Submit paper before or after going on holidays? Context: As PhD candidate, I'll have my first journal paper ready to submit around July 15th. My lab will be closed due to summer break for 5 weeks from July 23rd to August 29th. I will not work full-time during this break, and my supervisors/co-authors might not respond to their emails. Moreover, I won't be able to work (or maybe even to answer my emails) during the two last weeks of August, because of travel conditions.

Question: Would my potential lack of reactivity during this period depreciate my submission? In other words, should I submit my paper right before going on holidays, or should I wait until I return from vacations in order to be more reactive to reviewers comments?
I would recommend submitting, because there is a great degree of uncertainty in when you will receive a response, and even with a fast response, your allowed revision time will likely be long enough to extend beyond the vacation time in any case.  If things more unexpectedly quickly, you can ask for an extension and will likely face little problem in obtaining one.

If you do this, however, you have the following responsibilities:


Make sure that you at least monitor your email when you are around, so that you can respond if necessary.
In the two-week period when you will be unable to check your email, make sure you have a vacation auto-response message set up.