Opinion | Travel mayhem in peak holiday season: Why December is the month we travel most and relax least

Seasoned travellers will tell you to carry one extra set of clothes in your hand baggage, for the flight that delays without apology, weather that changes its mind, or luggage that develops independent travel goals. (Illustration by Suneesh K for Moneycontrol)

December sneaks up on us in the nicest way. One minute you’re still pretending you’ve recovered from festive spending, the next you’re staring at your leave balance like it’s melting away in real time. Use it or lose it. And so we travel. Sometimes by choice, sometimes by calendar pressure, and sometimes because everyone else seems to be going somewhere and you don’t want to be the only one left behind explaining why you “didn’t do December.”

Globally, and for past few years in India, this is the month when work pretends to slow down and life pretends to speed up. Airports thicken with accents and excitement, office email threads fall silent, and suddenly your residential complex looks like it’s been temporarily evacuated. And then come the bookings. Either you were smart and did it months in advance, or you’re about to learn the true meaning of “holiday premium.” December fares do not believe in mercy.

Flights, trains, even buses behave like rare concert tickets. You refresh the travel app or web page like it’s a competitive sport. For a brief moment, a seat appears, and your heart lifts — only to crash when you see the price. You shut the app. You reopen it. You negotiate with yourself the way you once did over exam marks. And eventually, you surrender and pay because memory-making apparently comes with a convenience fee. And a deepest regret that you could bought a car or a fancy gadget or another holiday paid-for, for the premium you paid.

Hotels, meanwhile, have an excellent sense of timing. December is not just travel season — it’s wedding season and the great annual NRI homecoming all rolled into one. Room availability shrinks, rates soar, and the concept of “reasonable pricing” takes a quiet vacation of its own. You begin to time your family holidays around wedding dates. A cousin in Jaipur, a colleague in Kochi, a school friend in Bengaluru — each invitation arrives lovingly wrapped in emotion and indirect airfare.

Somewhere during all this planning, FOMO quietly joins the conversation. It is in the corner of your mind reminding you that everyone you know appears to be travelling somewhere fabulous. Mountains, beaches, luxury resorts, hometowns glowing with nostalgia. Not travelling in December now feels vaguely suspicious, almost irresponsible - as if staying put means you didn’t live the year properly. So you go. Even when your heart says Netflix - Beer - Sleep, your calendar says boarding gate. Your family wants to go somewhere not traveled to, so far.

Packing then becomes less of an activity and more of a mental workout. December is never just one climate or one kind of trip. Woollens for one city, cottons for another. Beachwear for that compulsory Tom Cruise (as he looked years ago) meets Tom Ford look.

Wedding clothes that must not crumple, footwear that might be needed “just in case,” gifts that must survive turbulence. Chargers, power banks, medicines, eye drops, spare spectacles, emergency snacks. Packing becomes a test of imagination: What could go wrong, and how badly? And despite all this, you will forget exactly one important thing : usually the one you cannot easily buy when you land.

Then there are the children. Something about airports brings out their deepest emotional truths. Hunger protests erupt without warning. We are Indians. We love food, and we need it frequently, especially during our travel. Airports, having sensed this weakness, price snacks like they’re limited-edition luxury goods. A sandwich, a coffee and a juice together can cost you a month’s EMI-instalment-equivalent of your entire holiday. But you pay it because peace is priceless and public tantrums are expensive.

Every holiday also becomes an unexpected sensory adventure, especially at airports. There are some smells you welcome - fresh coffee, duty-free perfume, warm bread - and some you absolutely did not sign up for, like aggressive body odour at 6 am.

There are also fashion choices that leave you wondering whether you accidentally walked into an overnight bus station - coordinated tracksuits — fashionably called ‘Coord sets’ — that can suggest nap hour has been extended to public places, and luxury handbags worn with expressions so stressed they deserve their own seat upgrade.

Travel, it seems, tests not just your patience but your nose and your tolerance. A little deodorant, a little kindness and a basic understanding of queue etiquette would go a very long way toward world peace at boarding gate 23.

If that isn’t enough, the shortest trips often feel the longest. A two-hour flight somehow demands eight or ten hours of real life. You leave early to beat traffic and still don’t. Check-in moves like it’s being considerate of your patience. Security finds something mysterious in your bag that turns out to be nothing, but still requires discussion. You land and wait. You wait for luggage. You wait for a cab. By the time you reach your hotel, you’re exhausted enough to consider ordering room service, even though you travelled specifically to escape your routine.

Seasoned travellers, the quiet warriors among us, will tell you to carry one extra set of clothes in your hand baggage, no matter how short the trip. Flights delay without apology. Weather changes its mind without informing you. Luggage occasionally develops independent travel goals. That extra T-shirt feels unnecessary until it suddenly becomes the hero of your vacation.

Ironically, we can now Swiggy our cravings and Zepto our forgotten chargers to almost any Indian hotel doorstep. Convenience travels with us everywhere. Yet stress has also booked a return ticket. We want our holidays to look good, feel good and post well. We want the sun on schedule and the view better than promised. And then comes social media - the greatest illusionist of them all. Your friends appear to be having transcendent experiences. Smiles perfectly angled, sunsets professionally lit. Which makes you wonder: who is taking these photos? Because you know the entire family is in them.

Travelling with children and senior citizens adds one more layer of mental arithmetic. Medicines, emergencies, paperwork, contingencies. You’re meant to relax while coordinating five schedules, three generations and one ever-anxious family WhatsApp group. Rest becomes a team effort.

And yet — something quietly works. You finally sit down somewhere unfamiliar. The air feels different. Time loosens its grip. For a few hours, nothing urgent arrives on your phone. Someone says something silly. Someone else laughs too easily. You taste something new. And you know — this is why. This is why you stood in lines, paid in instalments, survived missed connections and overpriced meals.

And still, next December, we’ll do it again. Book again. Panic again. Pack again. Because something about December convinces us that life is happening elsewhere — and we must go find it. And we must tick off as many global holidays too, simply because they are also cheaper than Indian ones, and better cleanliness in most parts.

December travel also reveals how much Indian society has changed — and how quickly. Holidays were once occasional rewards. Today, they’re lifestyle statements. We no longer ask where you went, but why you chose that place. Travel has quietly become a form of public storytelling. Your destination signals success, taste, restlessness, aspiration. Not taking a holiday now feels like social disobedience.

Travel is actually wonderful — if you learn to laugh at it. At the delays, at the noise, at the snoring stranger in seat 14B, the child practising for a future career as a siren, and the heartbreaking moment when your meal preference is “not loaded.” Joy, it turns out, travels lighter than luggage.

So tell me honestly — if you feel you need a short holiday to unwind after your holiday, was it still a fun holiday?