A vacation is not much of a vacation until you get out the door and arrive at your destination. The packing and the travel can be quite difficult and cause the need for a vacation for you and your family. These tips were written to help you through the stressful stages of vacation planning.

You should not take any extra belongings that are worth a considerable amount money. If you decide to bring valuables, you could lose them, or they could even be stolen.

When flying, be sure to wear loose fitting clothes and slip-on shoes. This will ensure that your flight is comfortable. Not only that, it won’t take as long to get through security if you can quickly take your shoes on and off. Loose clothing will allow for any short term swelling that you may experience due to air pressure in the plane’s cabin.

When traveling by air, if you find that you need to check your bags, make sure you that keep at least a change of clothing with you in your carry-on bag. Then if your luggage accidentally gets lost and the airline has to track it down you’ll at the very least have a clean change of clothes. Even if it takes a day or two to find your luggage and get it for you, you can most likely wash your clothing at your hotel.

When traveling by airplane, try to limit yourself to a single 20 pound carry-on bag. This way, you always know where you luggage is. If you are traveling to multiple destinations in a single trip, there’s nothing worse than having your luggage chasing you around while you go without clean underwear.

Before you leave on your trip, make sure you are up to date on all your vaccinations. If you are taking any prescription medications, be sure to bring extra along just in case. There is always the chance that your departure might be delayed, and you don’t want to run out.

When traveling, never take an item from someone to transport it for them. No matter their situation or how nice they may seem, this is almost always a trap to convince an unwary tourist to transport drugs or other contraband into secure areas. Even “gifts” can fall into this category.

If you have a laptop, bring an A/V cable with you on your trip. Most hotel rooms come equipped with a television, and many now include free wireless internet as well. By hooking your laptop up to the hotel television with an A/V cable you instantly have access to many more entertainment options, whether streaming a movie from the internet to using the laptop as a DVD player.

Hopefully you have found these tips to be both helpful and stress relieving. If you take them and apply them to the planning of your vacation, you are going to be able to get to your destination with far less stress than you would if you did not have the valuable information that you learned here.