The carols say December is wonderful. Americans beg to differ. A Southwest-sponsored burnout survey of 2,001 US adults found that 51% rank December among their three most stressful months of the year — no other month comes close. January follows at 37%, which tracks: the comedown after the holidays lands right on schedule. August and November round out the top four, meaning the worst stretches of the American calendar are either the holiday pile-up from November through January or the holiday-free dog days of late summer.
The same survey turned up something useful for anyone who travels to cope: 62% of Americans say burnout affects when they plan a trip. The problem, as the study frames it, is that most of us wait until we're already exhausted to start plotting an escape — which is about as effective as shopping for an umbrella in a downpour.
The argument here is simple: book the trip before you need it. Not because a February getaway erases December's chaos, but because having a departure date on the calendar makes the chaos easier to absorb. Anticipation is doing a lot of quiet work here — a booked flight in the depths of a stressful month is a reminder that an exit exists.
And the antidote doesn't have to be a two-week odyssey. A long weekend in early December, slotted in before the final fortnight closes in, can take the edge off. Or lock in something for January now, so the hangover month has a silver lining: somewhere warm if you've had your fill of winter weather, or somewhere with proper snow if you'd rather be cold on purpose. The source points to a couple of examples — Salt Lake City, which puts you about an hour from the ski slopes, and New Orleans, mild enough in January to spend entire days outdoors. Either way, that's two or three days you'd otherwise lose to the couch.
Naturally, there's a commercial angle: Southwest is behind the survey and would like you to book with it, pointing to its nonstop route network and a burnout quiz at airplanemode.Southwest.com that spits out a "burnout score" plus destination ideas. Strip out the branding, though, and the core advice holds regardless of airline: decide in the autumn, while you're still making choices rather than just surviving them, and future-you inherits a boarding pass instead of a blank calendar.
Why it matters for travellers: timing your bookings against your stress curve is a genuinely underrated hack. The people who arrive in January rested are usually the ones who booked in October. December is coming either way — you might as well have something to look forward to on the other side of it.
