Holiday Travel Pet Peeves Plus 31 Days of Giveaways – Day 2

a group of people standing next to luggage carts
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Holiday Travel in the winter months feels different than travel during other times of year. There’s excitement in the air as people rush to get out of work early, enjoy a holiday away or visit family & friends in rural areas or busy cities.

Not everything is Gingerbread cookies and fairy floss though. Far from it. Before lounging in front of the fireplace with loved ones and enjoying a round of bubbly, there’s often the matter of getting there, which can be plagued by delays and frustration.

Car trips can be bad enough with siblings fiercely defending their side of an imaginary line down the middle of the seat, wrong directions via GPS (like I experienced in Athens, Greece), poor weather and jammed roads.

Dumb & Dumber

Airplanes aren’t any better, and at least in the car you are hopefully surrounded by people you know and like. In planes, you’re stuck in a metal tube with people you might avoid if given the chance. Honeywell Aerospace even conducted a survey last December that showed some interesting statistics about holiday travel on airplanes.

The season of perpetual hope

Here are a few of the fun factoids from the survey –

31% of those surveyed would give up one of their holiday presents to avoid braving the holiday airport rush.

15% find the disorganized traveler in security lines the most annoying, over line-cutters and arguers. Is that a full water bottle in your backpack while waiting in the TSA line, by any chance?

41% want to avoid “the smelly traveler” that passes gas or doesn’t wear deodorant.

A whopping 72% of people in the survey have considered confronting an adult whose child won’t stop kicking their seat.

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When all else fails, 30% of those surveyed admit to taking a sedative or sleeping pill to dull their frustration while traveling.

To win today’s holiday goodie bag, let me know in the comments below what your biggest holiday travel pet peeve is. Delayed luggage, seemingly apathetic salespeople in the mall, a hotel that is overbooked and “walks you” to a different property?

Contest ends at 9pm PST tonight. Click here to read full contest details.

Good luck to all!

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39 Comments

  1. Getting to and from the airport. Based near LAX which is already pretty bad to go to/from but even worse during holiday travel.

  2. Holidays just stress people out and stressed out people are often times cranky people! Biggest pet peeve would just be the higher concentration of irritable people (I’m guilty of this too!) traveling.

  3. Gosh hard to pick just one lol. Definitely hate the extra noise of gadgets and people that talk loudly though. It’s already stressful enough in that flying can!

  4. My biggest pet peeve is people listening to loud music while using earbuds. If I can sing along, it’s too loud!

  5. Just dealing with the other passengers – everyone in a rush, knocking into you, creating a stressful environment..

  6. I think it’s a tie between when other passengers give me the evil eye because I dare travel with my three young children (even though they Are generally very good travelers) and I’m not sure this is happening much anymore but I hated when people would get pre-check access who weren’t used to it so they were still taking things out of their bags, removing shoes and belts, and still managing to forget to remove their phone from their pocket…

  7. people coughing without covering up their mouths. I shoot daggers with my eyeballs but nothing happens. Asians on flight have the decency to wear mouth medical masks we should do the same worldwide so we don’t pass germs and diseases to one another. Common courtesy

  8. My biggest pet peeve: mothers changing dirty baby diapers out in the open either in the next seat or on the tray ugh This is how we pass diseases like e.coli

  9. people pulling a Britney Spears in the airplane bathroom NOT WEARING shoes and going barefoot. I nearly vomited when I saw several people doing that

  10. The crowds of clueless families at check-in/TSA/gate boarding who fly very infrequently and thus need extra time getting through the airport.

  11. My biggest pet peeve is the person (and there is always at least one) who is in such a rush to sit in their seat that they keep inching their way up to the front of the line, and glance around to see if anyone is watching. Drives me crazy. OF COURSE people can see you being a total asshat. Gah. Thank you for the wonderful giveaway.
    Erin
    ErinLoves2Run at gmail dot com

  12. I really hate travel delays around the holidays. You have such a narrow target window for travel, and I would feel compelled to give up my seat for a person with a child.

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