For many Americans the goal of traveling to dream destinations is high on their bucket list of activities to complete during their lifetimes. Did you know that according to a recent study 74% of Americans surveyed cited traveling to a dream destination as their #1 goal for the New Year? Did you know that according to a 2014 study by Road and Travel magazine a majority of Americans cited Hawaii as their dream beach destination? Did you know that a recent study showed that drivers in the top 10 congested cities lose an average of 42 hours per year stuck in traffic—the equivalent of one week’s vacation?

Common sense tells us that traveling can reduce our stress when we approach any upcoming travel experience intelligently. For example, musing about an upcoming vacation or day dreaming about a dream destination helps you feel better as you consider all the wonderful sights and sounds of that future experience.

Believe it or not, when you use your imagination like this creatively, studies show this tends to lower your blood pressure and promote the secretion of helpful neurochemicals known as endorphins. Just thinking about “getting away from it all” can momentarily help you forget your problems and allow you to relax. Of course, as you relax, your bodily tension and stress begins to dissolve. This creates a happy state of affairs since any method that allows you to relax regularly can contribute to improvements in your healthy well being.

However, experience tells us that today’s travel experiences can be filled with stress and tension creating events. For some, traveling can become an overwhelming experience when you combine last minute packing, itinerary changes, flight delays, traffic congestion, and unforeseen events. The key to minimizing your stress is advance planning and automatically adjusting your attitude when circumstances outside of your control occur.

Since our desire to travel is great and we’d like to have as many seamless travel experiences as possible, here are some tips for ways to minimize your travel stressors so you increase your chances of having an enjoyable trip.

Plan Ahead: Arrange your hotel and ground transportation in advance. Arranging for a car rental or taxi/limo pick up in advance helps keep your stress levels down.

Pack Smart: Sorting out essentials from non-essentials helps reduce your stress. Avoid last minute packing which increases chances of over packing or leaving behind some item you’ll need for your trip.

Pack Lightly: Doing so keeps you from having to drag around heavy bags. This strategy helps eliminate worries about paying excess baggage fees and lost luggage.

Be Early: Arriving early tends to work in your favor especially when flying. This allows you to anticipate and adjust to unexpected airline schedule changes so that you can stay calm by notifying others in a timely fashion.

Travel Insurance: Purchasing this type of insurance can give you peace of mind if you think there is a chance your trip may be interrupted for any reason. Be sure to read policy terms carefully so that you’ll be covered as planned.

Self Care: Be sure to engage in extra self care before, during and after your trip. This means getting extra sleep to adjust for time zones changes and washing your hands more often to reduce chances of becoming ill.

Stress Relief: Be sure to travel with and use a handy stress relieving technique throughout your trip. This might include squeezing a stress ball, listening to relaxing music or even humming since studies show that humming spikes your nasal nitric oxide by 1500 percent which automatically makes you feel better.

While we can expect some travel related stress whenever we travel, by controlling as many factors as we can that are within our control, we increase chances of having a good travel experience. Keeping a positive attitude by making the best out of whatever is happening will go a long way to insure you have a super travel experience!