Since I left Cosmopolitan almost two years ago, I’ve been doing a ton of travel, often involving the speeches I give around the country. Though I love being there, sharing ideas with other women and hearing about their professional choices and challenges, I hate getting there.
Plane travel doesn’t scare me. In fact, I love being in the air, and I adore train travel, too, especially the Quiet Car on Amtrak’s Acela Express to Boston or D.C. But the worry over being late for a departure can turn me into such a silly stress mess. One of my recurring nightmares is about oversleeping for a flight or not finding the right gate in time. In the past year I’ve devised a strategy that has eased much of my travel anxiety:
I leave for the airport or train station not just early but ridiculously early.
Just hear me out on this one, okay? It makes more sense than ever to be an early bird these days. Security lines are often insanely long. I love my TSA pre-check designation, and I highly recommend applying for one because it means not having to take off your shoes or unpack your laptop in the security line (and it’s often shorter than the priority line), but it isn’t always a guarantee that you won’t have to wait.
And then there’s just normal airport hell. Delta seems to have 27 terminals in every airport, and though your boarding pass tells you to arrive at one, you show at the airport only to discover your plane is departing elsewhere, and you must tear ass, with your roller bag dragging behind you like a reluctant black Labrador, to the other terminal, or desperately locate the airbus to transport you there. Whenever I’m on an airbus, I get this weird dread that the doors will open at my stop and I’ll find myself stepping off not at Terminal C but rather on the planet Abdar.
Leaving ridiculously early acts like a wonderful cushion against any of these bumps that occur along the way.
My husband always asks why I want to hang at an airport any longer than necessary, but I don’t see much difference in reading my Vanity Fair or getting on my laptop at LaGuardia rather than in my kitchen.
Plus, airports offer more and more perks these days. You can get a head massage or manicure or a nice glass of Malbec. And I love the Delta gate lounges. They feature these counters where you can plug in, work, order food, whatever, all while listening to CNN droning in the background. I pounded out more than a few chapters of my upcoming suspense novel, Eyes on You, at various Delta counters.
So maybe I should be less grumpy about all those terminals they have.
This article originally appeared in my April newsletter. To sign up, please visit katewhite.com.
