given power to keep me from ever leaving home again (and if you’ve tasted her white chili, you know she’s not afraid to bring out the big guns).

So, here goes:

1. LUCK is one helluva lady and her name is Mandi Woodruff.

By some stroke of pure dumb luck genius, I decided to book my flight home three days after Christmas and before New Year’s Eve—just enough time, I thought, to mentally prepare myself for ringing in 2011 in NYC and finish digesting the incredible volume of food I’d surely spend the previous eight days shoveling down my throat.

As it turned out, Snowmaggedon 2010 chose to strike last Sunday, blanketing my beloved New York City in enough snow to make an emperor penguin sweat.  I watched from my warm, comfy perch on my parents’ sofa as the Atlanta’s 5 o’clock news ran down the list of dozens, then hundreds and, finally, thousands of flights that were to be canceled as late as Tuesday.  CNN had people working Hartsfield, Laguardia and JFK airports like they were the scenes of a great natural disaster—’round the clock news coverage, with anchors shining bright lights in weary travelers’ faces as they camped out and prayed for a miracle.

Maybe I paid off my air travel karma when Delta lost my luggage on my first trip ever to NYC back in ’07 or maybe I just got freaking lucky, because other than a one-hour delay in my Dec. 28 flight, I made it out of ATL without a hitch.  I could have had it much, much worse and I’m grateful I got home at all.

Also, shout out to @Delta for live tweeting flight cancellation updates. Also, their website makes it incredibly easy to check your flight status. Just punch in your flight # and date of travel and you get instant updates on cancellations, delays, etc. Now, if they could make push notifications to your cell with those kind of updates, that’d be even better. I have the Delta iPhone app, which I use to download my boarding pass electronically (and love!), but it didn’t show any delay in my flight. I wouldn’t have known it was delayed if I hadn’t double-checked on the website.

2. PACKING is my middle name.

If I’ve learned one thing through all my adventuring, it’s the lighter I pack, the less I have to lose and/or break my back lugging all over God’s green earth. I’ve given away enough of my clothing and other detritus accumulated from 23 years’ solid hoarding that it’s not a huge challenge anymore for me to fit eight days worth of clothing into one carry-on suitcase and a small backpack. Now, I could wax poetical about how we as human beings rely too much on “things” when we should really be making do with a BPA-free water bottle and organic alfalfa sprouts or some crap like that, but really it boils down to one thing:

I’m cheap.

The hell if I’m gonna pay an extra $25 bucks to check a suitcase when I could squeeze everything I need into the plane’s overhead compartment and the underside of the seat in front of me.  Eat your heart out, Delta.

If you want specifics, I do subscribe to the whole “rolling” technique, which I think keeps my clothes fairly wrinkle free and gives me extra room to squeeze as much as possible in there without popping the zipper. For this trip home, I managed to take about 10 tops, two pairs of jeans, four dresses, two pairs of shoes and the obligatory undergarments and toiletries without even sitting on the lid. Granted, I was going home, where I knew I’d already have bulkier items like hair dryers and plenty of spare clothing, which simplified things. If you want pointers on international travel packing, that’s a whole other battle plan, folks.

The biggest pro of not checking a bag is skipping baggage claim—my No. 1 biggest airport pet peeve—and heading straight for the nearest exit.

3. AMAZON.COM, baby. Amazon. Dot. Com.

Just a couple of clicks and a few tweaks to my shipping settings and most of my Christmas gifts were sent directly to my sisters’ house in Georgia. Not only did it free up space in my suitcase for just about everything, it also saved me the worry of breaking the fragile stuff. Plus, they all came boxed up and ready for my stellar god awful wrapping.

4. KEEP CALM, carry on.

Anyone who’s moved away from home will tell you that dealing with airport security and over-weight baggage fees are a walk in the park compared to the game of human tug o’ war that begins the moment you set foot on your home turf. Old friends must be seen, family must be visited, road trips to old childhood haunts must be taken (OK, for me that pretty much just means Chick fil-a) and all the while you’re supposed to be baking, cleaning, catching up on TiVo, helping mom with the shopping and relaxing. For crying out loud, it’s enough to make a body want to curl up under a heated blanket and hibernate till  someone shoves a glass of champagne and noisemaker in your hand for the NYE countdown.

Rather than drive myself to the brink of insanity by running all over the state of Georgia during my well-deserved vacation time, I preplanned a few visits with some close friends, had my step-dad make a Chick fil-a run while I finished some working-from-home stuff and simply refused to compromise on spending as much time as possible with my family.

One of the best moments I had all trip long was my first night at home, bundled up on my back porch with my little brother, swapping stories as we watched the Earth’s shadow plunge the moon into darkness.  There were no horns honking, no clocks ticking, no invisible chains yanking me from task to task. I simply existed in that space, breathed in and out and felt the calm in each and every moment.   Now that is what a holiday is supposed to be like.
And last but not least,

5. LAUGH, often.

No one said traveling during the holidays was gonna be pretty. Travelers are cranky, airport personnel are cranky, and even flight attendants get snippy if you make them repeat the drink list more than once (for the record, my ears were popping at the time). After all, the whole idea of airports is that everyone is there because they would much rather be somewhere else in the first place. But If I’ve learned one travel survival tip I’d give to anyone,  it’s to keep smiling (not in a creepy way) and never stop looking for those funny moments—they’re buried like gems in even the coldest of holiday travel shit storms.

Some examples:

Not funny:

• Working late + a mysterious lack of taxis + rush hour traffic left me only 45 min to get from my apartment to my gate for take off. 

Funny:

• Flustered by the hot guys working airport security, I forget my belt and sweater on the conveyor belt and am forced to wobble back in half-tied sneakers to retrieve them from aforementioned hotties.  Randon TSA pat-down? Sign me up.

Not funny:

• A screaming infant seated directly behind me for the duration of the flight.

Funny:

• I’ve been a reading new novel (Fear of Flying by Erica Jong) for a while and didn’t think twice before whipping it out to distract me from said infant.  But with every small bump or turn the plane made, the dude sitting next to me threw me nervous side-glances as if I were about to bend over and barf on his shoes.

Not funny:

• My mother and I, under the influence of a bottle of Chardonnay and far too many Christmas M&Ms, drew up an ambitious list of baked goods and meals to prepare throughout the week that would have left the Barefoot Contessa running for the hills. The result: two non-stop days slaving away in the kitchen like madwomen covered head to toe in food stains.

Funny:

• Mom: “I keep smelling something burning…”
• Me: “Yeah, it’s like melting plastic or something.”
• Mom: Reaching into oven to check the hash-brown casserole and sausage rolls. “OH, SHIT!”
  
• Pulling out the casserole dish, which is sitting in its decorative and now slightly smoking wicker carrier.

Not Funny:

• Emerging triumphantly from the baggage carousel at Laguardia’s Delta terminal, I am greeted by a quarter-mile long line for taxis. After two hours standing in my flimsy Converse sneakers and barely able to wiggle my toes, I’m close to tears when it’s finally my turn to board my yellow chariot home.

Funny:

 

• Fifteen minutes later, the cab turns onto my block, where I am confronted by waist-high mounds of snow on either side and not a single cleared path through which to wheel my rolling suitcase. To the tune of the driver’s derisive laughter, I heave my suitcase over the peak of the dune standing between me and my warm, cozy apartment and—most ungracefully—hurl myself after it. My shoes and luggage are still drying out but when I went out for groceries this morning, I was greeted with a life-sized, 3-D snow angel at my doorstep.

Wishing you all safe travels and happy memories this holiday season.

xMandi

——————–

PS: I don’t normally do product reviews, but for Christmas I got a new travel pillow (actually, it’s my FIRST ever travel pillow if you can believe it) and I must say it was definitely a nice alternative to bunching up my jacket around my neck.

This is it: TravelRest – The Ultimate Inflatable Travel Pillow

I have to admit, I felt super dorky pulling it out and inflating it on the plane. It also was a bit tricky to get comfortable initially because you have to sort of figure out how much air you like in it. Mine was way too inflated to start so I had to deflate it, which drew more attention to it because of the whistle-like sound as air blew out. I did get a decent nap on the flight home though, which is rare for me on such short flights and quite nice. You have the option to wear the pillow across your body like a guitar with a strap that goes behind you, but I already was elbowing the poor girl next to me enough just trying to position the stupid thing comfortably that I didn’t want to push my luck any further. All in all, I give it a 3 of 5 stars and will reserve a real review once I’ve used it again and get more used to it.