Thanksgiving Travel Tips + Podcasts/TV You Can Binge During Your Journey

4 min readNov 22, 2018

Here comes the travel chaos! According to a report from AAA, this Thanksgiving (US), airports, train stations and roads will be the most crowded they’ve been since 2005 — with some 54 million Americans expected to travel more 50 miles. This is almost a 5 percent increase from last year, which comes out to about 2.5 million more people hitting the road. Cars are the most popular method of travel for Thanksgiving, with 48.5 million people driving, a 5 percent increase from last year. That’s followed by 4.27 million people taking planes (the largest growth, up 5.4 percent), then trains, buses and cruise ships, which account for 1.48 million travelers, up by 1.4 percent.

TRAVEL

To minimize potential headaches, AAA created a list of the worst days and times to leave 10 primary metropolitan areas in the country — as well as which highways to avoid and how long you may be delayed, so you know how much extra time to give yourself. For example, leaving Houston on Monday, Nov. 19, between 2 and 4 p.m. and taking the I69 could take you almost three times longer than usual. T+L recommends traveling on Thanksgiving day if you can swing it, when only 1.73 million passengers will fly (the lowest of the week) or signing up for TSA pre-check so you can skip security lines (obvi)

GIVE BACK

I was looking around at options to volunteer this holiday, and there is plenty to choose from! I often google an area, time of year and volunteer terminology to get a wide range of ideas, but VolunteerMatch is always a handy website too. I know for Thanksgiving, common options include:

Meal prep
Meal service
Meal delivery (ie. Meals on wheels)
Fundraising run (ie. Turkey trot, California Fire Victims)
Spending time with seniors

PODCAST + SHOW BINGE TIME

Given all of the traveling you will be doing for the next month — near or far — a good podcast or downloadable show/movie will help ease the hassle of the crowds. Personally, I do this year round anyway (Hello, my name is Carrie and I am a media addict) so why not write down some favorites? It seems a lot of other outlets are doing the same, the more the merrier, but often times — like in the case of this Boston Globe podcast round up — missed some of the best so here is a personal attempt. Enjoy, and remember these are all for streaming services only (Netflix, Hulu, Amazon…but HBO, Showtime have apps too so are included. All network originals.) Podcasts you can get everywhere) since you are on the go…

PODCASTS

I have talked a lot about these before since I have hosted/produced two shows myself — Suitcase Sojourn and Caftan Mondays– and have even created a post on how to make one yourself. I listen to podcasts all day long, from my workouts, dog walking, morning routine and more. Here are some in heavy rotation:

Pop Culture: The High Low, Keep It, Goop, Unstyled, Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, Call Your Girlfriend, Awards Chatter, Desert Island Discs, Origins, Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness, You Must Remember This
Culture/Politics: Pod Save America, Lovett or Leave It, Pod Save the World, Pod Save the World
Media/Business: Recode Decode, Recode Media, Pivot, New Yorker Radio Hour, NPR Fresh Air, Katie Couric
Inspiration/Learning: What It Takes, Masterclass, Oprah’s Supersoul, HBR Ideacast, Under the skin, On Being with Krista Tippett, Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel
Storytelling: The Moth, This American Life, 2 Dope Queens

Listen to our last Suitcase Sojourn Podcast chat on road trips through America:

SHOWS

I want drama: The Crown, House of Cards, Ozark, Godless, Narcos, Handmaid’s Tale, Billions, Big Little Lies, Homecoming, The Meyerowitz Stories, Killing Eve, Succession, An Honorable Woman
I want dramedy: GLOW, Stranger Things, Master of None, The Kominisky Method, Private Life, Transparent, Orange is the new black, Atlanta, Insecure, Dear White People, Barry
I want to laugh: Veep, Marvelous Mrs Maisel, Schitt’s Creek, Arrested Development, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, Grace & Frankie, Big Mouth,
I want stand up comedy specials: Hannah Gadsby, Trevor Noah, John Mulaney, Dave Chappelle, Ali Wong, Katherine Ryan
I want romance: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, Too all the boys I’ve loved before, Set It Up (BONUS: If you want over-the-top-cheesiness, you’re in luck! There are literally a million Netflix Christmas movies ready for you to watch right now. Even one with a christmas…ghost? ok.)
I want action: Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Game of Thrones
I want to be freaked out: Black Mirror, The Haunting of Hill House, Maniac, Bird Box
I want a documentary: “Quincy”, “13th”, “Icarus “, “20 feet from stardom”, “Food, Inc”, “Amy”, “What happened, Miss Simone”, “Finding Vivian Maier”, “Iris”, “RBG”
I want interviews: David Letterman “My next guest”, Off Camera with Sam Jones — or go down the youtube rabbit hole catching up with clips from Colbert, Jon Oliver’s Last Week Tonight and more. Watching the “hot ones” interview series over hot sauce tasting is always entertaining too.
I want UK everything: The Great British Baking Show, Peaky Blinders, Luther, The Fall, Sherlock, Collateral, Bodyguard, Call The Midwife, and quirky Aussie shows “sisters” and “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries” for good measure
I want to revisit a series: The Americans, Mad Men, The Wire, Weeds, The West Wing, Braking Bad, The Sopranos, Sex and the city, 30 rock, American Horror Story, Riverdale, Anthony Bourdain Parts Unknown

For more on my work visit: CarrieaMitchell.com