Must-Read: How to Navigate Holiday Travel

Thanksgiving is but the start of the dreaded holiday travel season. And while trying to traverse the country during the Thanksgiving holiday to either go home, go to friends places, or just take advantage of the long holiday break by getting out of town for a bit is a pain in the ass, it’s nothing compared to the airport apocalypse that is the one-two punch of Christmas and New Years. Every year, it seems, more people are packing the airports, lines are longer, and more snowstorms cause the inevitable delays that back up the whole process even? further. It’s rarely going to be a trip without any headaches, but there are tips to make it a little easier-to-navigate.

What fun!

Which is why today we’re highlighting these tips from Men’s Health about how to make it through holiday travel. Among them:

6. Fly at Dawn

Take the first available flight, preferably on a plane that spent the night at your airport. The biggest factor controlling delays is not where your plane is going, but where the aircraft assigned to your flight is coming from. Call the airline before you leave for the airport and ask the agent to tell you the aircraft number of the plane assigned for your flight, and then ask for the status of that aircraft tail number. If you’re heading to Los Angeles from Miami in 2 hours, but the aircraft assigned to your flight is in Caracas . . . you?re not going (unless the airline can find another plane, which has been known to happen). To find out how to talk to a real live agent for any given airline, go to gethuman.com.

Head over to the above link for more, and your holiday travel blues will be gone in no time.