As a Travel Editor, I Experience Significant Pre-Trip Anxiety. Here Are My Coping Strategies.

The journey of planning, booking, and preparing for a trip—whether big or small—is an emotional roller coaster for me. The planning and booking phases usually fill me with caffeine-fueled excitement. Within my intricate travel decision-making process lies a formula that considers everyone involved (typically myself, my husband, and our two young children, ages five and seven), ensuring we’ll all have a great time, that our schedules align with work and school, and that the destination truly calls to me (don’t ask how this last part works; it feels almost spiritual!).

Finally, the trip is confirmed. Is there a better feeling? The days, weeks, or even months after booking are spent basking in my achievement and pondering whether my family recognizes how fortunate they are to have such a savvy trip planner among them.

But then, as the departure date approaches, usually around 3 a.m., my emotions start to shift. I often wake up in the dead of night, and doubts flood in. Did I pick the right destination? What if someone falls ill? Is our flight too early? Is the layover too short? Do we have all the necessary gear?

The reality is that my pre-travel anxiety has intensified since becoming a parent, for a couple of reasons: (1) I’m now responsible for other people, and (2) kids (especially young ones) get sick frequently. This last point is crucial as it highlights my lack of control over the situation, which is challenging for me to accept. Control plays a significant role in my anxiety. The thought that we might wake up on travel day to find one of the kids with a fever or vomiting is just a bit too much for my nerves to bear at times. As a result, leading up to a trip, I don’t just feel stressed; I also experience anxiety attacks that can lead to everything from frustration and anger to tears of overwhelm, necessitating meditation and box breathing to calm myself, allowing us to leave with at least a hint of the hope and excitement that inspired the trip in the first place.

It's reached a point where I've actually whispered to myself, frazzled and stumbling across the trip-departure finish line in complete disarray, "I’m never doing this again."

As if that’s ever true.

However, once we’re on our way, like a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde with mental health challenges, I’m in pure bliss. My happiest moments are when I embark on a new adventure to discover the great unknown. Because I cherish it so much, I won’t ever give it up, and I've been actively seeking ways to reduce my pre-travel stress and anxiety. Here are some strategies that have helped me.

Acknowledging the Anxiety

For me, the first step in overcoming my pre-travel anxiety has been recognizing its existence and understanding my patterns and triggers. It crept up on me after becoming a parent, so it took time for me to realize, "Oh, I get really stressed before trips now. This is new." But once I recognized it, I could identify the recurring nature of these episodes and communicate what I was feeling to my spouse (in a calmer manner than through tears as we rushed out the door).

Decluttering My Home

What does tidying up the house have to do with preparing to leave? For my anxious mind, it means everything. A cluttered home translates to a cluttered mind, leading to heightened fluster and frustration. I’ve discovered that taking the time to organize my space before I begin packing significantly alleviates stress. Plus, it means returning to a home that isn’t in complete disarray. Before my surge in pre-trip anxiety, cleaning up was merely an optional bonus. Now, it’s a necessity I schedule into my routine.

Packing Well in Advance

With the house tidied up, it’s time to start packing. Rushing to finalize everything just before departure (I’m definitely one to arrive early at the airport) only amplifies my pre-travel anxiety. It often takes longer than expected, and any sense of urgency adds to my feelings of being overwhelmed. To combat this, I now pull out the suitcases at least a week or two ahead of time to begin packing gradually, which helps reduce last-minute panic.

By now, my packing lists for myself and my kids are firmly in my memory, but I maintain an ongoing checklist in my Notes app to ensure nothing is overlooked. This is especially useful for more complex trips—like extended journeys abroad or to destinations requiring specialized gear for water or snow activities. I don’t consult the list for every trip, but it’s a lifesaver when I need it or when anxiety starts to creep in.

I also use laundry day, about a week before we travel, to sort clean clothes directly into our luggage. Instead of putting them away only to pull them out again later, I fold them and pack them straight into the suitcases. If it’s a road trip, the same goes for any gear and non-perishable foods we plan to take. We can load up the back of the minivan (the ultimate travel vehicle), and the sandwich bread, peanut butter, pasta, and sauce can go into our Yeti cooler bag (don’t ask why we use a cooler bag for dry goods—it's about progress, not perfection!) several days before we hit the road.

Coming to Terms with Worst-Case Scenarios

What triggers a lot of my pre-trip anxiety, especially lately, is my internal struggle with “the worst-case scenario,” which usually revolves around medical emergencies: an unexpected illness or injury that could ruin our trip. However, like many other fears, this is something I, or anyone else, cannot control (it’s just a hypothetical future situation!).

So, instead of fighting these spiraling thoughts, I choose to embrace them. I take the “what if” scenario all the way to the extreme. For instance, if one of the kids wakes up with a high fever, we can’t fly. Then what? We’ll have to cancel or postpone our flights and hotels. We might lose some money—maybe a lot. But we have credit cards with some coverage and travel insurance. (While we skip travel insurance for simple road trips, we do invest in it for expensive round-trip flights, both domestic and international.) We’ll recover what we can. And so what? Life goes on.

I apply this technique to any fear or worry that arises. I’ve found it to be far more effective than trying to push those thoughts away, which only leads to lingering anxiety. This approach helps me regain a sense of control when dealing with anxious thoughts about everything that might go wrong—because we all know that what we fear happening isn’t necessarily what will actually occur (but that’s a whole different can of anxiety worms).

Assembling an Anti-Anxiety Toolkit

Whenever I feel anxious about my travels, I try to consider what I can pack to address those concerns directly while on the trip. Health issues frequently come to mind because they contribute to much of my recent pre-travel anxiety, but this strategy applies to other anxiety-provoking worries as well. I find it helpful to include a thermometer (this Braun no-touch thermometer, our trusted companion for years, has traveled the globe with us) and children’s Tylenol in our carry-on, along with a plastic bag in case anyone feels nauseous. This preparation makes me feel a bit more secure against the possibility of sudden health problems while we’re traveling.

If I’m anxious about connectivity at our destination, a simple solution might be to bring along an old-fashioned fold-up map to ensure we can navigate even if Google Maps fails (the thought!). To obtain road maps, visit your local AAA office, and they’ll assist you. If sleeplessness is a concern, packing a sleep mask, noise-canceling headphones, and a comfortable travel pillow helps reassure me that I’ll find a way to drift off.

I’ve discovered that simply having these tools at my disposal helps alleviate some of the stress—a kind of travel anxiety security blanket, if you will. (I like to think it brings me a touch of good fortune, too. You know, the whole idea that if you bring an umbrella, it won’t rain.)

Accepting the Challenges

In a strange way, I actually appreciate it when things occasionally go awry during our travels, when those dreaded worst-case scenarios unfold: like when my husband twists his ankle on our final night in Mexico right before a long day of flying home, or when we miss a flight connection. Travel has a remarkable way of revealing our true resilience. In those challenging moments, we can reflect and say, “Hey, we managed that. We can handle almost anything.” I always remind my kids that travel teaches us valuable problem-solving skills that we don’t often encounter at home, and that’s a big part of what makes it so engaging and thrilling. Ultimately, these tougher experiences contribute to my ongoing battle with anxiety, reinforcing the knowledge that the journey was absolutely worth it in the end.