Labor Day can be a godsend after a long summer of work. It’s hard to enjoy the beautiful warm weather when you have to be at work every Monday morning. Labor Day is not only a day off for most of us, but it’s also our last chance to really get out there and enjoy the healing and calming rays of the sun (in moderation of course) before fall starts to kick in. Some might say it’s the finest of the three-day vacations … but that means it’s also one of the busiest. Getting out of town sounds really fun until you’re stewing in the airport security line for 45 minutes or locked in highway gridlock.
Here are five ways to avoid hassle and enjoy your Labor Day vacation — you labored, right? Then you earned it.
1. Fly way early in the AM. Fly way early in the AM to avoid delays/cancellations/crowds — better
yet, redeye it the night before. Lines suck.
2. Stock up in advance. Get everything you need for your picnic, road trip, BBQ or whatever a good week in advance. The grocery stores are gonna be mayhem if you put it off until the last minute — or worse yet, they might be out of something you need!
3. Leave a day early — and if you can, come back a day late! If it’s not against your company policy (I once worked somewhere where it was), tack an extra vacation day or two around your Labor Day weekend to pad it and protect yourself from traffic.
4. Leave a day late. Sounds counterintuitive, but one overnight in a bed and breakfast and no traffic can be a lot more relaxing than three nights and gridlock there and back. You want to be refreshed when you get back, and traffic totally harshes any mellow.
5. Stay where you are. Lie if you want. You probably realize you can have a perfectly lovely time without going anywhere — you can hit up the local spa for the price of the gas it would have taken to get to your friend’s cabin. Concerned about appearances? Check out Scott’s article here on the “liecation” — the art of pretending you took a vacation when you actually just worked on deepening that bum-print on your couch.