I typically dread traveling in March for one reason: spring break at the airport.
Everyone is in a hurry, they're rude, they have way too many suitcases and there are just too many people. I have a tolerate-hate relationship with the airport at the best of times; spring break is the worst of times.
But as I write this, I'm sitting at my home airport about to catch a flight in the middle of prime spring break season and it's ... pretty empty here. It's not quiet but it's not chaos. It's a nice, buzzy, happy vibe.
I think I caught the airport at a good time.
USA Today, AAA and other organizations predict spring break travel is up this year; AAA reports 61% of Americans are taking a spring break trip, compared to 48% in 2025. And even with more recent fears surrounding higher gas prices and the partial government shutdown, Americans are still traveling.
And even for someone like me who gets annoyed with crowds and airports, I love to see it.
So back to today: I'm sitting in the lounge at my (still pretty empty) airport listening to the couple behind me get excited about the plans for their upcoming week at a Mexican resort. These two put in the work. They researched flights on many sites, they looked into differences in price based on the day of the week and time they would take off and the connections. They cashed in points, they weighed the price of the hotel versus the price of the flights, decided where they didn't mind cheaping out a little bit (the flight — they have a connection) and where they wanted to splurge (the hotel).
Honestly, just listening to them, I think they might get a tiny smidge more joy out of their successful travel planning than they will out of the beaches in Mexico themselves.
The takeaway here is we tend to find a way to do what we want to do, even if it requires a little more work, time, money and inconvenience. And we've gotten really smart about travel planning, which ... dare I say ... is becoming part of the fun? Maybe? A tiny bit?
I can feel my mood change, too. Yes, I'm headed on a work trip not a fun trip, but hey, the weather's warming up and the airport isn't a zoo ... yet.
So let's roll with it. It is spring break, after all.
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