Who hasn’t been there before? Running to get on the plane as your boarding group is finishing up? Bags in tow, heart rate up, quietly hoping the door agent hasn’t closed things out yet. You’re already sweating, and the trip hasn’t even started.
And then the internal debate kicks in. What’s worse? The frazzled feeling? Starting a long trip in a mild panic? Or the sweat running down your back, knowing it’s going to take a solid twenty minutes in an airplane seat before you feel human again?
We’ve all been there.
When Everything Has to Go Right
Most of the time, that stress starts well before the airport. Traffic that wasn’t supposed to be bad. Parking that suddenly isn’t available. Circling. Shuttles. Check-in lines. Security lines—especially on the Friday that school lets out for the Christmas/winter holiday break. By the time you reach the gate, there’s no margin left. Everything has to go right from that point on.
Buying Calm Ahead of Time
This trip was different.
We had a 5:45 p.m. flight and arrived at the airport a little before 2:45. Five suitcases. Four backpacks. Two kids. We booked a driver about a month in advance. We even left the house about five minutes later than planned—and it still didn’t matter.
Check-in was smooth. Security took a little longer because my wife’s laptop needed an extra check. No stress. We had time. We ate in the terminal. The kids weren’t running around. No one was rushing. Nothing felt urgent.
That calm didn’t come from luck. It came from decisions made weeks earlier.
The driver wasn’t free, but round trip it was actually cheaper than parking at the airport. Yes, EcoPark would have been cheaper—I know that. But on a long international trip, I didn’t want parking to be something I had to think about on either end. No shuttles on the way out. No trying to remember where the car was weeks later. No extra variable when we’re tired and jet-lagged.
I didn’t pay for luxury. I paid to remove friction.
Removing Small Frictions Adds Up
Even small things helped. I carried a Black Ember Kompak sling (5L) with all our travel documents—four passports, four folded two-page e-visas (stapled), and boarding passes—with room to spare. At check-in, security, and boarding, everything was in one place. No digging through backpacks. No passing documents back and forth. Just grab, show, move on.
The Kompak 5L in action — one place everything lived from curb to cabin.
Calm people don’t move slower. They just move earlier. They build in enough margin so that when something minor goes wrong, it doesn’t matter. Traveling with kids doesn’t have to be loud or frantic. It just requires enough slack that nothing feels like an emergency.
Calm isn’t about nothing going wrong. It’s about nothing going wrong mattering.